Slavery in the UK

Bristol and Transatlantic Slavery

Find out about Bristol's role in the transatlantic slave trade. Who was involved, what was bought and sold, who stopped it, and what is the effect of the trade today?..... Read more

Slavery and Glasgow

This exhibition on Slavery and Glasgow aims to showcase the collections held by Glasgow City Archives and Special Collections which relate to black history in general and slavery in particular...... Read more

The Montgomery slavery case, 1756

Between 1756 and 1778 three cases reached the Court of Session in Edinburgh whereby runaway slaves attempted to obtain their freedom. A central argument in each case was that the slave, having been bought in the colonies, had been subsequently baptised by sympathetic church ministers in Scotland. The three cases were Montgomery v Sheddan (1756), Spens v Dalrymple (1769) and Knight v Wedderburn (1778)...... Read more

The history of George Dale, a native of Africa, 1790

From government, court and private records in the NAS it is possible to describe the experiences of black people in Scotland from at least the early 1500s onwards. Until the mid-nineteenth century the surviving records provide little in the way of information about the majority of the inhabitants of Scotland, whatever their race. Occasionally an individual life is described more fully. One such case is the former slave, George Dale, who was transported against his will from Africa aged about eleven, and ended up in Scotland after an unusual career as a plantation cook and a crewman on a fighting ship. At the time of the French Revolution in 1789 there was a move towards freedom and liberty for all people, and The Society for the Purpose of Effecting the Abolition of the African Slave Trade gathered evidence like George Dale's life story for the anti-slavery abolitionist cause...... Read more