Forgetting Scotland's Slavery Past: History, Memory, Memorialisation
This lecture examines how West India merchants, planters and enslavers were represented in the 18th and 19th century Scotland, and how carefully planned post-mortem strategies shaped positive identities and minimised slavery connections.
Sociology; College of Social Sciences Hub
Date: Monday 29 January 2024
Time: 17:00 - 18:30
Venue: Online (Zoom link to be emailed to registered attendees)
Category: Public lectures, Academic events, Student events, Staff workshops and seminars
Speaker: Dr Stephen Mullen, University of Glasgow
This lecture examines how West India merchants, planters and enslavers were represented in the 18th and 19th century Scotland, and how carefully planned post-mortem strategies shaped positive identities and minimised slavery connections. Glorious publications authored by the descendants of enslavers in the Victorian era also served to obfuscate family connections with enslavement, Scotland's history of slavery more broadly and the effects on national development. This lecture also poses the related question as to why abolitionist narratives were not prioritised in Scotland in the same manner as England. With Scotland's history of both slavery and abolition largely forgotten until recent times, a rapidly developing historiography has created pressing challenges for curators, heritage organisations and politicians in Scotland as they debate how these histories are memorialised in public space. This lecture, therefore, also assesses the challenges faced by policy makers associated with Scottish sites of memory - museums, monuments, universities - and how they have addressed these issues.