A new inquiry into the history of Edinburgh University has found that the institution played an 'outsized role' in developing racial pseudo-sciences between 1750 and 1850, acting as a 'haven' for white supremacist thought. The report discovered that these theories habitually positioned Black people at the bottom and white people at the top, and that the university even collected and held Black people's skulls.
The report charges Enlightenment philosophers Adam Ferguson, David Hume and Dugald Stewart with leaving a 'damaging' legacy of ideas used to justify enslavement and colonialism. These ideas, it argues, fuelled the university's growth during a period when Scotland was deeply involved in the transatlantic slave trade.
Historical research has shown that Scots owned and managed enslaved people across the Americas, from Maryland to Trinidad. In the late 18th century, Scots comprised a third of Jamaica's white population, and Scottish surnames and placenames remain widespread across the island.
The findings build on earlier scholarship, including Eric Williams's seminal 1944 work 'Capitalism and Slavery', and challenge the notion that enslavement was a discrete chapter separate from the wider story of British national development. The report throws down a gauntlet to other institutions reluctant to examine their own historical ties to slavery.
For descendants of the millions of enslaved Africans trafficked to the Americas, the research is particularly significant, helping to answer questions about the past. While the inquiry may attract accusations of applying modern standards to historical figures, the report insists that the consequences of these racial ideologies continue to haunt society today.
