Barbado'ed Scotland's Sugar Slaves part 4 of 4

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?

...they came as slaves, white slaves, that's all I know.

They were in plantations.

My own grandfather,

they work in the land,

they work in the land, my father work in the land, in the factory, making sugar.

Well, they had to put them all under shelter

because they couldn't stand the heat.

I work in the plantation overseas,

I work the fields, and do the boats_

[narrator] What is it you love about Barbados?

What I love about it, were born here.

Born here, this my little island.

[narrator] So you're complete Barbadian, you're not Scottish, you're Barbadian?

Well, I born in Barbados.

Am I Scottish, maybe great great great great grandfathers,

that's al I could tell you.

I understand my family came here by slave ship.

And they was workin' as slaves,

and then from there...

went on, you know the skin couldn't take the sun,

so they had coloured people then came.

But all my family ... growing up was with the land.

They work the land, they prepare food,

but they never went to the supermarkets and thing

for everything they want to eat they'll grow it theyself.

_almighty.

[narrator] Where are we in Barbados here?

This is, eh, New Castle, close to Martin's Bay.

[narrator-- can't hear question]

Yeah,.... it look like it fit under the hill...

if you stand you see it...

under the property...

I go Sister Margaret's church.

St. John sometimes.

Or sometimes I go to different religion.

I don't keep one religion.

I keep everybody that connect with the almighty.

I understand that my father, his parents from Scotland,

what part of Scotland, I don't know.

Because, you know, people today talkin' about slavery,

the __

we all _ white people, some of us, was in slavery too,

but they never, at least, _ the history or my education is not that good.

My life story as far as I can remember

I born in a place such as like a jungle, the woods, crept all woods,

and my father and mother was pretty poor,

raised up in a small 18' x 10' wooden house

which we call a chattal house.

When I was a youngster,

I used to go __ Clifton Hall,

and has sprouts come up,

as a boy I dig some...

was hungry

I had to eat some of them raw

I had to eat them kinda things to survive.

__didn't get education.

I got it from trying to read newspapers and comic books, and I start to get educated...

workin... a cash machine, givin' back change and everything like that.

I got the education I have.

But I just relax at home now, enjoy a little pension from the government,

it ain't a big lot, but..._

[narrator] The streets of modern Scottish cities

are closer to the chattel houses of Martin's Bay than maybe we like to think.

Those old tobacco lords aren't ancient history.

Our relationship with the West Indies carries on.

Tom Divine reckons it's time we understood it better. [/narrator]

It's my belief that a mature nation,

and I think Scotlad is a lot more mature than it was 20 to 30 years ago,

a mature nation with a devolved parliament,

with a greater sense of national self confidence,

should be able to look at its past directly in the face,

and come to terms with these issues.

[narrator] Judith Martin is one woman who's making sense of her own past.

Judith's ancestors are Barbadian on her father's side.

An ancestor of his, was most likely William Bruce, who arrived on the island in 1746,

surely a Jacobite, Barbados'd after the '45.

Martin and Bruce, the family names couldn't be more Scottish, or more Redleg.

And they turned full circle.

Judith now lives in Glasgow,

her father brought the family back from the West Indies in search of work. [/narrator]

While we were here, he found out that there was a Scottish connection,

and one day he said "I think that we have Scottish blood",

that, ehm, Scots went to Barbados.

I had my grandmother's birth certificate,

her name was Ada Beaufort on the birth certificate,

but later, later papers that I have, name her as Bruce.

And I reckon she was born on the plantation.

And her mother was a worker on the plantation,

and I would think that her father would have been also a worker on the plantation.

Her mother was a slave, quite simply.

And that her father was also a slave, or white indentured labourer.

I want to write about it somehow.

I, I think my grandmother deserves that.

You see that big building in the middle, here, that's the plantation house.

And it's a beautiful, lush place.

It's still there.

Living history.

We stood on the hill, looked down on that, and I'm emotional now, [voice cracking]

at the thought of my gran.

[narrator] Washed up by history, there's little doubt that for 200 years and more,

the tradewinds of Atlantic commerce blew the descendents of Scots indentured workers

into a cultural no man's land.

To the black Bajan majority the Redlegs are a ghost people,

they know very little about their white neighbours,

nothing of their extraordinary story.

Redlegs are mistaken for all-drinks-included package tourists.

It's partly the fault of their forefathers who chose race over class.

They won't make that mistake again.

How easy it is to lose an identity, how hard to forge a new one.

If the Redlegs as an ethnic group are in danger of disappearing, it's for positive reasons.

The great great grandsons and daughters of highland and lowland Scots

are at last becoming fully fledged Barbadians. [/narrator]

I don't remember where the lady came from,

but I remember she looked at me and she asked me

"You from Barbados?".

I say "yes, I was born here",

she say "you know, it's strange, you don't look so, you don't soud like a Bajan"

I say well, I can't _ that.

Cause I'm a Bajan by birth.

We are all white, we are all one, and I don't think colour should really be a discrimination.

[narrator] You're family's a great example, could you tell us about your own family now,

your husband and your children and you're, all that? [/narrator]

We were married November is 40 years.

At first, some of my family from my father's side,

they didn't like the idea of me getting married to him,

but I had to let them know, it is me,

and I think, if it is my happiness, then, it should be ok, and so far no regrets.

[narrator] How do you think for yer children and yer grandchildren, will it get easier? [/narrator]

I'm hopin' it would for them.

My oldest granddaughter, and she's headin' on to university.

But all she's tellin' me is "granny not to worry,

one good day there you're going to be out of this. I'm gonna help you"

That's all she's tellin' me, that's my oldest gran.

[narrator] Is she the first in your family to go to university? [/narrator]

Yeah, first one in the family.

And I'm very proud of her.

And I feel good that's for sure.

I don't mind what people think, I feel good. And I feel proud of who I am.