title: American negro in nineteenth century Scotland
title: The American negro in nineteenth century Scotland
titleType: AlternativeTitle
Creators: name: Dixon, Edward
Publisher: name: The University of Edinburgh
Year: 1969
Subjects: subject: Annexe MSc Digitisation Project 2022 Block 47
subject: Abolitionism
subject: Reconstruction
subject: Scotland
subject: Douglass
subject: Philanthropists

description: It may be significant that, after the Hayes-Tilden Compromise of 1877 and the resultant abandonment of the freed slaves to white Southern domination, no more American Negroes appear to have come to Scotland in the nineteenth century. It would have been painfully obvious to the spokesmen of the Negro cause that there was little more to be expected from the Reconstruction-weary North, and British support, had, after all, been in so many ways an extension of Northern pro-Negro and anti-slavery activity. Henceforth, the Negro had to work with a future dictated by considerations on the state and local level, to which the now apathetic North had become irrelevant, and Britain must have seemed infinitely more remote. American Negro energies were now concentrated inwards, rather than on the international sphere. The Negro had ceased to be "news" on a national American level and hence little hope of worthwhile results from future British missions could have existed. Above all, the Negro in the post-Reconstruction South was desperately trying to present himself as a viable element in the Southern scene and not as a tool of Northern or foreign agitators. From the arrival of James McCune Smith in the early 1850’s until the departure of the Fisk Jubilee Singers and Josiah Henson in 1877, the reception accorded to American Negroes in Scotland, would, appear to have changed little. Even when they were no longer fugitive slaves and thus assured of a sympathetic hearing on this account, these visiting Negroes could expect a warm welcome wherever they might go in Scotland. Despite the different threats posed by the racialism of Robert Knox and Thomas Carlyle, and the degrading stereotypes popularised by the minstrel craze, regard for the American Negro appears to have remained remarkably constant. The type of abolitionist and sympathiser who welcomed them to Scotland might have changed through the years from earnest, sober and reflective Quaker to sentimental camp-follower of Mrs. Beecher Stowe, but- the greeting offered in 1877 was just as hearty as that in 1832. None of these Negroes could be said to have come to understand the ordinary, working-class Scot. As objective social observers they were flawed, to say the least, because of their all-consuming and very understandable interest in both the task facing them and their immediate financial survival. Thus in their social contacts they almost always remained within the orbit of, first, the traditional abolitionist societies and then, after 1852, that type of upper-class philanthropist who had multiplied on the scene with the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The only Negro among those considered in this work who had any real contact with the Scottish working-class was the atypical James Newby. Both Frederick Douglass and the Fisk Jubilee Singers might have been expected to have come into contact with the ordinary people because of the breadth of their appeal, involved as: they respectively were in the Send Back the Money campaign and Moody and Sankey's; revival work. But their very fame meant that they were regarded as celebrities and thus they were cut off from the normal conversation of everyday life. The appeal of both Douglass and the Fisk Singers was based to some extent at least on their black skins which, far from detracting' from their popularity, actually enhanced it. Without doubt, all these American Negroes were regarded as novelties whenever they appeared in Scotland. Their numbers, were so few that the Scots could neither become blasé about their presence nor resentful of it as a threat to employment prospects. Usually there was a gap of at least two or three years between their appearances and so the newcomers could always be sure of a good welcome in their role of exotic strangers from across the Atlantic. Even before the emotional response to Uncle Tom's Cabin, the American Negro was regarded in Scotland by those with whom he had most contact as an appealing and deserving figure. let this is not to say that the patronage they received robbed them of their manhood. On the contrary, it was often their Scottish experiences that confirmed them in their belief in their own abilities. It is a nice point whether such a man as Douglass would have developed into the major figure he became without the advantages he gained from the Send Back the Money issue. It is perhaps unfortunate that so preoccupied with their own predicament and that of their people were many of the Negro abolitionists that they tended to miss out on the opportunity of engaging in close personal relationships with individual Scots. Of course, the fact that many were travelling all over Britain in the service of the abolitionist cause denied them the chance of stopping in an area long enough to form firm and deep friendships. In its place they had to be content with adulation and sympathy. This does not, of course, rule out the very strong probability that the Negro students and such other long term visitors as James Newby and Ira Aldridge would have made many Scottish friends in their respective spheres. As tourists some, at least, of these Negroes appear to have been as typically American as the average American visitor of to-day. Samuel Ringgold. Ward especially reflected the philistinism that is attributed, often very unfairly, to the contemporary American tourist. Those Negroes who were interested in the heritage of Scotland visited the expected areas but their emotions seem only to have been aroused by their contacts with what could be connected in some way with the struggle for Negro freedom and racial equality, such as the love expressed by Douglass and Ward for burns and everything connected with him. Obviously the American Negro's most important contribution to Scottish life in the nineteenth century was in the limited sphere of' abolitionism, lending it an interest without which the cause might have foundered. In addition he brought to the sometimes drab life of Scotland that aura of glamour that has been already mentioned. Perhaps most significant of all, the presence of the American Negro contributed to Scottish interest in American affairs and through the interaction of Negro visitor and Scottish philanthropists some closer Scottish-American links of co-operation and. understanding were forged. In the nineteenth century Scotland, having come to the end of her golden age of culture and philosophy which had produced giants as diverse as Burns, Hume and Scott, and, having lost in the more remote past her parliament and her separate regal identity, stood in some danger of subsiding into an arid provincialism. To the extent that she acquired an international sense, this descent was halted, and in playing however small a part in the extension of Scottish intellectual frontiers, the American Negro must be given his fair share of credit. However stereotyped the response to him may have seemed at certain moments, the American Negro at least brought the human reality of slavery and racial injustice home to the Scots as nothing else could have done. Before concluding, it would perhaps be as well to indicate that the American Negroes who have been considered in this dissertation are only those whose presence in Scotland is readily ascertainable. It seems certain that others were in the country; one recalls1 that Newby mentioned the presence of the three American sailors at Leith. Such more definite references as that concerning the Reverend Kinnaird*s presence at Martin R. Delany’s meeting in Glasgow further underline the fact. It is, however, more than likely that,, if they had been of any great significance, their presence would have been noted in either the records of the. Glasgow Emancipation Society or marked by the publication of a book for publicity purposes. On the other hand,, the odyssey of James Newby suggests that there may well have been other Negro visitors of no relevance to the work of abolitionist societies or educational institutions, who nonetheless played some part in widening the horizons of those Scots with whom they came into contact. Accident, and his own exotic character forces James Newby to our attention but the impact of similar, if gentler, contacts such as those he made must have had its effect on individual Scots, momentarily and perhaps permanently, but in ways of which history has no trace.