From Jamaica to Tayvallich via slavery
Tayvallich Community Hall turned into a literary salon on Sunday March 5, writes Ewan Halley.
Author Kate Phillips gave an entertaining and enlightening talk about her book Bought and Sold: Scotland, Jamaica and Slavery, which documents Scotland’s role in the slave trade.
Together with her husband and family, Kate has spent many happy years at Castle Sween, exploring Argyll on both land and sea.
Kate tailored her talk to the location, viewing her subject through the prism of two Argyll landowners: Archibald Campbell of Taynish to the south of Tayvallich and Neill Malcolm of Duntrune and Poltalloch to the north.
These “entrepreneurial” businessmen, who made their fortunes through slave labour on their sugar plantations in Jamaica, were not unusual; their way of life was shared by landowners the length and breadth of Scotland.
Kate spoke of the “triangular trade” by which slaves were bought and put to work in Jamaica, the fruits of their labours were shipped to the UK and then these same ships returned to the Caribbean via West Africa, after collecting a new human cargo.
The investment cost of buying slaves was high but the profits were vast (the £3,000 a year income in the 1700s from a plantation equates to several million pounds today) and Scottish banks were only too willing to offer risky lending when there was so much money to be made.
On the profits from their Caribbean interests, Scottish landowners elevated their social status and improved their surroundings back home; private houses, public buildings, roads and bridges were all built on the spoils of slavery.
The exploitation of slaves was not limited to forced labour; female slaves (often chosen for their looks) were also sexually exploited by their white masters.
Kate surmised that some of the illegitimate offspring of these relationships might have been brought to Scotland to be educated.
But in tandem with the burgeoning slave trade went an equally strong anti-slavery movement. Thanks to the efforts of men such as Zachary Macaulay, an Inveraray-born son of the manse who became a leading abolitionist after his work on a plantation in Jamaica opened his eyes to the iniquities of the system, slavery was finally abolished in the British Empire in 1833.
Bought and Sold is Kate Phillip’s first book, inspired by a recent trip to Jamaica and the discovery of so many Scottish connections. Published by Luath Press, the book is available for £11.99 from booksellers, including the Argyll Book Centre in Lochgilphead.