Forgotten Histories: Scotland’s Coal Slaves and the Hidden Legacy of British Bondage

Britain’s Complex Legacy of Bondage: From Scottish Mines to Colonial Empire

When King Charles III expressed his “greatest sorrow” over Britain’s slavery past to Commonwealth leaders in Samoa this week, he walked the careful line between acknowledgement and apology that British monarchs have tread for generations. The irony of his position could hardly be more stark: his own namesake, King Charles II, was arguably one of history’s most prolific slave traders, having established the Royal African Company in 1672. Under that royal seal, this company trafficked approximately 80,000 enslaved Africans across the Atlantic, with a quarter of them—some 20,000 souls—perishing during the brutal middle passage. Their deaths were merely considered acceptable losses in a ledger of royal profit.

This royal enterprise was just the tip of a vast iceberg of human suffering. Between 1562 and 1807, Britain would transport approximately 3.3 million enslaved Africans across the Atlantic, making it one of the largest participants in what would become history’s most infamous crime against humanity. Yet beneath even these diplomatic pleasantries and horrific statistics lies an even more complex story of human bondage—one that cuts closer to home than many Britons care to admit.

The Slaves at Home: Scotland’s Forgotten Bondage

For while the legacy of the Atlantic slave trade rightly dominates our national conscience, another form of slavery flourished within Britain’s own borders, hidden in the dark recesses of our coal mines and saltworks. The story of Scotland’s “coal slaves” reveals an uncomfortable truth: the exploitation of human beings for profit was not merely a colonial enterprise, but a domestic one as well, suggesting that the institution of slavery wasn’t simply an overseas aberration but rather a fundamental feature of British power structures, from the monarchy down.

Consider this stark reality: In 1606, as British ships began their grim journeys across the Atlantic, the Scottish Parliament passed the “Act Anent Coalyers and Salters,” effectively enslaving its own people. Coal miners and salt workers were legally bound to their “maisters,” their children inherited their bondage, and their very existence was reduced to that of living property. This system persisted until 1799—well into the age of Enlightenment, when British intellectuals were proudly proclaiming the rights of man.

The parallels between colonial slavery and Scotland’s mining bondage are impossible to ignore. Both systems treated human beings as commodities, both passed servitude down through generations, and both served to enrich a privileged elite.

When Tony Blair expressed his “deep sorrow” over Britain’s role in the slave trade in 2007, he inadvertently highlighted this connection—his own Scottish great-great-grandfather, Charles Blair, had built his fortune on Jamaican sugar plantations worked on by African slaves.

Yet there’s a crucial difference in how we process these histories. While the horror of colonial slavery has rightfully entered our national consciousness, the bondage of Scottish miners remains a historical footnote. This selective memory serves a purpose: it allows us to imagine that true slavery happened elsewhere, committed by distant ancestors against foreign peoples, rather than acknowledging how readily British society embraced human bondage for profit.

The 1775 Colliers and Salters Act, often celebrated as a step toward emancipation, reveals the hollow nature of British reform. While it officially opened a path to freedom, it required bonded workers to complete seven to ten years of service and navigate expensive legal proceedings—a cynical gesture that kept most miners in chains while allowing the powerful to claim moral progress. Does this not echo the half-measures and empty gestures we see today in discussions of colonial reparations?

A contemporary writer, Lord Cockburn wrote in his memoirs in 1830, ‘so recently as 1799 there were slaves in this country. Twenty-five years before, that is, in 1775, there must have been thousands of them; for this was the condition of all our colliers and salters. They were literal slaves. They could not be directly killed nor directly tortured; but they belonged, like the serfs of older time, to their respective works, with which they were sold as part of the gearing.’ The colliers and salters were both affected by these acts because of the symbiosis of the industries.

The Deep Roots of British Bondage

As the Commonwealth wrestles with questions of historical justice and reparations, a more complex picture of Britain’s relationship with human bondage emerges—one that stretches far beyond the Atlantic slave trade. From the Anglo-Saxon thralls to the Victorian colliers, the British Isles have seen successive systems of human bondage evolve, each leaving its mark on society and economy.

The Ancient Chains: Pre-Norman Slavery

Before William the Conqueror’s ships touched English shores in 1066, slavery was woven into the fabric of Anglo-Saxon society. The Old English word “thrall”—from which we get “enthralled”—described a person who was literally owned by another. These slaves, who may have constituted up to 10% of the population, came from various sources:

• Debt bondage, where free people sold themselves into slavery to survive
• War captives, particularly from Welsh and Scottish territories
• Children born to enslaved parents
• Criminals sentenced to slavery as punishment

The Church of England itself was one of the largest slave-owners in Anglo-Saxon times, with monasteries depending heavily on enslaved labour. The Domesday Book of 1086 recorded over 25,000 slaves in England, though this was likely an undercount.

