WEBVTT
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...they came as slaves, white slaves, that's all I know.
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They were in plantations.
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My own grandfather,
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they work in the land,
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they work in the land, my father work in the land, in the factory, making sugar.
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Well, they had to put them all under shelter
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because they couldn't stand the heat.
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I work in the plantation overseas,
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I work the fields, and do the boats_
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[narrator] What is it you love about Barbados?
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What I love about it, were born here.
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Born here, this my little island.
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[narrator] So you're complete Barbadian, you're not Scottish, you're Barbadian?
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Well, I born in Barbados.
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Am I Scottish, maybe great great great great grandfathers,
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that's al I could tell you.
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I understand my family came here by slave ship.
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And they was workin' as slaves,
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and then from there...
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went on, you know the skin couldn't take the sun,
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so they had coloured people then came.
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But all my family ... growing up was with the land.
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They work the land, they prepare food,
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but they never went to the supermarkets and thing
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for everything they want to eat they'll grow it theyself.
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_almighty.
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[narrator] Where are we in Barbados here?
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This is, eh, New Castle, close to Martin's Bay.
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[narrator-- can't hear question]
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Yeah,.... it look like it fit under the hill...
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if you stand you see it...
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under the property...
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I go Sister Margaret's church.
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St. John sometimes.
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Or sometimes I go to different religion.
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I don't keep one religion.
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I keep everybody that connect with the almighty.
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I understand that my father, his parents from Scotland,
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what part of Scotland, I don't know.
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Because, you know, people today talkin' about slavery,
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the __
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we all _ white people, some of us, was in slavery too,
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but they never, at least, _ the history or my education is not that good.
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My life story as far as I can remember
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I born in a place such as like a jungle, the woods, crept all woods,
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and my father and mother was pretty poor,
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raised up in a small 18' x 10' wooden house
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which we call a chattal house.
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When I was a youngster,
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I used to go __ Clifton Hall,
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and has sprouts come up,
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as a boy I dig some...
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was hungry
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I had to eat some of them raw
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I had to eat them kinda things to survive.
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__didn't get education.
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I got it from trying to read newspapers and comic books, and I start to get educated...
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workin... a cash machine, givin' back change and everything like that.
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I got the education I have.
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But I just relax at home now, enjoy a little pension from the government,
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it ain't a big lot, but..._
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[narrator] The streets of modern Scottish cities
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are closer to the chattel houses of Martin's Bay than maybe we like to think.
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Those old tobacco lords aren't ancient history.
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Our relationship with the West Indies carries on.
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Tom Divine reckons it's time we understood it better. [/narrator]
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It's my belief that a mature nation,
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and I think Scotlad is a lot more mature than it was 20 to 30 years ago,
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a mature nation with a devolved parliament,
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with a greater sense of national self confidence,
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should be able to look at its past directly in the face,
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and come to terms with these issues.
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[narrator] Judith Martin is one woman who's making sense of her own past.
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Judith's ancestors are Barbadian on her father's side.
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An ancestor of his, was most likely William Bruce, who arrived on the island in 1746,
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surely a Jacobite, Barbados'd after the '45.
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Martin and Bruce, the family names couldn't be more Scottish, or more Redleg.
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And they turned full circle.
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Judith now lives in Glasgow,
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her father brought the family back from the West Indies in search of work. [/narrator]
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While we were here, he found out that there was a Scottish connection,
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and one day he said "I think that we have Scottish blood",
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that, ehm, Scots went to Barbados.
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I had my grandmother's birth certificate,
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her name was Ada Beaufort on the birth certificate,
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but later, later papers that I have, name her as Bruce.
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And I reckon she was born on the plantation.
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And her mother was a worker on the plantation,
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and I would think that her father would have been also a worker on the plantation.
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Her mother was a slave, quite simply.
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And that her father was also a slave, or white indentured labourer.
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I want to write about it somehow.
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I, I think my grandmother deserves that.
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You see that big building in the middle, here, that's the plantation house.
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And it's a beautiful, lush place.
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It's still there.
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Living history.
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We stood on the hill, looked down on that, and I'm emotional now, [voice cracking]
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at the thought of my gran.
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[narrator] Washed up by history, there's little doubt that for 200 years and more,
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the tradewinds of Atlantic commerce blew the descendents of Scots indentured workers
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into a cultural no man's land.
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To the black Bajan majority the Redlegs are a ghost people,
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they know very little about their white neighbours,
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nothing of their extraordinary story.
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Redlegs are mistaken for all-drinks-included package tourists.
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It's partly the fault of their forefathers who chose race over class.
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They won't make that mistake again.
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How easy it is to lose an identity, how hard to forge a new one.
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If the Redlegs as an ethnic group are in danger of disappearing, it's for positive reasons.
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The great great grandsons and daughters of highland and lowland Scots
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are at last becoming fully fledged Barbadians. [/narrator]
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I don't remember where the lady came from,
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but I remember she looked at me and she asked me
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"You from Barbados?".
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I say "yes, I was born here",
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she say "you know, it's strange, you don't look so, you don't soud like a Bajan"
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I say well, I can't _ that.
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Cause I'm a Bajan by birth.
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We are all white, we are all one, and I don't think colour should really be a discrimination.
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[narrator] You're family's a great example, could you tell us about your own family now,
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your husband and your children and you're, all that? [/narrator]
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We were married November is 40 years.
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At first, some of my family from my father's side,
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they didn't like the idea of me getting married to him,
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but I had to let them know, it is me,
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and I think, if it is my happiness, then, it should be ok, and so far no regrets.
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[narrator] How do you think for yer children and yer grandchildren, will it get easier? [/narrator]
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I'm hopin' it would for them.
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My oldest granddaughter, and she's headin' on to university.
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But all she's tellin' me is "granny not to worry,
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one good day there you're going to be out of this. I'm gonna help you"
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That's all she's tellin' me, that's my oldest gran.
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[narrator] Is she the first in your family to go to university? [/narrator]
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Yeah, first one in the family.
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And I'm very proud of her.
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And I feel good that's for sure.
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I don't mind what people think, I feel good. And I feel proud of who I am.