Barbado'ed Scotland's Sugar Slaves part 4 of 4
-
0:01 - 0:08...they came as slaves, white slaves, that's all I know.
-
0:08 - 0:10They were in plantations.
-
0:10 - 0:12My own grandfather,
-
0:12 - 0:14they work in the land,
-
0:14 - 0:22they work in the land, my father work in the land, in the factory, making sugar.
-
0:22 - 0:25Well, they had to put them all under shelter
-
0:25 - 0:28because they couldn't stand the heat.
-
0:29 - 0:32I work in the plantation overseas,
-
0:32 - 0:37I work the fields, and do the boats_
-
0:39 - 0:41[narrator] What is it you love about Barbados?
-
0:41 - 0:43What I love about it, were born here.
-
0:43 - 0:46Born here, this my little island.
-
0:47 - 0:49[narrator] So you're complete Barbadian, you're not Scottish, you're Barbadian?
-
0:50 - 0:53Well, I born in Barbados.
-
0:53 - 0:58Am I Scottish, maybe great great great great grandfathers,
-
0:58 - 1:00that's al I could tell you.
-
1:00 - 1:04I understand my family came here by slave ship.
-
1:04 - 1:07And they was workin' as slaves,
-
1:07 - 1:11and then from there...
-
1:11 - 1:14went on, you know the skin couldn't take the sun,
-
1:14 - 1:18so they had coloured people then came.
-
1:19 - 1:24But all my family ... growing up was with the land.
-
1:24 - 1:27They work the land, they prepare food,
-
1:27 - 1:31but they never went to the supermarkets and thing
-
1:31 - 1:36for everything they want to eat they'll grow it theyself.
-
1:36 - 1:37_almighty.
-
1:38 - 1:40[narrator] Where are we in Barbados here?
-
1:40 - 1:43This is, eh, New Castle, close to Martin's Bay.
-
1:45 - 1:46[narrator-- can't hear question]
-
1:46 - 1:50Yeah,.... it look like it fit under the hill...
-
1:50 - 1:52if you stand you see it...
-
1:52 - 1:54under the property...
-
1:57 - 2:00I go Sister Margaret's church.
-
2:00 - 2:04St. John sometimes.
-
2:04 - 2:08Or sometimes I go to different religion.
-
2:08 - 2:11I don't keep one religion.
-
2:11 - 2:15I keep everybody that connect with the almighty.
-
2:17 - 2:24I understand that my father, his parents from Scotland,
-
2:27 - 2:31what part of Scotland, I don't know.
-
2:31 - 2:36Because, you know, people today talkin' about slavery,
-
2:36 - 2:39the __
-
2:39 - 2:44we all _ white people, some of us, was in slavery too,
-
2:44 - 2:53but they never, at least, _ the history or my education is not that good.
-
2:53 - 2:57My life story as far as I can remember
-
2:57 - 3:06I born in a place such as like a jungle, the woods, crept all woods,
-
3:06 - 3:11and my father and mother was pretty poor,
-
3:11 - 3:15raised up in a small 18' x 10' wooden house
-
3:15 - 3:19which we call a chattal house.
-
3:19 - 3:21When I was a youngster,
-
3:21 - 3:23I used to go __ Clifton Hall,
-
3:23 - 3:27
-
3:27 - 3:29and has sprouts come up,
-
3:29 - 3:32as a boy I dig some...
-
3:32 - 3:35was hungry
-
3:35 - 3:37I had to eat some of them raw
-
3:37 - 3:43I had to eat them kinda things to survive.
-
3:43 - 3:46__didn't get education.
-
3:46 - 3:53I got it from trying to read newspapers and comic books, and I start to get educated...
-
3:53 - 4:01workin... a cash machine, givin' back change and everything like that.
-
4:01 - 4:04I got the education I have.
-
4:05 - 4:12But I just relax at home now, enjoy a little pension from the government,
-
4:12 - 4:17it ain't a big lot, but..._
-
4:20 - 4:22[narrator] The streets of modern Scottish cities
-
4:22 - 4:27are closer to the chattel houses of Martin's Bay than maybe we like to think.
-
4:27 - 4:30Those old tobacco lords aren't ancient history.
-
4:30 - 4:33Our relationship with the West Indies carries on.
-
4:33 - 4:35Tom Divine reckons it's time we understood it better. [/narrator]
-
4:37 - 4:39It's my belief that a mature nation,
-
4:39 - 4:43and I think Scotlad is a lot more mature than it was 20 to 30 years ago,
-
4:43 - 4:46a mature nation with a devolved parliament,
-
4:46 - 4:48with a greater sense of national self confidence,
-
4:48 - 4:51should be able to look at its past directly in the face,
-
4:51 - 4:53and come to terms with these issues.
-
4:56 - 5:00[narrator] Judith Martin is one woman who's making sense of her own past.
-
5:00 - 5:03Judith's ancestors are Barbadian on her father's side.
-
5:03 - 5:09An ancestor of his, was most likely William Bruce, who arrived on the island in 1746,
-
5:09 - 5:12surely a Jacobite, Barbados'd after the '45.
-
5:13 - 5:19Martin and Bruce, the family names couldn't be more Scottish, or more Redleg.
-
5:19 - 5:20And they turned full circle.
-
5:20 - 5:22Judith now lives in Glasgow,
-
5:22 - 5:25her father brought the family back from the West Indies in search of work. [/narrator]
-
5:28 - 5:33While we were here, he found out that there was a Scottish connection,
-
5:34 - 5:38and one day he said "I think that we have Scottish blood",
-
5:38 - 5:42that, ehm, Scots went to Barbados.
