Maggie Chapman: Obscure or not, Scotland’s links to the slave trade matter

In the last few years we have seen significant mobilisation of campaigns that seek to highlight the racism and colonial power relations that are so deeply embedded in our society. And there has been direct action as a consequence of these campaigns.

READ MORE: Michael Fry: Why Scots must always keep returning to the subject of slavery

Earlier this year, the University of Aberdeen agreed to return a Benin bronze – a sculpture looted by British soldiers in Nigeria during a military expedition that was part of 19th-century European colonial expansion. In June last year, the statue of slave trader Edward Colston was toppled and pushed into Bristol Harbour amidst the Black Lives Matter protests. And in Edinburgh, a plaque acknowledging Henry Dundas’ role in prolonging the slave trade was added to the Melville Monument.

From the Rhodes Must Fall campaign to remove the statue of imperialist Cecil Rhodes (below) from an Oxford College to the decision by Glasgow University to pay £20 million in reparations to the University of West Indies to fund a joint centre for development, these movements show not only how involved British individuals and institutions were in racism and colonial endeavours, but also how they were enriched by their involvement. And, importantly, they focus on the need for restorative justice and reparations.

Given all of this, it is surprising and deeply frustrating that there is little interest in challenging the use of slavery-derived wealth in our schools across the north-east of Scotland.

James Dick was born in Forres in 1743. He was active in the slave trade in Jamaica for 20 years from about 1762, including being involved with Robert Milligan, a Dumfries-born slave factor. Milligan was the driving force behind the construction of the West India Docks in London. Incidentally, last year, a statue of Milligan was removed from in front of the Museum of London Docklands in recognition of the local community’s wishes.

In 1779, together with Milligan, Dick offered for sale the Nancy, a captured French ship with 208 enslaved people from Africa. What they failed to mention was that 238 slaves had already died on the vessel – a mortality rate of 53% – probably from smallpox, during the ‘middle passage’ journey to the Caribbean. Dick and Milligan described the survivors as already having “had the Small-Pox” – turning this appalling injustice to their financial advantage. Also in 1779 they sold 300 enslaved African people who had been transported on the Rose and Spy ships.

READ MORE: Some peers owe their House of Lords seats to the slave trade

There is a memorial to James Dick in Anderson’s Primary School in Forres and a portrait in the Falconer Museum. The Moray Council Conservation Area Interpretation Plan for Forres lists James Dick among “Forres Heroes”.

At his death, Dick established a bequest – the Dick Bequest Trust – for educational development in north-eastern Scotland, including Aberdeenshire and parts of Moray. When the Trust was established in 1832, the value of the fund was just short of £120,000.

The Dick Bequest continues to operate, and the Trust is a charity registered in Scotland. The value of the fund is now approximately £1.7million, and gives grants to teachers and helps buy school equipment.

It is interesting to note that Cecil John Rhodes bequeathed a mere £100,000 to Oriel College, Oxford. And yet very few people know anything about James Dick, whose Trust was funded to a greater extent, and even fewer know of his involvement in the slave trade.

Because the money in the Dick Trust is a direct result of the slave trade, there is surely a strong case to be made to return it to Jamaica. When the University of Aberdeen agreed to return the Benin bronze, the decision was lauded and applauded. Why then, is there not the same level of support for the repatriation of the nearly £1.7m in the Trust?

Scottish schools and the education of our young people should not be funded by slave trade profits. Many of our young people would be rightly horrified if the equipment they used in classes was bought using this slave money. Our young people often have a very strong sense of justice – indeed it has been young people leading the Black Lives Matter and similar movements.

The money in the Dick Bequest should be used to benefit the descendants of the people whose lives were destroyed by the likes of James Dick. We should redirect these funds to improve the education and life changes of young people in the Caribbean.

So, we must use whatever avenues open to us to support this repatriation. Aberdeenshire Council and the Educational Institute of Scotland have already been clear that teachers and schools in northeast Scotland should not make use of this money. We now need a broader campaign to ensure that, after 190 years, reparative justice finally prevails, and we create a link between Forres and Kingston of which we can all be proud.