Recent research has identified the great importance of slavery and the slave economies in the history of Scotland. Yet, for more than acentury and a half this has not been part of the national memory. Indeed, Scots have long prided themselves in not being involved in the evils of Black slavery. Their responses have been a combination of amnesia and denial. This lecture, covering the period from the end of slavery
in the British empire until today, looks behind the mythology to explain why this was so.