David Alston – författare

'I Am Pasha Liffey' were the last recorded words of the young man from Lesotho in southern Africa, guilty of the brutal murder of 61-year-old Mary Jane Jose in Larkhall, Lanarkshire in August 1905. His crime, trial and punishment and the resulting publicity reveal what it was to be Black and poor, on display and on the move, in the years between his birth and his execution.The narrative shows how of perceptions of race, white civilisation and ‘African savagery’ shaped Pasha’s life, in Africa and Britain, where he worked as a stable boy, house servant, groom, stage performer, milkman, muleteer, army scout, circus hand, barman and boxer. It is also an account of his victim – the Cornish pit-head worker, migrant and mother whose family struggled with poverty, dangerous and deadly working conditions, infant deaths, mental illness and alcohol in the mining communities of Lanarkshire.

'I Am Pasha Liffey' were the last recorded words of the young man from Lesotho in southern Africa, guilty of the brutal murder of 61-year-old Mary Jane Jose in Larkhall, Lanarkshire in August 1905. His crime, trial and punishment and the resulting publicity reveal what it was to be Black and poor, on display and on the move, in the years between his birth and his execution.The narrative shows how of perceptions of race, white civilisation and ‘African savagery’ shaped Pasha’s life, in Africa and Britain, where he worked as a stable boy, house servant, groom, stage performer, milkman, muleteer, army scout, circus hand, barman and boxer. It is also an account of his victim – the Cornish pit-head worker, migrant and mother whose family struggled with poverty, dangerous and deadly working conditions, infant deaths, mental illness and alcohol in the mining communities of Lanarkshire.

Scots were involved in every stage of the slave trade: from captaining slaving ships to auctioning captured Africans in the colonies and hunting down those who escaped from bondage. This book focuses on the Scottish Highlanders who engaged in or benefitted from these crimes against humanity in the Caribbean Islands and Guyana, some reluctantly but many with enthusiasm and without remorse. Their voices are clearly heard in the archives, while in the same sources their victims' stories are silenced reduced to numbers and listed as property. David Alston gives voice not only to these Scots but to enslaved Africans and their descendants to those who reclaimed their freedom, to free women of colour, to the Black Caribs of St Vincent, to house servants, and to children of mixed race who found themselves in the increasingly racist society of Britain in the mid-1800s.As Scots recover and grapple with their past, this vital history lays bare the enormous wealth generated in the Highlands by slavery and emancipation compensation schemes. This legacy, entwined with so many of our contemporary institutions, must be reckoned with. David Alston was one of the first Scottish historians to address the issue of Scotland's involvement with slavery. As a freelance historian and author, he has dedicated the past 20 years to researching the role of northern Scots in the slave-worked plantations of the Caribbean, especially Guyana.

Scots were involved in every stage of the slave trade: from captaining slaving ships to auctioning captured Africans in the colonies and hunting down those who escaped from bondage. This book focuses on the Scottish Highlanders who engaged in or benefitted from these crimes against humanity in the Caribbean Islands and Guyana, some reluctantly but many with enthusiasm and without remorse. Their voices are clearly heard in the archives, while in the same sources their victims' stories are silenced reduced to numbers and listed as property. David Alston gives voice not only to these Scots but to enslaved Africans and their descendants to those who reclaimed their freedom, to free women of colour, to the Black Caribs of St Vincent, to house servants, and to children of mixed race who found themselves in the increasingly racist society of Britain in the mid-1800s.As Scots recover and grapple with their past, this vital history lays bare the enormous wealth generated in the Highlands by slavery and emancipation compensation schemes. This legacy, entwined with so many of our contemporary institutions, must be reckoned with. David Alston was one of the first Scottish historians to address the issue of Scotland's involvement with slavery. As a freelance historian and author, he has dedicated the past 20 years to researching the role of northern Scots in the slave-worked plantations of the Caribbean, especially Guyana.