Scotland's slavery role must be laid bare before we can build better future

A recent exercise in Edinburgh’s Marchmont and Morningside (also reported in The National) reveals just how pervasive Scotland’s links to slavery are. They need to be laid bare before we can truly come to terms with our past and build a better and more inclusive future.

This exercise is not about apportioning blame to individuals, as an entire system (the capitalist system, Mr Fry) was built on slavery. Melville calls for proper scrutiny by professional historians: I would not disagree; but at the same time, we have to recognise that, had it been left to Scotland’s most eminent historians, we would probably not now be discussing the issue.

For example, there is but a passing mention of slavery in Devine’s masterly The Scottish Nation. Again, this is not to apportion blame, just to point out how easily the history of the millions of enslaved people who contributed to the wealth of Scotland’s elites and wider society can be erased.

The role of key individuals, including Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville (also of Melville Drive in Marchmont) needs to be looked at in context. The doctrine of historical inevitability has been advanced by Devine to exculpate him from responsibility over the delaying of the abolition of the slave trade. I am not qualified to comment on this particular issue. However, that doctrine is seriously questioned by the historical fact of the rebellion by Haiti’s slaves led by Toussaint Louverture and his successors, who eventually founded the first free black republic in 1804.

Henry Dundas, in his role as secretary of state for war in Pitt’s government, launched an attack on Haiti’s rebels. Thankfully, this was an abject failure, and in 1798 the British forces (commanded by Thomas Maitland of the Lauderdale family, another street name in Marchmont) capitulated to Louverture’s forces.

Had Dundas succeeded, this would undoubtedly have led to the re-establishment of slavery in Haiti. Perhaps the Melville monument in St Andrew’s Square should be rededicated, surely uncontroversially, to celebrate this historic defeat, and to the memory of the hundreds of thousands of black slaves and their millions of descendants in Haiti whose freedom was assured as a result.

Paddy Farrington

Edinburgh

NEIL McLennan (Letters, December 2) says that Winston Churchill was wrongly blamed for the surrender at St Valery in 1940. As a history teacher, he has a point of view. However, other historians disagree and say that Churchill persistently refused to allow the commander of the 51st Highland Division permission to remove his troops from the overall command of the French in an ultimately vain attempt to stop the French from seeking an armistice with Germany. In these circumstances, the surrender and sacrifice became inevitable.

This version is corroborated in reports from the war cabinet, but Mr McLennan presumably has other sources more inclined to support Winston Churchill’s revision of history. Something he did on more than one occasion with his renowned rhetorical flourish.

Douglas Turner

Edinburgh

AS someone recently elected to the SNP’s NEC I feel I have to respond to the letter from Nick Cole headed “Elections to the SNP’s NEC were a sham” (December 3).

I would agree with most of his critical comments on the previous NEC. It was for those reasons that I decided to stand.

I think it is wrong to state there is no proportional structure to the voting. As “a senior branch official”, he should know the conference delegate entitlement is proportional to the number of branch members. My own branch fully discussed the conference at a Zoom meeting a few days before the conference. All members were invited.

The election results were posted on the SNP website for all members to see on Monday evening, as was the full breakdown of the stage-by-stage process, individual vote by vote. I am not sure who qualifies as “hierarchy”, but most of the candidates provided contact details, a 25-word statement (a limit set in previous elections) and an A4 virtual leaflet.

There was no ideal way to hold these election, especially given the current Covid situation, but I feel that Mr Cole’s description as a “sham” is just a wee bit offensive.

Brian Lawson

NEC West of Scotland representative

BORIS Johnson states that the UK’s response to Covid indicates the sheer might of the Union. Will this “sheer might” (spoonerism alert!) be sufficient to protect our shores from Covid, Brexit, Johnson and Trump? The Incredible Sulk and his faithful followers, who claim to have won the US election, will no doubt be back in four years to “Make America Greet Again!”

James Stevenson

Auchterarder