0:00:00.534,0:00:08.208
...they came as slaves, white slaves, that's all I know.
0:00:08.208,0:00:10.417
They were in plantations.
0:00:10.417,0:00:12.500
My own grandfather,
0:00:12.500,0:00:14.489
they work in the land,
0:00:14.489,0:00:21.625
they work in the land, my father work in the land, in the factory, making sugar.
0:00:21.625,0:00:25.449
Well, they had to put them all under shelter
0:00:25.449,0:00:27.952
because they couldn't stand the heat.
0:00:28.746,0:00:32.083
I work in the plantation overseas,
0:00:32.083,0:00:37.429
I work the fields, and do the boats_
0:00:39.208,0:00:40.681
[narrator] What is it you love about Barbados?
0:00:40.681,0:00:43.083
What I love about it, were born here.
0:00:43.083,0:00:45.627
Born here, this my little island.
0:00:47.090,0:00:49.298
[narrator] So you're complete Barbadian, you're not Scottish, you're Barbadian?
0:00:50.292,0:00:52.750
Well, I born in Barbados.
0:00:52.750,0:00:57.542
Am I Scottish, maybe great great great great grandfathers,
0:00:57.542,0:00:59.517
that's al I could tell you.
0:00:59.625,0:01:03.750
I understand my family came here by slave ship.
0:01:03.750,0:01:06.708
And they was workin' as slaves,
0:01:06.708,0:01:10.958
and then from there...
0:01:10.958,0:01:14.250
went on, you know the skin couldn't take the sun,
0:01:14.250,0:01:17.910
so they had coloured people then came.
0:01:19.000,0:01:23.875
But all my family ... growing up was with the land.
0:01:23.875,0:01:26.703
They work the land, they prepare food,
0:01:26.703,0:01:31.208
but they never went to the supermarkets and thing
0:01:31.208,0:01:35.667
for everything they want to eat they'll grow it theyself.
0:01:35.667,0:01:37.144
_almighty.
0:01:37.958,0:01:39.604
[narrator] Where are we in Barbados here?
0:01:40.042,0:01:43.123
This is, eh, New Castle, close to Martin's Bay.
0:01:44.583,0:01:46.167
[narrator-- can't hear question]
0:01:46.167,0:01:49.917
Yeah,.... it look like it fit under the hill...
0:01:49.917,0:01:51.792
if you stand you see it...
0:01:51.792,0:01:54.152
under the property...
0:01:57.168,0:02:00.167
I go Sister Margaret's church.
0:02:00.167,0:02:03.708
St. John sometimes.
0:02:03.708,0:02:07.917
Or sometimes I go to different religion.
0:02:07.917,0:02:10.868
I don't keep one religion.
0:02:10.868,0:02:15.405
I keep everybody that connect with the almighty.
0:02:16.533,0:02:23.555
I understand that my father, his parents from Scotland,
0:02:26.917,0:02:30.708
what part of Scotland, I don't know.
0:02:30.708,0:02:36.375
Because, you know, people today talkin' about slavery,
0:02:36.375,0:02:39.289
the __
0:02:39.289,0:02:44.042
we all _ white people, some of us, was in slavery too,
0:02:44.042,0:02:53.292
but they never, at least, _ the history or my education is not that good.
0:02:53.292,0:02:57.458
My life story as far as I can remember
0:02:57.458,0:03:06.038
I born in a place such as like a jungle, the woods, crept all woods,
0:03:06.038,0:03:10.775
and my father and mother was pretty poor,
0:03:10.775,0:03:15.000
raised up in a small 18' x 10' wooden house
0:03:15.000,0:03:18.958
which we call a chattal house.
0:03:18.958,0:03:20.625
When I was a youngster,
0:03:20.625,0:03:23.458
I used to go __ Clifton Hall,
0:03:23.458,0:03:26.638
0:03:26.638,0:03:29.125
and has sprouts come up,
0:03:29.125,0:03:32.463
as a boy I dig some...
0:03:32.463,0:03:35.375
was hungry
0:03:35.375,0:03:37.250
I had to eat some of them raw
0:03:37.250,0:03:42.792
I had to eat them kinda things to survive.
0:03:42.792,0:03:46.083
__didn't get education.
0:03:46.083,0:03:53.083
I got it from trying to read newspapers and comic books, and I start to get educated...
0:03:53.083,0:04:00.750
workin... a cash machine, givin' back change and everything like that.
0:04:00.750,0:04:03.798
I got the education I have.
0:04:05.458,0:04:12.208
But I just relax at home now, enjoy a little pension from the government,
0:04:12.208,0:04:16.821
it ain't a big lot, but..._
0:04:20.000,0:04:21.708
[narrator] The streets of modern Scottish cities
0:04:21.708,0:04:26.625
are closer to the chattel houses of Martin's Bay than maybe we like to think.
0:04:26.625,0:04:29.750
Those old tobacco lords aren't ancient history.
0:04:29.750,0:04:32.875
Our relationship with the West Indies carries on.
0:04:32.875,0:04:35.304
Tom Divine reckons it's time we understood it better. [/narrator]
0:04:37.333,0:04:39.375
It's my belief that a mature nation,
0:04:39.375,0:04:43.292
and I think Scotlad is a lot more mature than it was 20 to 30 years ago,
0:04:43.292,0:04:45.583
a mature nation with a devolved parliament,
0:04:45.583,0:04:48.125
with a greater sense of national self confidence,
0:04:48.125,0:04:51.458
should be able to look at its past directly in the face,
0:04:51.458,0:04:53.480
and come to terms with these issues.
0:04:56.250,0:05:00.002
[narrator] Judith Martin is one woman who's making sense of her own past.
