DURING this Black History Month I will be telling the stories of black people in Scotland and will also write about Scotland’s role in the slave trade.

This week I start with the extraordinary story of black slaves who fought for freedom in Scotland’s courts, and next week I will concentrate on Joseph Knight, surely one of the bravest individuals ever to stand before a court, whose life as a black man in Scotland is instructive of how black people were viewed in the 18th century, and whose stance against his own enslavement made legal history. If you can’t wait until then you can read his life story, which has been told in an excellent award-winning novel by James Robertson, while a major play is planned by the National Theatre of Scotland with a short film already out as a sort of trailer for the play.

The reason why Knight’s tale is so important is because his court case in the 1770s ended with the ringing declaration that slavery was not legal in Scotland. Even though Scots were heavily involved in the slave trade, the Court of Session judged that slavery was illegal here – an important step forward in the battle to end the evil trade.

It is commonly thought that Knight’s case was the first to reach the courts, and it certainly was the first to be decided, but there were two prior and very courageous attempts by black slaves to free themselves through court action. Because Knight was successful, more attention is usually paid to his story, but I think the two other black men who went to court to try and gain their freedom should also be championed, because their bids concentrated the minds of the legal eagles of Scotland on a subject which was very divisive in Scotland at the time.

For ever since the Act of Union in 1707, Scotland’s overseas trade was protected by the Royal Navy, and from the 1730s onwards that allowed the slave trade to flourish and Scottish merchants were either directly involved in transporting and selling slaves or benefited from slavery on the increasing number of plantations that Scots owned in America and the West Indies.

As early as 1656, a commissioner sent by Oliver Cromwell wrote of Glasgow involved in trade with “the Barbadoes”, and Scottish merchants went on to carve out a huge slice of the market for sugar, rum, cotton and tobacco in the next two centuries. Black slaves in Scotland itself were the preserve of the wealthy as it became fashionable to have a black boy or girl attending upon a household.

The first freedom case was in 1756 and involved James “Jamie” Montgomery, previously known as Shanker, who had been bought by merchant Robert Sheddan of Morrishill in Ayrshire from slave trader Joseph Hawkins for the sum of 56 pounds, 12 shillings and sixpence. Sheddan wanted to send Montgomery to Virginia to work for him there, but by then his slave had been baptised a Christian – an important point as there were divisions in the Church of Scotland over the morality of slavery, with many seeing slave ownership as unChristian.

On the way to being transported across the Atlantic, Montgomery escaped to Edinburgh but Sheddan pursued him and even took out adverts seeking information about his slave. Montgomery could hardly hide himself away and Sheddan’s agents soon caught him and had him imprisoned in the Tolbooth.

From there, Montgomery took his case for freedom to the Court of Session and had lawyers supporting him with what appeared to be a strong case on the grounds that no law existed that made slavery legal in Scotland. Sheddan demanded a quick hearing as he was responsible for Montgomery’s upkeep in the Tolbooth, but sadly Montgomery took ill and died in December, 1756, before the court could hear the case.

In 1769, David Spens or Spence, usually known as Black Tom, fought an action in the Court of Session against Dr David Dalrymple of Methil, who had bought him for £30 in the West Indies. Spence accompanied his master home to Scotland when he fell ill, but after the doctor recovered, Dalrymple said in court papers that he was going to send Spence back to the West Indies for sale and make a profit.

Spence was also baptised by then, but Dalrymple claimed this was a “pious fraud”, with the anti-slavery campaigner John Henderson blamed for putting the notion in Spence’s head that becoming a Christian would gain him his freedom.

Spence escaped from Dalrymple and he and Henderson decided to fight for his emancipation.

Records preserved by the National Archives of Scotland contain the basis of Spence’s pleading against Dalrymple: “I am now by the Christian Religion Liberate and set at freedom from my old yoke bondage and slavery and by the Laws of this Christian land there is no Slavery nor vestige of Slavery allowed nevertheless you take it upon you to exercise your old Tyrannical Power over me and would dispose of me arbitrarily at your despotic will and Pleasure and for that end you threaten to send me abroad out of this Country to the West Indies and there dispose of me for money.”

That was Dalrymple’s intention – he reckoned he could make £60 from selling Spence, and he asked the Court of Session for the return of his slave and expenses and damages. The court agreed, and Spence was then captured and taken to Dysart jail and fined £30 into the bargain.

Two lawyers, William Chalmers and Walter Ferguson, raised the money from local people in Fife to pay Spence’s fine and took his case to the Court of Session.

The Spence case was highly anticipated, and might well have seen slavery declared illegal eight years before it was, but Spence never had to go to full hearing to win his freedom, for Dr Dalrymple died in 1770 before the case could be heard. By the death of his master, Spence was thus made a free man, but sadly we don’t know what happened to him afterwards.