Famous Scots. Joseph Knight.

Joseph Knight was born in Africa, captured and enslaved in his youth and sent to the Caribbean, but he ended his life in Scotland, a free man.

Although records are unclear, Knight believed that his country of birth was Guinea. What is known, however, is that he was transported from Africa to Jamaica, between the ages of around eight and twelve years old. Then, in the slave market in Jamaica, he was bought by a Scot, John Wedderburn the 6th Baronet of Blackness, to be a slave on his sugar plantation.

Perhaps unusually, Wedderburn trained Knight as a household slave, and did not have him working in the plantation fields. During his time with Wedderburn in Jamaica, Knight became literate and was a valuable member of the Wedderburn household.

Wedderburn had originally travelled to Jamaica to seek his fortune because his family lands had been stripped from them after the battle of Culloden. His father, also John Wedderburn, the 5th Baronet of Blackness, had been a staunch Jacobite who had fought for Bonnie Prince Charlie at the Battle of Culloden in 1745. He somehow survived the massacre, only to be captured and subsequently executed.