Slaves and Highlanders

David Alston is a Historian and Independent Researcher. He is the author of Ross & Cromarty: A Historical Guide (1997) and My Little Town of Cromarty: The History of a Northern Scottish Town (2006). He was a Highland Councillor and from 1991-2003 was curator/manager of Cromarty Courthouse Museum. He has published articles on the Highlands and Slavery including 'Very Rapid and Splendid Fortunes: Highland Scots in Berbice (Guyana) in the early nineteenth century', in Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness, (2007) and wrote a chapter in the T.D. Devine edited collection 'Recovering Scotland's Slavery Past' (EUP, 2015). Juanita Cox-Westmaas completed her PhD in Caribbean Studies with a focus on Edgar Mittelholzer (1909-1965) and the Shaping of his Novels, at the University of Birmingham in 2013. She is editor of Creole Chips and Other Writings (2018). Other publications include Buried in the Landscape: Edgar Mittelholzer's Creative Gene(sis)/Geni(us), and Revolting Subtexts in Aje, L., Lacroix, T. and Misrahi-Barak, J. (eds) Re-imagining the Guyanas (2019) and introductions to republished Peepal Tree editions of Mittelholzer's Corentyne Thunder (2009) and The Life and Death of Sylvia (2010). She was Research Fellow on the project National, Identity and Belonging: An Oral History of the Windrush Generation and their Relationship to the British State (1948-2018) and is currently a Visiting Fellow. Rod Westmaas has carried out independent research into the history of Guyana in archives situated in Guyana and at The National Archives (Kew) and has spoken about his findings at academic and public events, and his experiences of migration and sense of national identity.

I think it is a superb book.

• List of illustrations, tables and maps; Acknowledgements; Standard abbreviation used in the textForeword by Rod Westmaas and Juanita Cox-Westmaas Chapter 1 JumbiesPart 1: The African slave trade, the English 'sugar islands', and Scots in the expanding EmpireChapter 2 The slave tradeChapter 3 Jamaica - 'As much gold as will fill a flagon'Chapter 4 The Ceded Islands - GrenadaChapter 5 A family of Highland carpenters in the Ceded islands Part 2: Northern Scots in Guyana on the 'last frontier' of EmpireChapter 6 Guyana - A last frontierChapter 7 Guyana - Voices of the enslavedChapter 8 Guyana - The 'free coloured' momentChapter 9 Guyana - The merchant houses Part 3: Entangled histories - the legacies of slavery in the North of ScotlandChapter 10 Northern Scotland - InvestmentsChapter 11 Landowners, Caribbean Wealth, and Highland IdentitiesChapter 12 Enslaved Blacks and black servantsChapter 13 Children of colour Part 4: ReckoningsChapter 14 'It is always easier to remember victims than to cope with the difficult issue of perpetrators.'Afterword Ghosts in our bloodIndex