-
5:44 - 5:47I had my grandmother's birth certificate,
-
5:47 - 5:51her name was Ada Beaufort on the birth certificate,
-
5:51 - 5:56but later, later papers that I have, name her as Bruce.
-
5:56 - 5:59And I reckon she was born on the plantation.
-
5:59 - 6:05And her mother was a worker on the plantation,
-
6:05 - 6:12and I would think that her father would have been also a worker on the plantation.
-
6:12 - 6:16Her mother was a slave, quite simply.
-
6:16 - 6:24And that her father was also a slave, or white indentured labourer.
-
6:24 - 6:26I want to write about it somehow.
-
6:26 - 6:30I, I think my grandmother deserves that.
-
6:31 - 6:39You see that big building in the middle, here, that's the plantation house.
-
6:39 - 6:43And it's a beautiful, lush place.
-
6:43 - 6:46It's still there.
-
6:49 - 6:50Living history.
-
6:51 - 6:56We stood on the hill, looked down on that, and I'm emotional now, [voice cracking]
-
6:56 - 6:58at the thought of my gran.
-
7:07 - 7:11[narrator] Washed up by history, there's little doubt that for 200 years and more,
-
7:11 - 7:16the tradewinds of Atlantic commerce blew the descendents of Scots indentured workers
-
7:16 - 7:20into a cultural no man's land.
-
7:20 - 7:24To the black Bajan majority the Redlegs are a ghost people,
-
7:24 - 7:26they know very little about their white neighbours,
-
7:26 - 7:29nothing of their extraordinary story.
-
7:29 - 7:34Redlegs are mistaken for all-drinks-included package tourists.
-
7:34 - 7:39It's partly the fault of their forefathers who chose race over class.
-
7:39 - 7:41They won't make that mistake again.
-
7:41 - 7:46How easy it is to lose an identity, how hard to forge a new one.
-
7:46 - 7:51If the Redlegs as an ethnic group are in danger of disappearing, it's for positive reasons.
-
7:52 - 7:57The great great grandsons and daughters of highland and lowland Scots
-
7:57 - 8:00are at last becoming fully fledged Barbadians. [/narrator]
-
8:01 - 8:04I don't remember where the lady came from,
-
8:04 - 8:07but I remember she looked at me and she asked me
-
8:08 - 8:10"You from Barbados?".
-
8:10 - 8:11I say "yes, I was born here",
-
8:11 - 8:16she say "you know, it's strange, you don't look so, you don't soud like a Bajan"
-
8:16 - 8:20I say well, I can't _ that.
-
8:20 - 8:23Cause I'm a Bajan by birth.
-
8:23 - 8:29We are all white, we are all one, and I don't think colour should really be a discrimination.
-
8:30 - 8:33[narrator] You're family's a great example, could you tell us about your own family now,
-
8:33 - 8:35your husband and your children and you're, all that? [/narrator]
-
8:36 - 8:39
-
8:39 - 8:43We were married November is 40 years.
-
8:43 - 8:48At first, some of my family from my father's side,
-
8:48 - 8:52they didn't like the idea of me getting married to him,
-
8:52 - 8:56but I had to let them know, it is me,
-
8:56 - 9:02and I think, if it is my happiness, then, it should be ok, and so far no regrets.
-
9:06 - 9:08[narrator] How do you think for yer children and yer grandchildren, will it get easier? [/narrator]
-
9:09 - 9:11I'm hopin' it would for them.
-
9:11 - 9:14My oldest granddaughter, and she's headin' on to university.
-
9:14 - 9:16But all she's tellin' me is "granny not to worry,
-
9:16 - 9:20one good day there you're going to be out of this. I'm gonna help you"
-
9:20 - 9:22That's all she's tellin' me, that's my oldest gran.
-
9:23 - 9:25[narrator] Is she the first in your family to go to university? [/narrator]
-
9:26 - 9:28Yeah, first one in the family.
-
9:28 - 9:30And I'm very proud of her.
-
9:30 - 9:32And I feel good that's for sure.
-
9:32 - 9:36I don't mind what people think, I feel good. And I feel proud of who I am.
- Title:
- Barbado'ed Scotland's Sugar Slaves part 4 of 4
- Description:
-
The west coast of Barbados is known as a favorite winter destination for British tourists, ranging from the upmarket Sandy Lane resort to the all-drinks-included package holiday crowd arriving by economy class. Many will come from Scotland, but few will realise that just fourteen miles away on the rocky east side of the island live a community of McCluskies, Sinclairs and Baileys who are not, as might be expected, black Bajans bearing the family names given by slave owners centuries ago, but poor whites eking out a subsistence existence. Known as the Redlegs, they are the direct descendants of the Scots transported to Barbados by Cromwell after the Civil War. Scottish author and broadcaster Chris Dolan went to meet them to discover why they are still here 350 years later, what they know about their roots, and what their prospects are today when they are the poorest community on the island. Chris speaks to leading historians in Barbados and Scotland about how their ancestors were treated when they first arrived. Was their plight as severe as that of the black slaves from Africa? Nearly two centuries after emancipation, this Redleg community has yet to find a role on the island, where it is damned by association with the days of slavery, even though many of its forbears were victims themselves. In recent years, it has begun to come out of its racial isolation; could there yet be a hopeful future for this lost Scottish tribe?
- Video Language:
- English
- Duration:
- 10:09