Wikipedia:University of Edinburgh/Events and Workshops/Scotland, Slavery and Black History

Scotland, Slavery and Black History in a nutshell: Where?: Remotely, wherever you are! When?: Four workshops starting in November 2020 Cost: Free!!! How do I sign up?: Register via Eventbrite.

Would you like to improve public knowledge of Scotland's Black history, and to help make Scotland's deep connections to Atlantic slavery better understood? Wikipedia is one of the most widely used means by which people get information, but it has lots of gaps and problems. This project will work to make it better. You might create a page for William Fergusson, the first known Black student at the university of Edinburgh and governor of Sierra Leone in the 1840s, or update the page on the controversial politician Henry Dundas to ensure that it fully represents research-based understandings of his activity in relation to slavery. Full training will be provided, and no specialist knowledge is required, just a commitment to developing accurate and comprehensive knowledge.

Come to an initial information meeting, with talks by Lisa Williams (Edinburgh Caribbean Association) and Tom Cunningham (UncoverEd) 18 November 5.30-7.00, via Teams.

Subsequent workshops will take place on three Wednesdays in January, 5.30-7.00 pm.

Come and help us improve Wikipedia's representation of history at Scotland, Slavery and Black History editing event!

Your 1,2,3 to get started!

1. Link to online MS Teams call
2. Interested to help edit? Fill this form out if so!
3. Create your Wikipedia account
   1. And once you have created your account join the Wiki dashboard

Schedule

5.30pm-7pm each session:

• Session 1 Wed 18th Nov: Talk, examples, purpose, context--sign up after that.
• Session 2 Wed 13th Jan: Researching (Jan 13), dividing people into pairs/groups to work on particular pages, provide sources.
• Session 3 Wed 20th Jan: Wikipedia training by Ewan McAndrew, Wikimedian in Residence and beginning to do the edits.
• Session 4 Wed 27th Jan: Doing the edits, publishing the work, making it discoverable (adding links), final review.

Join us as we help make Wikipedia better!

Questions about editing? Read the Wiki-editing FAQ!

Worklist

Articles to create

• William Fergusson (governor of Sierra Leone)[1] - First known black student at University of Edinburgh, born Jamaica, only black governor of Sierra Leone.
  • Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
• Jean-Baptiste Philip[2][3] - Trinidad born, studied medicine at UoE, wrote 'Free Mulatto' (1823).
  • Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
• Jesse Ewing Glasgow[4][5] - Philadelphia born African American intellectual, student at UoE 1858-60, author of pamphlet on John Brown's Harper's Ferry raid. Died young, while still a student at Ed.
  • Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
• Lothian Black Forum [6]- Anti-racist organisation active in Edinburgh 1989-92.
  • Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
• Axmed Abuukar Sheekh[7][8] - Somali student killed by fascists in Edinburgh, 1989.
  • Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
• Seetsele Modiri Molema[9][10][11] - Studied medicine at Glasgow Uni graduating 1919, President African Races Association Glasgow, secretary of African National Congress (South Africa) 1949.
  • Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Articles to edit

• Henry Dundas - Update with better information on Dundas's involvement in debates over slave trade and in imperial wars.
  • Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
• Frederick Douglass ( to include the time he spent in Edinburgh!)
  • Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
• William Wright [12][13]- Doctor and botanist, born Crieff, Perthshire, trained at U of E, spent 13 years in Jamaica, fellow of Royal Society Edinburgh, owned sugar plantation and enslaved people.
  • Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
• Bunce Island[14] - Island in Sierra Leone, with significnat role in slave trade. Currently no mention that the 'London-based firm' of Grant, Oswald and Co which took it over in 1748 had strong Scttish connections, or the significance role of Scots working there. NB also spelled 'Bance Island'.
  • Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
• James IV [15]- No mention of the significant presence of Africans at the court of James IV (King of Scotland 1488-1513). At least 5 black people lived at court.
  • Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
• Bute House[16][17] - Official residence of Scottish first minister. Add information on slave-owning residents including John Innes Crawford and Sir John Sinclair.
  • Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
• Malvina Wells[18] - Add reference to her entry in New Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women and check for any further information (but entry is relatively complete already given how little is known).
  • Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Things to remember

