Lecture Series September – Facing our Slavery Past
Thu, 1 September 2022
Edinburgh’s Old Town has been linked to historic slavery for centuries. From the pomp and splendour at Holyrood Palace to the intensely crowded tenement apartments down its High Street closes, it was home to many foreigners, who enriched the cultural and ethnic diversity of the nations’ capital. Some of these people, we now know, had been formerly enslaved or were descended from enslaved people. Many more residents profited from the proceeds of enslavement, or attempted to do so.
Dr Jennifer Melville, is leading the National Trust for Scotland’s Facing Our Past project. Highlighting individuals who were known to have lived, worked or spent time in Edinburgh’s Old Town over the last six hundred years, in this talk she explores Old Town Edinburgh’s long-standing links to historical enslavement.
