So much to explore! This is not about rewriting history but about rediscovering different histories. I’ll let you know how I get on.. #Colonialism#Scotland#Burns#Ayrshire
Survey led me down a new avenue discovering that salt pan workers, by an act of 1660, were bound to their workplace. “It was felt that if workers were free to leave such harsh working conditions to seek employment elsewhere, it would be difficult to find replacements.
At some stage, #SouthAyrshireCouncil did a survey of monuments and street names ” and property with possible connections to slavery and other negative aspects of Britain’s colonial past, and to racism” Don’t know what happened as a result of this survey I suspect nothing.
And as I was noodling, wandering and wondering around the internet, I discover that in 1914, 2 suffragettes attempted to burn down Burn’s birthplace Not even all suffragettes were happy with this and the power of Burns (or the myth of Burns?) lives on.. digital.nls.uk/scotlandspag...
And we are back to Rabbie Burns. Burns very nearly went to work as an overseer on a plantation in Jamaica but the success of his first publication of collected poems provided him with a financial alternative glasgowmuseumsslavery.co.uk/2021/01/25/r...
Can’t really consider myself an historian but there’s a challenge. There is a book which covers the background to Rozelle House and Park – Burns and the Sugar Plantocracy of Ayrshire by Eric J Graham. (2009) Must find this..
Little published on Rozelle and its colonial past. Papers relating to the Hamiltons and their plantation exist but not online. A summary of the material notes- The Jamaican material in the Hamilton of Rozelle Papers has received little attention from historians.
Frederick Douglass was a big fan of Rabbie Burns, whose birthplace is just a short walk from Rozelle House…… Back home, I get on the internet and start noodling…. #RobertBurns#Rozelle#SouthAyrshire
There is very little reference to the history of the house other than a mural in a corridor related to the slave trade. This also features a portrait of Frederick Douglass a former American slave and anti- slavery campaigner. www.bulldozia.com/douglass-in-...