In June 2020, when a group of ignorant, woke, post-colonialist/critical theory activists tried to pull down the statue of one of my ancestors in Scotland, I was somewhat alarmed. Henry Dundas sits atop a 120-foot column in St Andrews Square Edinburgh. It was erected in 1827. And his sin? To have delayed the abolition of slavery legislation by 15 years.

I can think of many reasons why some people might want to pull down the statue of my eight times great grandfather. As former Secretary for War and first Lord of the Admiralty, Dundas was well skilled in the dark arts of politics, having been impeached (unsuccessfully) for misappropriation of public funds. But opposing the abolition of slavery is not a charge that sticks.

So where did this ‘hate’ against Dundas and slavery come from. Why is there a need to revisit the sins of previous generations by millennial virtue-seekers to rewrite history and anathamise anything to do with the slave trade?

Following Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests last year and the killing of George Floyd; one after another confederate monuments in the US have been torn down or defaced by protesters, and all because of their association with the Civil War and slavery. Many other monuments have been put into storage by authorities to protect them. Since then a witch-hunt throughout the west has exposed many organisations as profiteering from slavery, notably the Royal African Company founded in 1660, later headed up by the Duke of York, the future King James II.

When this movement hit British shores, the most notable casualty was the statue of Edward Colston, a 17th century slave trader in Bristol. His statue was torn down and tossed into the river. Then followed a campaign to tear down more statues and blacken the names of historic figures, who had invested in slavery, notably Former Prime Minister William Gladstone. His father had become one of the biggest slave owners in the Empire.

Before them, philosopher John Locke and the diarist Samuel Pepys were ‘outed’ as slavery profiteers, as was the composer George Frideric Handel. Even Eric Blair, today better known as George Orwell, the very man who’s novel 1984 focused on the concept of public humiliation, has been exposed as a descendant of slave owners!

And the witch-hunt hasn’t abated. Now Britain’s Royal Academy of Music has stated it will ‘decolonise’ its collection of musical instruments, which may include Handel’s harpsichord, and other instruments the keys of which, were inlayed with ivory or ebony and might have been tinkled by slave-owning Handel’s fingers!

While no one can condone the brutality of the Atlantic slave trade and the misery it created for thousands, is there any reason why the sins of previous generations should be visited upon this one? Today there seems to be a need in the minds of the ‘woke’, to purge our culture and history of anything connected with slavery: names, buildings, monuments - and now musical instruments!

So how much history must be rewritten? How many names blackened? How many artefacts purged? The British National Trust is examining inventories of its buildings and objets-d’art to find out which might have been built or acquired through profits from the Atlantic Slave trade, or tainted by slavery.

Across the Atlantic, tourists visiting Monticello and Mount Vernon, the historic homes of Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, must listen to grovelling apologias about the numbers of slaves kept there. They are also breathlessly reminded that Jefferson himself, fathered a child with a slave girl.

So where do we go next? Pull down Monticello and Mt Vernon, both built by slaves? And what about the White House and the Capitol, also built by slaves! This is concerning because the more organisations that cave into demands from BLM activists, the more the BLM activists will demand.

And so to the statue in Edinburgh of my Great Grandfather Henry Dundas, the one the activists wanted to pull down. The City Council has erected an explanatory notice by the monument. It states in part: that Dundas was instrumental in “deferring the abolition of the Atlantic Slave Trade….and as a result more than half a million enslaved Africans crossed the Atlantic.” This is the real story:

Dundas was a prominent member of the Scottish enlightenment and was totally opposed to slavery. Indeed he became famous when as Scotland’s Lord Advocate, he led one of the more famous legal challenges to slavery in 1776, when he won freedom for a run-away Jamaican slave, Joseph Knight. It became a test case, stating that slavery had no place in law, in the United Kingdom.

In 1792, having watched the well meaning, but politically naïve William Wilberforce’s first abolition bill defeated by vested interests in the House of Commons, Dundas intervened by introducing an amendment. He proposed introducing abolition gradually, to take effect by 1799. This time the bill passed, though it failed in the House of Lords. But the abolition process was now underway. Far from delaying abolition, Dundas was the one who got it started and thanks to his political skills, it eventually became law.

So where did “delayed abolition for 15 years” come from? This was due to a little thing called the Napoleonic wars. Anyway by 1805, Dundas was out of office.

So who teaches these activists, many of whom are students? How is such arrant nonsense left unchallenged? And how can a bunch of ignorant, ‘woke’ activists so successfully intimidate so many spineless, public institutions? The answer is fear. Fear of a hostile media. Fear of noisy demonstrators. Fear of the endless excoriation, relentless lies and half-truths, emanating from the social media.

So concerned was the Town Council of Tamworth in Staffordshire, England, that they boarded up the statue of former British Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel. They were concerned that BLM activists would try and pull it down or deface it, due to his alleged involvement in slavery.

Of course, Sir Robert Peel wasn’t involved in slavery at all. It was his father; also called Robert! But with so many ignorant activists scouring the country in search of statues to topple, the council was taking no chances.

But there is one statue which, will remain secure on its pedestal; that of Efunroye Tinubu in Lagos (see below). This powerful Nigerian lady owned 360 slaves in the mid 19th century. While reputedly a convert to abolition, there is also evidence that she continued slave trading well after the treaty. Thanks to the clamour of ignorant activists, it is often forgotten that 90% of the time it was the Africans themselves who first captured their fellow Africans, then on-sold them to slave traders; something they had been doing for over two thousand years!