Join us for the eighth Strathclyde Institute for Genealogical Studies’ Spotlight Talk featuring Dr David Alston, historian and author of Slaves and Highlanders: Silenced Histories of Scotland and the Caribbean, the Saltire Society’s Scottish Book of the Year prize in 2022. A recording of the talk will be available for 2 weeks after the event.

IMPORTANT: Please be aware that this talk will present challenging and difficult topics including enslavement and sexual abuse.

Recovering the life stories of enslaved people in Guyana (1796–1838)
In 1796 Britain seized the Dutch colonies of Essequibo, Demerara and Berbice on the north coast of South America – colonies which later formed British Guiana and are now the Republic of Guyana. The colonies became, in terms of their white populations, the most Scottish settlements in the Caribbean. But the vast majority of the inhabitants were recently enslaved Africans, brought across the Atlantic before the end of the British slave-trade in 1807 to create and work an increasing number of cotton plantations. Until final emancipation in 1838 Guyana had the highest proportion of African-born inhabitants in the Caribbean, the lowest ratio of whites to enslaved Black people, and the plantations were the most profitable.

For as long as slavery persisted, people were treated as property. One consequence was that enslaved people were recorded in more detail than, for example, free workers in Scotland – in plantation accounts, deeds of sale, manumission petitions, disputes over ownership, advertisements for the recovery of ‘runaways’, complaints about mistreatment and, from 1817, in a compulsory Register of Slaves, updated every three years. These records are gradually becoming more available and they allow the recovery of some of the details of family life in slavery. As a matter of principle, I now begin every talk I give with the life of an enslaved person or family – and I will begin this talk in the same way.

Sexual abuse was endemic in plantation society and this is difficult genealogy considered in that setting. Women who had children by white fathers had a greater chance of freedom and the population of ‘free coloured women’ increased – as did the number of children of mixed race. A few of these children were brought Britain where their life stories tell us about attitudes to race here – often long after the end of colonial slavery.

David Alston
David is an independent historian and holds a PhD in Modern History from the University of Dundee. He has written numerous publications and participated in a variety of public bodies. His historical research focuses on the role of Highland Scots in the slave plantations of the Caribbean and also on the local history of his home in Cromarty in the north of Scotland.

An email with the Zoom webinar link will be sent by 12.00 GMT on 27 January 2026.