Alex Renton in Conversation with Allyson Stack: Blood Legacy
Wednesday, 8 March, 2023, at 4:30pm in 40GS, Room #LG11.
In his Baillie Gifford Prize-winning Blood Legacy: Reckoning with a Family’s Story of Slavery, Alex Renton goes on a disturbing journey through his family archive, which yields up a horrific—yet not uncommon—story about his Fergusson ancestors’ involvement in Caribbean plantations where they owned, bought, and sold enslaved Africans. But this book is much more than just a family story. It also contextualises that story within the wider history of Scottish landowners and British imperial society, demonstrating how enmeshed every aspect of the British economy was with slavery and the subtle (sometimes all too invisible) ways that this legacy continues today. This book also addresses contemporary debates around reparations, tacking the question: what does a family, like the author’s own, owe to these countries where plantations were located (Jamaica and Tobago, in this instance) and its peoples—and by extension what do all of us in countries, like the UK, who have benefitted, however indirectly, owe? And should this debt to be viewed as something more than just a financial obligation? And if so, what might that entail? In pursuing these questions, and many others, the author travels to Jamaica and Tobago to speak with those still living on or near the land his ancestors occupied. He also interviews local teachers, scholars, residents, and policy makers all of whom have a wide variety of views, contributing fresh and at times unexpected perspectives.
All proceeds from the book Blood Legacy go to a host of youth developmental projects and educational institutions in the Caribbean. For more information, see the following link:
