Bought & Sold: Scotland, Jamaica and Slavery

By Kate Phillips

This book traces the story of how and why thousands of Scots made money from buying and selling humans… a story we need to own. We need to admit that many Scots were enthusiastic participants in slavery.

Union with England gave Scotland access to both trade and settlement in Jamaica, Britain’s richest colony and its major slave trading hub. Tens of thousands from Scotland lived and worked there. The abolition campaign and slave revolts threatened Scottish plantation owners, merchants, traders, bankers and insurance brokers who made their fortunes from slave-farmed sugar in Jamaica and fought hard to preserve the system of slavery. Archives and parliamentary papers in both countries reveal these transatlantic Scots in their own words and allow us to access the lives of their captives. 

Scotland and Jamaica were closely entwined for over one hundred years. Bought & Sold traces this shared story from its early beginnings in the 1700s to the abolition of slavery in the British Empire and reflects on the meaning of those years for both nations today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Luath Press
• Release date: May 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9781804250280

Kate Phillips

Kate Phillips is a retired international development worker previously based in the University of Glasgow. During a varied working life she prepared women to stand in democratic elections in Iraq, supported African women to take part in the World Women’s Conference in Beijing, get elected to and steer rights legislation through their parliaments. She researched the situation of girls indentured to factories in the Pearl River Delta in China, strengthened opposition movements in Iran, and trained trade unionists from many, many countries including Trinidad and Jamaica.