North-east’ s links to the slave trade

SIR, – Barney Crockett (The P&J, June 13) and William Gumbrell (The P&J, June 15) draw attention to the role of north-east men who supported the abolition of the slave trade.

The Rev James Ramsay, Professor James Beattie of Marischal College and John Chalmers, owner of the Aberdeen Journal, were certainly on the right side of history, but it is as well to remember that their stand against the slave trade was necessary in the first place because of the much larger number of Scots, including those from the north-east, who owned and exploited slaves throughout the Caribbean.

The government papers which

hold the names of thousands of slave owners in the West Indies who received compensation when slavery was abolished list many Scots. Some of them were from notable north-east families.

Some of the great mansion houses here in Aberdeen and in Aberdeenshire were built using profits linked to slavery. Their owners invested this money in the north-east’s business and agricultural economy.

Many ordinary Scots benefited too – from the masons and labourers who built the mansions, to the fishermen whose herring catch was exported to the West Indies as food for slaves.

It is right to draw attention to those in the north-east who were opposed to the slave trade, but we also need to know much more about the numerous ways in which the north-east was involved in and benefited from slavery – and the ways in which this legacy still affects all of us living here today.

Alan Short, Broaddykes Avenue,

Aberdeen