THE Free Church of Scotland is under pressure to apologise for its role in the slave trade.

Kevin Douglass Green, the great-great grandson of one of America’s most famous abolitionists, has accused the church of accepting “blood money” from slave owners.

Douglass Green, the great-great grandson of Frederick Douglass, has called on the Wee Frees to apologise for accepting £3,000 — now worth £2m — from southern slave owners during a fundraising trip to America in the 1840s.

Soon after, his ancestor, a freed slave and outspoken campaigner, travelled to Britain and led a passionate but ultimately unsuccessful campaign to embarrass the Free Church into returning the money.

His call, which is supported by American black heritage organisations and British anti-slavery activists, comes after the Church of England indicated it was likely to offer an apology for its part in perpetuating the slave trade.

The CoE’s missionary wing owned a plantation in Barbados where slaves had the word “society” branded on their chests with an iron.

The Free Church said the issue was being considered by its expert in 19th-century ecclesiastical history. Spokesman Alex MacDonald said: “The Free Church had great struggles of conscience over the issue of its relations with slave-owners, but was very explicit in its condemnation of slavery itself.”

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