Bad History: The Controversy over Henry Dundas and the Historiography of the Abolition of the Slave Trade

Abstract

How far do individuals determine events and how much agency do they have? In March 2021, Edinburgh City Council approved plans to install a new plaque on the Melville monument in Edinburgh, Scotland, part of which refers to ‘the more than half-a-million Africans whose enslavement was a consequence of Henry Dundas’s actions’. These words on the plaque serve to hold Dundas (later Lord Melville) solely accountable for the consequences of a parliamentary vote taken in the House of Commons in 1792 on the gradual delay of the British slave trade. This article interrogates the historical controversy surrounding Henry Dundas’s role in abolition of the British slave trade with a focus on two main areas. First, it contradicts claims that historians unequivocally agree that Dundas delayed abolition. Second, it explores arguments that Dundas’s mobilisation of Scottish votes and oratorical skills ensured continuation of the slave trade. The article argues that historical realities were much more nuanced and complex in the slave trade abolition debates than a focus on the role and significance of one politician suggests. Edinburgh City Council therefore have the urgent moral duty to remove the plaque. Otherwise, the city faces the grave charge and international opprobrium of falsifying history on a public monument.