ABSTRACT
I am standing alone in the ornate eighteenth-century music room (1748-56) of Norfolk House, St James Square, London, that has been reconstructed in the Victoria and Albert Museum. The cream, gold and green room is dominated by a large giltframed mirror above the fireplace. My face looks back at me, and sets me thinking about the myriad faces that have also been reflected in similar tin-mercury amalgam mirrors over the previous three centuries. This cultural heritage reconstruction of a now-silent music room serves a didactic function, for every face that stands before this mirror – free and enslaved, men, women and children – is reflected, regardless of rank, race or status. I suffered a moment of disquiet as I realised the failings of my discipline (history) for, while mirrors reflect, historical narratives and historiographical trends do not; rather, they select and distort. Nor are the historical and legal records from which historical accounts spring an accurate or complete reflection of every aspect of the past; at best, they too are opaque. The archive must constantly and purposefully be read against the grain to reveal the sinews of historical complexity. This is especially so for eighteenth-century slaves caught up in the reality of cases of elite domestic disquiet in Scotland.1
