![]() ![]() Knight appealed the decision in the Perth Sherriff Court and won, with the ruling that – The justices disagreed however, and found in favour of Wedderburn. Knight argued, that because there was no slavery within Scotland itself, that although he may had been ‘legally bought’ in Jamaica, when he had arrived in Scotland he had automatically become free. Wedderburn case began in 1774, in the Justice of the Peace Court in Perth. The first legal challenge of the Knight vs. This catalysed a legal battle that would last for four years and result in the abolition of personal slavery within Scotland in 1778. Wedderburn refused him and Knight was subsequently arrested. Annie and Knight married and later Annie became pregnant and Knight wanted to leave the Wedderburn household to set up his own home with his wife and child. Joseph Knight continued to live and work in the Wedderburn household where he fell in love with a local servant girl called Annie Thomson. Upon returning to Scotland Wedderburn purchased the Ballindean estate in Perthshire, where Ballindean house, an 1832 rebuild of the original, still stands today. Once Wedderburn had made a sufficient fortune in the colonies, he returned to Scotland in 1769 to reclaim his family land and title, taking Joseph Knight, with him. Jamaica showing the John Wedderburn plantation (top left) He purchased a sugar plantation on his arrival in 1747 and within twenty years had become one of the biggest and most successful landowners on the island. Wedderburn himself had owned as much as ten percent of the entire landmass of Jamaica at one time. In the eighteenth century, the British were the largest exporters of sugar in the world, and by 1800 Scotland owned around thirty percent of the sugar plantations on Jamaica. He found a ship sailing from Glasgow that would allow him to work onboard to pay for his passage to the Caribbean. Because of this, Wedderburn’s son, finding himself without home, money, or prospects, emigrated to Jamaica to seek his fortune. To be a Jacobite was considered treason by the British government at the time, so as well as hanging, drawing and quartering the unfortunate elder Wedderburn, the Wedderburns’ family lands and titles were stripped from them. He somehow survived the massacre, only to be captured and subsequently executed. His father, also John Wedderburn, the 5th Baronet of Blackness, had been a staunch Jacobite who had fought for Bonnie Prince Charlie at the Battle of Culloden in 1745. Wedderburn had originally travelled to Jamaica to seek his fortune because his family lands had been stripped from them after the battle of Culloden. During his time with Wedderburn in Jamaica, Knight became literate and was a valuable member of the Wedderburn household. Perhaps unusually, Wedderburn trained Knight as a household slave, and did not have him working in the plantation fields. ![]() Then, in the slave market in Jamaica, he was bought by a Scot, John Wedderburn the 6th Baronet of Blackness, to be a slave on his sugar plantation. What is known, however, is that he was transported from Africa to Jamaica, between the ages of around eight and twelve years old. ![]() Joseph Knight was born in Africa, captured and enslaved in his youth and sent to the Caribbean, but he ended his life in Scotland, a free man.Īlthough records are unclear, Knight believed that his country of birth was Guinea. ![]()
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