I ENJOYED Ian Bell’s article on Professor Sir Tom Devine’s work on Scotland's slavery past (“How the rich got rich: Scotland and its slave trade”, Herald Arts, October 10). Even quite insignificant folk have had some link to the slavery. Via maternal connections, it is a matter of public record that my Aberdeen great-great-great-great-grand uncle was involved indirectly in trading slaves in Jamaica in the 1790s. There seems to have been no ill-treatment of them, unlike the brutality depicted by Stuart Nisbet (“Exclusive extract of a shameful story”, Herald Arts, October 10) on St Kitts' slaves in the early 1700s, not that that excuses the slavery.
If I have such a shameful connection, then it has to be wondered just how many other of Scotland's citizens do too, additional to the quite well known dynasties.
Joe Darby,
Glenburn, St Martins Mill, Cullicudden, Dingwall.
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