Mungo Park

On the high street in Selkirk is a peculiar memorial to one Dr Mungo Park. A celebrity in his day, this eighteenth-century explorer and doctor was one of the first Europeans to seriously consider the vast geography of Africa. Although not actively opposed to the appalling European trade in African slaves, some of his comments may well have persuaded fair-minded readers that Africans and Europeans were of the same species of creature:

whatever difference there is between the negro and European, in the conformation of the nose, and the colour of the skin, there is none in the genuine sympathies and characteristic feelings of our common nature. -from Travels in the Interior of Africa

He also describes the ‘Slatees’, the African merchants who were only too pleased to sell their fellow men to the European ship captains:

“The long-wished for day of our departure was at length arrived, and the Slatees (black merchants) having taken the irons from their slaves, assembled with them at the door of Karfa’s house where the bundles were all tied up, and every one had his load assigned him. 

If the legacy of slavery is to persuade some that Africans were not truly human, it was equally deceitful in persuading others that whites alone were to blame for it. Transatlantic slavery did and does cause division and hatred; it is the Bible that reminds us that all men and women are made in God’s image and are accountable to the Great God for their actions.

My hope is now approaching to a certainty. If I be deceived, may God alone put me right, for I would rather die in the delusion than wake to all the joys of earth. May the Holy Spirit dwell in your heart, my dear friend, and if I ever see my native land again, may I rather see the green sod on your grave than see you anything but a Christian. --Dr Mungo Park