Edinburgh, Empire and Slavery: Tour Statement

I’d like to take the opportunity to shed further light regarding my intentions and goals in conducting the tour and to also acknowledge the wonderful work on educating the wider Edinburgh public on the historical connections between this city and slavery done by Lisa Williams and the Edinburgh Caribbean Association. For those interested in this particular topic please read Lisa Williams’ excellent article for Historic Environment Scotland it’s a very interesting, well written source of information. I’d also like to highlight the work of Anti-Slavery International the oldest international human rights organisation in the World, which does vital work against slavery related abuses today. Anyone who books a tour with me will see 50% of your fee will go to this deserving organisation.

For those uncomfortable with the idea of doing a tour on this controversial topic, I’d like to reassure you about my intentions. I firmly believe that Scotland and the UK in general until very recently has mostly done a terrible job of educating our children and informing the wider public about our historic connections with and role within transatlantic slavery and empire. I studied history throughout secondary school and there was not a single class that I can remember where we discussed slavery and only empire obliquely in relation to World War Two, that only changed when I went to university. When a number of UK wide polls in the last 5-10 years showed a majority of British people were proud of the British Empire it reveals a fundamental ignorance about imperial history. In Scotland more specifically we need to accept our own often disproportionate role, it was not just “big, bad brother England” who did this (or even more controversially that we were victims rather than oppressors within the British Empire).

If more individuals are willing to step up and educate people on this topic that means there are more opportunities for people to learn about it and that can only be a good thing; especially since we have reached a point when public interest has been raised. Only by acknowledging and making a genuine attempt to understand past wrongs can we properly confront the genuine injustices which exist today that often stem directly from them. With this in mind the goal is not to tell those who come on a tour what should be done about particular city monuments or even reform modern society as a whole (there are many, many potential options to consider) but to provide the historical context for people to make up their own mind.

I’m an experienced walking tour guide and my PhD thesis “Scottish Imperial Scepticism and the Prioritisation of the Domestic Economy, 1695-1815” looked at shifting and contradictory Scottish attitudes to empire throughout the eighteenth century. A key part of the thesis looked at how Scottish views on slavery, as well as the so-called products of slavery shifted over time. It especially considered the opinions of the enlightenment literati, the Church of Scotland as well as Scotland’s local political and economic institutions. Personally, I feel very passionate about this issue and want to do my part in informing people. If anyone has any further questions or concerns about the tour or what I have said please get in touch with us directly, in fact I’d be happy to have you on a tour.