Joseph Knight : Scotland and the Black Atlantic

A quotation from Ben Okri’s Birds of Heaven – written in the context of a Nigeria wrestling with postcolonial nation building – opens James Robertson’s Joseph Knight.[1] This theme of a nation facing its own historical truths points to the drive of Robertson’s historical novel: to open up the established national narrative of Scotland to the black Atlantic issues of slavery, rebellion, race and class. Scottish involvement in the slave trade and slave produce has long been an uncomfortable area for a nation which prides itself on being built on ideals of liberty. Thus, the Scottish presence as plantation owners and overseers in Jamaica and the presence of black slaves in Scotland have both been largely forgotten. Indeed, Carla Sassi establishes that amnesia is a central theme of the Caribbean in Scottish literature.