28. The Untrue Claim That Scots Were Enslaved
An untrue narrative that crops up from time to time has it that Scotts were enslaved in the New World. It is true that some Scottish prisoners were sent against their will to the Caribbean and North America. However, it is untrue that they were sent there as slaves. They crossed the Atlantic as indentured servants, bound to serve for a fixed term, typically seven years, and not as slaves bound for the rest of their lives. Some regained their freedom before the seven years were up, thanks to the financial assistance of family or friends who helped buy out their indenture contract. After their indenture was up, many went on to have prosperous and successful lives, sometimes as slave owners themselves.
The long and short of it is that while indenture was undoubtedly unpleasant, it was not slavery. The claim that those individuals were slaves is a revisionist tactic by some Scottish nationalists to distance Scotland from the transatlantic slave trade. Slavery is instead cast as an English enterprise, in which Scotts were the first victims. That is untrue, and Scotland was significantly involved in the slave trade. For example, as late as the 1830s, with slavery in the British Empire on its last legs, slave owners with Glasgow addresses claimed ownership of well over 10,000 men, women and children in the Caribbean.