The Story of the Tumbling Lassie
The true story of the Tumbling Lassie begins in 1687, in Scotland. A young girl, known to history only by her nickname of "the tumbling lassie", was used by a mountebank (a sort of travelling showman) to entertain the crowds at his shows with her gymnastics. She was getting worn out and doctors said that if she went on performing, it would kill her. The tumbling lassie fled and took refuge with a couple from the Scottish Borders, called the Scots of Harden. The showman sued the Scots in the Court of Session in Edinburgh and produced a contract which bore to show that he had bought the tumbling lassie from her mother - and he argued that he "owned" her. The only surviving report of the case shows that his claim was thrown out by the Court, with the memorable statement "But we have no slaves in Scotland, and mothers cannot sell their bairns..." By all accounts, this was a remarkably early judicial declaration that slavery was illegal, in international terms. After years of struggle, slavery is now illegal all over the world. Tragically, that has not prevented it surviving, even in Scotland. It is thought that there are now more people held in slavery or slave-like conditions in the world than there were at the height of the North Atlantic slave trade. In 2015, a group of advocates (lawyers at the Scottish bar) decided to work together, as "the Tumbling Lassie Committee", to celebrate the 1687 case by raising the profile of the modern challenges of combatting slavery and people trafficking in Scotland and elsewhere, and to raise funds for charities which work successfully to free victims and to help them transition into life as free people. The charities currently supported are International Justice Mission (IJM), which frees people from slavery by working with local justice systems in the developing world and supplies aftercare to those who have been freed, and Survivors of Human Trafficking in Scotland (SOHTIS), which looks to support those rescued from trafficking in Scotland as they recover and to minimise the risks of re-trafficking. If you would like to learn more, there is plenty of additional information about what we have done in the past and our current plans on our website at www.tumblinglassie.com. Thank you for your interest in the Tumbling Lassie.