From Chains to Land: The Evolution of Serfdom

The Norman Conquest didn’t immediately abolish slavery, but it initiated a gradual transformation. As the feudal system took hold, outright slavery gave way to serfdom—a system of hereditary bondage tied to the land. Serfs had more rights than slaves but remained essentially unfree:

• They couldn’t leave their lord’s manor without permission
• Their children inherited their unfree status
• They owed labour service to their lords
• They needed permission to marry
• They could be sold along with the land they worked

This system persisted well into the medieval period, with the last vestiges of serfdom not disappearing until the Tudor era. Yet even as traditional serfdom declined, new forms of bondage emerged.

The Industrial Bondage

The industrial revolution, far from marking a clean break with unfree labour, simply modernised it. Scottish colliers and salters found themselves bound by law to their “maisters” in a system that historian T.M. Devine called “the last vestige of slavery in Britain proper.” This industrial bondage shared key features with both medieval serfdom and colonial slavery:

• Hereditary status passed from parent to child
• Workers could be sold between masters
• Freedom of movement was severely restricted
• Physical punishment was common
• Workers were bound for life

This system persisted until 1799, meaning that when British parliamentarians were debating the abolition of the colonial slave trade, there were still legally enslaved British subjects working in Scottish mines.

The Echoes in Modern Britain

Today’s debates about Britain’s slavery legacy often focus exclusively on the colonial period, but this narrowed perspective misses crucial context. The British willingness to profit from unfree labour wasn’t imported from the colonies—it was homegrown, with deep roots in British soil.

Consider:

• The legal frameworks developed to control medieval serfs influenced colonial slave codes
• The language used to justify Scottish mining bondage echoed defences of colonial slavery
• The gradual process of emancipation in Scotland paralleled later colonial “apprenticeship” systems
• The compensation paid to slave owners after 1833 had precedent in payments to Scottish mine owners

In a disturbing turn of history, the 1641 extension of this Act was broadened to include other laborers such as trappers, watermen, windsmen, gatesmen, and carriers, who also worked in the mines. Additionally, it mandated a gruelling six-day workweek. These conditions persisted until 1775, when the Colliers and Salters (Scotland) Act of Parliament began the slow process of liberating miners through a hierarchical approach. Under this legislation, when a father gained freedom, his family followed. However, meaningful change didn’t come until the 1799 Act, which formally declared colliers “to be free from their servitude.”

An article from Ruddiman’s Weekly Mercury dated September 16, 1778, captures this pivotal moment:

“Last week the colliers under the Earl of Abercorn wrote a letter to his lordship, thanking him for the active part he had taken in Parliament to relieve them and their brethren in Scotland from perpetual slavery, under the oppressive power of which they had long groaned…”

Though this Act technically ended miners’ legal bondage, genuine progress in working conditions wasn’t realized until the mid-19th century, as successive acts gradually improved miners’ rights and safety. Notably, these advances coincided with the salt panning industry’s decline after 1820.

This longer view doesn’t diminish the unique horrors of the Atlantic slave trade or the lasting impact of colonial slavery. Rather, it reveals how deeply embedded systems of human bondage were in British society and law. When we speak of “British slavery,” we’re really talking about multiple, overlapping systems of exploitation that evolved over centuries.

Understanding this fuller history challenges simple narratives about slavery being something Britain did “over there.” The truth is more uncomfortable: Britain’s relationship with unfree labour was intimate, domestic, and fundamental to its development as a modern nation. This context makes current debates about responsibility and reparations more complex—but also more urgent.

When King Charles speaks of “painful aspects of our past,” he’s touching the tip of an iceberg whose full dimensions we’re still struggling to map. True reconciliation requires more than diplomatic language about colonial wrongs. It demands an honest reckoning with how readily British society—at home and abroad, over centuries—turned to human bondage as a tool of economic development.

The story of British slavery isn’t just about sugar plantations and the Middle Passage. It’s also about Welsh miners who could be bought and sold, Anglo-Saxon thralls working church lands, The Norman Harrying of the North and Scottish children born into generational bondage. The Irish famines… It’s a class war that’s raged for a thousand years…Only by acknowledging this fuller history can we begin to understand the true scope of historical injustice—and our obligations to address it.