In the event you go to Culzean Fort, a grand Scottish stately dwelling within the care of our colleagues on the NTS, you’ll be capable to see a protracted checklist of names on the wall exterior the kitchen.
The checklist is a nod to the servants who labored on the citadel over the centuries. The primary identify is Scipio Kennedy – however it wasn’t at all times his identify.
A Harrowing Journey
In 1694, a boy was born in West Africa. We don’t know what he was known as or his household historical past as a result of on the age of solely 5 or 6, he was captured in Guinea and offered into slavery. He survived the journey throughout the center passage (one leg of the commerce route between Europe and Africa) to the West Indies the place he was then bought by a Scottish man – Captain Andrew Douglas of Mains, Dunbartonshire.
It might have been one other harrowing sea voyage to succeed in Scottish shores. It’s doable the younger lad would have been travelling with out his mother and father and even one other native speaker of his language for consolation. He arrived on the age of 8.
Younger African servants, typically enslaved kids, had lengthy been considered as standing symbols in Britain. There was a practice of re-naming them after highly effective leaders, inserting the slaves’ powerlessness in sharp distinction. On this spirit, Douglas might have named Scipio after the Roman basic, Scipio Africanus.
He then seems to have been given to Jean, Douglas’ daughter.
Life at Culzean
After seemingly dwelling as Jean’s private servant in Edinburgh after which Maybole, Scipio arrived in Ayrshire in 1710 when Jean’s husband, Sir John Kennedy, inherited the Culzean property.
Engraving of Culzean Fort & outbuildings on clifftop © Courtesy of HES. Illustration in Views in Scotland.
On the age of 30, after 25 years of pressured servitude, Scipio was granted his freedom. The authorized doc drawn as much as verify his new standing hints that Scipio might have been freed after changing to Christianity.
What was Scipio’s life like at Culzean? What was his relationship like along with his homeowners, later his employers? Even along with his “freedom”, as a younger Black man in 18th century Scotland through the years of the transatlantic slave commerce, Scipio’s choices would have been very restricted. Whether or not by way of selection or lack of choices, he stayed with Jean as a household servant for an additional 19 years. He was paid an annual wage of 12 kilos.
View of the ocean from Culzean Fort
Being granted freedom did allow Scipio to get married to a neighborhood girl, Margaret Grey. They’d seven kids. The primary, Elizabeth, was born at Culzean Fort earlier than they have been married, however we don’t know a lot about his descendants.
What occurred subsequent
The couple turned concerned in weaving cotton and linen items. This was nonetheless just a few years earlier than the Industrial Revolution modified the face of the Scottish textile trade. Such work would have elevated Scipio’s independence from his home duties.
Scipio might have additionally been concerned in smuggling actions close to Culzean – there was lots of smuggling within the space on the time and proof appears to recommend the Kennedy household have been nicely conscious of this.
We predict Scipio and Margaret additionally lived in a separate home, within the prime proper of this picture.
The walled backyard at Culzean Fort from above
A part of the Household?
While we’ll by no means know the true relationship between Scipio, Jean Kennedy and her household, she did depart cash to him in her will.
She wrote ‘to Scipio Kennedy my previous servant, the sum of ten kilos sterling’. Her grandchildren acquired an identical quantity, suggesting she noticed him as a part of the household.
Scipio died on the 24 June 1774, aged 80 years previous. He’s buried in Kirkoswald Graveyard with a good tombstone erected by certainly one of his sons. It’s over 3,000 miles from the place he was born.
Need to be taught extra? Uncover Scipio’s story in additional element with this sequence of posts from the Nationwide Belief for Scotland.
Cowl illustration by Jacqueline Briggs.
