A Jacobite Portrait — George Keith Last Earl Marischal of Scotland and his ‘menagerie of heathens’

David Alston

Victoria Hall, Cromarty

David Alston’s talk ‘The Menagerie of Heathens’ will explore the portrait of the exiled Jacobite, George Keith, (last Earl Marischal of Scotland) and an enslaved African boy named Salvador. Keith led the Spanish forces which landed in Lewis in 1719 and were defeated at the Battle of Glenshiel.

Later his household in Italy, Spain and France included not only Salvador and others from Africa but enslaved people from Turkey and Kazakhstan. They were agnostic, Christian, Buddhist and followers of Islam — and they were known to Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, James Boswell and David Hume.

David’s Slaves and Highlanders: Silenced Histories of Scotland and the Caribbean was the Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year in 2022. He is currently working on an account of a murder in Larkhall in 1905 and the execution of Pasha Liffey, the only Black African to have been hanged in Scotland

Meetings begin at 7.30pm in the Victoria Hall, Cromarty and are followed by refreshments. The fee for each talk is £5 but a whole year’s membership costs only £15 for all 8 meetings. Please bring cash.

Members come from the Black Isle and beyond and further information can be found on the Society’s website at www.cromartyhistory.scot. We look forward to meeting you as the new session begins.