Time for a reckoning on slave trade legacy

Sir, – It is great to see Scotland’s role in the slave trade is to be marked by footage of singer Kayus Bankole, from Leith band Young Fathers, being beamed on to the City Chambers in Edinburgh from New Year’s Day to Burns Night.

He will be performing a piece he has written about those in Scotland who profited from this barbaric practice.

There has largely been an airbrushing of Scotland’s role in the slave trade, which saw Edinburgh and Scotland as a whole benefit considerably economically.

Events such as this serve to provide a greater understanding of our nation’s involvement in slavery, but we must do more.

Scots played an incredibly important role as plantation owners, merchants and slave ship captains.

Even Robert Burns was considering a position as a bookkeeper in a plantation before poetry revived his fortunes.

In 1796, Scots owned nearly 30% of the estates in Jamaica and by 1817, a staggering 32% of the slaves.

It was the slave trade which played a major part in financing and powering the industrial revolution in Scotland.

The economic rise of Glasgow and Edinburgh was, in part, produced off the back of slave labour and the commodities it produced such as tobacco, sugar and cotton.

It’s time Scottish pupils were taught of the nation’s role in the slave trade and that we as a nation come to terms with our involvement through the establishment of a permanent memorial to the millions of black Africans who suffered to make so many in Scotland incredibly wealthy.

Alex Orr. Marchmont Road, Edinburgh.