That would probably have been for the same reasons that the same phenomenon occurred in England, that the jurisdiction of Scots (and similarly of English) law only applied within Scotland.Donny osmond wrote:I'm not going to post another long twitter thread, however I did read one just yesterday about Scots law approach to slavery over the years and in a horribly dispassionate way it was very interesting.Puja wrote:I mean, that's a whole different topic, but one that is worth touching upon. People talk about slavery back in the day like people had always owned people, no-one understood it was wrong, and it was William Wilberforce who invented the new and novel idea that you shouldn't, but it's not true. As far back as 1102, we have records of a church council of ministers from across the British Isles proclamating, "Let no one dare hereafter to engage in the infamous business, prevalent in England, of selling men like animals." The Normans despised the practice and stamped it out. During Colston's lifetime, there were preachers who spoke against it and common law even stated that slavery was impossible on English soil and there were a fair few slaves who won their freedom by making it to England. It actually turned out to be illegal in English law - it wasn't a change in the law, but just that someone managed to bring a case to an English court. It wasn't a case of "My god, these are actually people, we never realised, change the law!"; it was a case that people chucked money and influence at getting it heard so it couldn't be ignored as something that happened overseas.Sandydragon wrote:Exactly. I won't even go int the whole discussion over the legitimacy of slavery in that era and what the cultural attitudes towards it were. In today's world slavery is (correctly) reviled and that status should be in a museum to spark debate on changing moral values.
People weren't markedly different beings back then with no concept of empathy - they understood that they were selling people, but rationalised it to themselves because it benefitted them. It's not even like the Good Nazi idea where not going along with the flow puts one in danger - there was no risk to being anti-slavery except passing up the opportunity to be rich.
I'll acknowledge that being a slaver was socially without penalty in that era and it was very easy to do. But a moral person should not need the threat of obloquy to know that kidnapping, torturing, and selling human beings (and, in some cases, murdering them for the insurance money as I found out today) was wrong.
Puja
Basically Scots law used Roman definitions for over a thousand years after the Romans had gone. This meant that if one owned slaves, they were in law not regarded as people, with human rights etc, but merely as things to be treated at the whim of their owner. But only outside Scotland, inside Scotland definitions were different and people inherently had the right to not be owned... In theory, of course in reality the clan and feudal systems were in full effect.
So there seems to have been a weird duality that rich Scots owned slaves in far flung plantations and Scots courts would happily look away while those slaves were treated as mere objects to be bought, sold, raped, murdered, whatever, but those same rich merchants would be held, and indeed hold themselves, to an entirely different set of standards at home.
I realise I have taken an interesting subject and made it rubbish, but that's just how I roll.
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What it does say a lot about is social attitudes at the time though. Bear in mind also that for about 200 years, until 1775, coal miners in Scotland were held in a state of employed bondage. The Act of 1775 described the condition as "a state of slavery or bondage". If the ruling elite were able to treat their own people this way, it is hardly surprising that they felt able to indulge in slavery oversees.
http://www.hoodfamily.info/coal/law1606act.html
http://www.hoodfamily.info/coal/law1775act.html