0:05:00.002,0:05:03.083
Judith's ancestors are Barbadian on her father's side.
0:05:03.083,0:05:08.733
An ancestor of his, was most likely William Bruce, who arrived on the island in 1746,
0:05:08.733,0:05:11.846
surely a Jacobite, Barbados'd after the '45.
0:05:13.144,0:05:18.625
Martin and Bruce, the family names couldn't be more Scottish, or more Redleg.
0:05:18.625,0:05:20.417
And they turned full circle.
0:05:20.417,0:05:22.292
Judith now lives in Glasgow,
0:05:22.292,0:05:25.263
her father brought the family back from the West Indies in search of work. [/narrator]
0:05:27.726,0:05:32.825
While we were here, he found out that there was a Scottish connection,
0:05:34.118,0:05:38.292
and one day he said "I think that we have Scottish blood",
0:05:38.292,0:05:42.021
that, ehm, Scots went to Barbados.
0:05:43.542,0:05:46.667
I had my grandmother's birth certificate,
0:05:46.667,0:05:51.208
her name was Ada Beaufort on the birth certificate,
0:05:51.208,0:05:56.500
but later, later papers that I have, name her as Bruce.
0:05:56.500,0:05:59.292
And I reckon she was born on the plantation.
0:05:59.292,0:06:04.542
And her mother was a worker on the plantation,
0:06:04.542,0:06:11.625
and I would think that her father would have been also a worker on the plantation.
0:06:11.625,0:06:16.083
Her mother was a slave, quite simply.
0:06:16.083,0:06:24.058
And that her father was also a slave, or white indentured labourer.
0:06:24.058,0:06:26.250
I want to write about it somehow.
0:06:26.250,0:06:29.934
I, I think my grandmother deserves that.
0:06:31.250,0:06:38.708
You see that big building in the middle, here, that's the plantation house.
0:06:38.708,0:06:43.292
And it's a beautiful, lush place.
0:06:43.292,0:06:45.952
It's still there.
0:06:48.583,0:06:50.398
Living history.
0:06:50.667,0:06:55.875
We stood on the hill, looked down on that, and I'm emotional now, [voice cracking]
0:06:55.875,0:06:58.069
at the thought of my gran.
0:07:06.958,0:07:11.250
[narrator] Washed up by history, there's little doubt that for 200 years and more,
0:07:11.250,0:07:16.250
the tradewinds of Atlantic commerce blew the descendents of Scots indentured workers
0:07:16.250,0:07:19.917
into a cultural no man's land.
0:07:19.917,0:07:23.583
To the black Bajan majority the Redlegs are a ghost people,
0:07:23.583,0:07:26.042
they know very little about their white neighbours,
0:07:26.042,0:07:28.958
nothing of their extraordinary story.
0:07:28.958,0:07:33.904
Redlegs are mistaken for all-drinks-included package tourists.
0:07:33.904,0:07:38.792
It's partly the fault of their forefathers who chose race over class.
0:07:38.792,0:07:41.333
They won't make that mistake again.
0:07:41.333,0:07:46.000
How easy it is to lose an identity, how hard to forge a new one.
0:07:46.000,0:07:50.866
If the Redlegs as an ethnic group are in danger of disappearing, it's for positive reasons.
0:07:52.155,0:07:56.659
The great great grandsons and daughters of highland and lowland Scots
0:07:56.659,0:07:59.904
are at last becoming fully fledged Barbadians. [/narrator]
0:08:00.958,0:08:04.125
I don't remember where the lady came from,
0:08:04.125,0:08:06.830
but I remember she looked at me and she asked me
0:08:07.630,0:08:09.802
"You from Barbados?".
0:08:09.802,0:08:11.292
I say "yes, I was born here",
0:08:11.292,0:08:15.958
she say "you know, it's strange, you don't look so, you don't soud like a Bajan"
0:08:15.958,0:08:19.583
I say well, I can't _ that.
0:08:19.583,0:08:22.542
Cause I'm a Bajan by birth.
0:08:22.542,0:08:29.044
We are all white, we are all one, and I don't think colour should really be a discrimination.
0:08:29.817,0:08:32.833
[narrator] You're family's a great example, could you tell us about your own family now,
0:08:32.833,0:08:34.633
your husband and your children and you're, all that? [/narrator]
0:08:35.855,0:08:39.458
0:08:39.458,0:08:42.917
We were married November is 40 years.
0:08:42.917,0:08:48.000
At first, some of my family from my father's side,
0:08:48.000,0:08:51.667
they didn't like the idea of me getting married to him,
0:08:51.667,0:08:56.000
but I had to let them know, it is me,
0:08:56.000,0:09:02.280
and I think, if it is my happiness, then, it should be ok, and so far no regrets.
0:09:05.625,0:09:08.192
[narrator] How do you think for yer children and yer grandchildren, will it get easier? [/narrator]
0:09:09.042,0:09:11.083
I'm hopin' it would for them.
0:09:11.083,0:09:14.250
My oldest granddaughter, and she's headin' on to university.
0:09:14.250,0:09:16.250
But all she's tellin' me is "granny not to worry,
0:09:16.250,0:09:19.560
one good day there you're going to be out of this. I'm gonna help you"
0:09:19.560,0:09:22.337
That's all she's tellin' me, that's my oldest gran.
0:09:22.798,0:09:24.931
[narrator] Is she the first in your family to go to university? [/narrator]
0:09:26.311,0:09:27.792
Yeah, first one in the family.
0:09:27.792,0:09:30.250
And I'm very proud of her.
0:09:30.250,0:09:32.070
And I feel good that's for sure.
0:09:32.070,0:09:35.871
I don't mind what people think, I feel good. And I feel proud of who I am.