Ayrshire and Slavery

AYRSHIRE AND SLAVERY

The following guide is a list of resources, including web links and print material, relating to Scotland’s and Ayrshire’s involvement in Slavery. We are hopeful efforts will continue (by us and others) to enable additional printed sources to be made available online.

We cannot change history, but we can, and should, learn from it.  The past cannot be undone, but we have to ensure that mistakes that were made are not repeated in the future.  The future can be changed.  It is our duty to do so, and that is best done through an informed and intelligent examination of the past, through a study of the facts.  It is with that in mind, and with a desire to see the issues around slavery, equality, morality and humanity debated in a thoughtful manner, that we have gathered together this list of appropriate sources.

Please read them, and explore further.  New material will, undoubtedly, be added all the time; this has become a hugely relevant area of research.  Remember to search around the names and titles we have listed, and to check the veracity and origins of any material you find.   Seek out evidence; keep an open and enquiring mind.

Ultimately, though, we hope that you will find that history, even if it isn’t all wonderful, and not always seen through rose-tinted glasses, can offer us lessons to learn from, and hope for the future.  The study of the past, its successes and its failures, its glories and its disasters, can be a rewarding and engaging activity.  Try it.

Rob Close, President.

AANHS