1. Wikipedia is a tertiary source. Articles are backed up by facts from reliable, published secondary sources. Primary sources tend not to be used.
2. Write with encyclopedic content in mind. Not academic essay. Strip back your writing to the facts.
3. Write accessibly with a lay audience in mind. Any jargon needs explained the first time it is mentioned.
4. Write with a neutral point of view. Split text up into sections.
5. Cite everything you write. Keep a note of urls (open access if possible), Journal articles DOI identifiers, Book ISBN numbers.
6. Page numbers, volume numbers and book chapters should be included in your citation information too.
7. Write in your own words as much as possible. Even close paraphrasing counts as copyright violation.
8. Short quotes can be included but need to be attributed.
9. Images have to open-licensed to be allowed on Wikipedia. CC-0, Public domain, CC-BY, CC-BY-SA licensed images are allowed.
10. Open images can be searched for using search aggregator tools such as CC Search.

Want a headstart on learning more about Wikipedia? Go to our website. Email me at [email protected] with any questions.

More useful links

Here are some useful links to help you with your editing:

• Read up to find out more about sources and verifiability.
• Check out the notability guidelines and what topics can be written about on Wikipedia.
• Consider whether you have any conflicts of interest.
• You can find advice on how to search for relevant sources here.
• All sorts of helpful guides and online resources can be found below:

• 
  A speedy guide on where to find the different buttons on Wikipedia, and explaining what they do - useful for complete beginners!
• 
  Very straightforward step-by-step instructions on how to add a piece of information to an existing Wikipedia page - useful for complete beginners!
• 
  A guide to elements to include in a wiki-biography, with a checklist to ensure you include as many as you can when editing.
• 
  A guide to adding infoboxes (those handy things on the right side of a page with a summary of key info).
• 
  A complete beginner's introduction to adding information onto Wikidata. If in doubt, take a look at someone else's Wikidata entry for inspiration!
• 
  Steps to adding a photograph to Wikimedia Commons so you can use it in a Wikipedia article - the picture has to be your own for you to add it.
• 
  Guide to creating your Wikipedia userpage to introduce yourself to other editors.
• 
  Using talk pages
• 
  Citing your sources
• 
  Avoiding plagiarism
• 
  Classroom handout - moving out of your sandbox
• 
  Polishing your articles

• You can add pictures for use on Wiki-pages and beyond on Wikimedia Commons. Your Wikipedia account will work on Commons too - as well as all the other Wiki-projects and different language versions of Wikipedia.

Here are some ways to keep track of your edits:

• You can view all your contributions to Wikipedia by clicking "Contributions" (in the top right of this page).
• The Pageviews tool is a great way of measuring how many people are looking at the page you created/edited. You can even export the data if you'd like it for reports, etc.

Once you've learned the basics of editing using Wikipedia’s Visual Editor, I hope that you'll stay logged in and edit or create more articles. As a first step you may like to check out what What Wikipedia is not along with its 5 guiding principles: The 5 pillars.

• Please sign your messages on talk pages with four tildes (~~~~). This will automatically insert your "signature" (your username and a date stamp). The or button, on the tool bar above Wikipedia's text editing window, also does this.
• If you would like to play around with your new Wiki skills without changing the mainspace, the Sandbox is for you.
• Check out upcoming Wikimedia in Scotland editing events.
• Check out upcoming Wikimedia UK editing events.

Video guides to editing Wikipedia

Want to keep editing?

Glasgow

List of articles relating to Glasgow's slave trade history.

Starting places

• Merchant City - lead section needs expansion, article mentions tobacco lords but not slavery.
• Tobacco Lords - additional references, some parts not cited. Includes list of notable tobacco lords. wording obfuscatory? not sure.

Buildings & places

• Ramshorn Cemetary
• Glasgow Museum of Modern Art
• Buchanan Street
• Glassford Street
• St Andrew's in the Square

Notable(?) tobacco lords

How do we approach this? What thinking do we need to do around writing these men's histories?

• Andrew Buchanan
• Andrew Cochrane of Brighouse
• Andrew Caskie of Kilcreggan
• William Cunninghame
• James Dunlop
• John Glassford
• Logan Lowe of Aberdeen
• Alexander Oswald
• Alexander Speirs
• George Bogle of Daldowie

Sources

• Trades House of Glasgow Digital Library
• Glasgow Uni Runaways project
• Frederick Douglass' visits to Glasgow info here