The movement to acknowledge and reckon with the legacies of the transatlantic slave trade in Scotland has gathered considerable momentum in recent years. Pupils in secondary school can hardly have avoided seeing political debates about slavery in the news. It’s more important now than ever that schools in Scotland are able to access the latest academic research in African, Caribbean, and Atlantic histories.

For many teachers, there was little-to-no African or Caribbean history taught as part of their university training. It is difficult to access up-to-date historical research, which is often behind paywalls. The topic is painful and, for some pupils, discussion of the transatlantic slave trade may be distressing or inadvertently ignite racist bullying. Thinking about how to deliver the course is as important as the content itself.

Published research by Joseph Smith, Katharine Burn and Richard Harris shows that teaching of the Transatlantic Slave Trade as a “sustained topic” is uneven across Scottish schools. It’s a popular topic at National 5. Teachers are already developing innovative and creative approaches to the course, but need access to primary sources, new analysis, and visual and digital resources. At the same time, few schools are able to offer African, Caribbean or Atlantic histories at the BGE level. Resources and support are needed for teaching across different year groups.

The Teaching Slavery in Scotland project aims to overcome some of these challenges and introduce new ways of teaching African, Caribbean and Atlantic histories in Scottish schools. Academic researchers in history, art history and history education are working with cohorts of Scottish teachers (from secondary and primary levels) to develop new ways to teach the history of slavery and its legacies. The project has run for two years (2022-2023 and 2023-2024) and will run for a third time from August 2024. Central to the year-long training programme is a residential training weekend. The weekend training provides a forum to discuss pedagogical strategies to avoid harm when teaching traumatic subjects. At this intensive workshop-based three-day event, teachers read and analyse primary sources drawn from a variety of archives. We also thought about creative ways to engage with history, through drama, art, and cuisine.

To engage young people with history, it helps to go beyond the documentary record. Creative writing, museum objects, even the food we eat can all play a part in figuring out our shared histories. At this year’s residential early career researcher Taylar Carty presented sources describing how children resisted enslavement in the Caribbean; Peggy Brunache, Director of the Beniba Centre for Slavery Studies, explained how Caribbean cuisine contains clues to the historical struggles of enslaved women to find satisfying and tasty food for their families; and playwright May Sumbwanyambe talked about the importance of Joseph Knight’s legal bid for freedom in 18th century Perthshire and how he brought that to the stage. Other workshops explored African song and dance in Grenada, the Slave Voyages database and website, complaints brought by enslaved people to colonial authorities, enslaved family connections, and financial bequests made by enslavers to Scottish institutions.

Before the training weekend, participants prepared by reading carefully selected historical scholarship on African societies, the experiences of enslaved people, resistance to slavery and the impact and legacies of slavery in Africa, the Caribbean and Britain, as well as scholarship on the best pedagogical methods. Monthly reading group meetings allowed time for debate and discussion, as well as short presentations by academic experts. We believe that this kind of co-operative working will help teachers engage pupils with the latest methods and findings and allow academics to better understand how young people engage with historical research. Teacher feedback confirmed that “the academic reading and discussions broadens teachers’ understanding of different aspects of this history and perspectives that have been hidden or overlooked for so long.”

After the residential, the development of new resources, lesson plans, annotated sources, and guides, was supported by the team. You can see some of the resources created by the first cohort here. The teachers were interested in African art, resistance and rebellions, and first-hand accounts of the Middle Passage. The lesson plans created by the first cohort introduce topics using sophisticated and meaningful enquiry questions, allowing pupils to evaluate evidence and come to their own reasoned conclusions.

We’re immensely proud of the programme we have developed, not just because the teachers produced really innovative and high-quality lessons, but also because we all learnt a lot about engaging with our shared histories in a kind, respectful and compassionate way. We all think that it’s important that Scottish pupils know and understand this history and that all pupils have the chance to learn more about the rich and diverse global histories. If you are interested in learning more about the programme or have a question for the team, please reach out to arts-slaverystudies@glasgow.ac.uk

See a short video about the Teaching Slavery in Scotland programme.