Early life
Robert Wedderburn was born in Jamaica in around 1762. His mother Rosanna was a black woman of dark brown complexion, and was enslaved in his white Scottish father's house as a house worker. His father was James Wedderburn, a slave-owner and plantation owner who was born in Scotland, and was the son of Sir John Wedderburn, 5th Baronet of Blackness, who was executed for treason following the Jacobite rising of 1745. Following this catastrophe, the young James and his brother John Wedderburn of Ballendean fled Scotland for the West Indies. James Wedderburn settled in Kingston, making a living as a medical doctor before making his fortune as a sugar plantation owner. While in Jamaica he fathered children with several enslaved women.
While Rosanna was five months pregnant with his third child, having already given birth to two children prior to that, he sold her to her previous enslaver.
James Wedderburn stipulated, however, that Rosanna's child when born should be legally free, and he officially registered both Robert and an elder brother James as free men. In later years, James Wedderburn returned to live in Britain, where his legitimate son and heir Andrew Colvile defended his father when these details were made public in the British press, denied the paternity and further claimed Rosanna was both promiscuous and unable to control her temper.
Although born free, Wedderburn was raised in a harsh environment, as his mother was often flogged due to her "violent and rebellious temper". She was eventually re-sold away from her son, who was then raised by his maternal grandmother, a woman known as "Talkee Amy".
To escape the insecurity and abuse of the plantation, Wedderburn signed on with the Royal Navy at the age of 16. On the ships, the quality of food and living conditions were abysmal, and it was during this time that Wedderburn became increasingly opposed to the method of punishments used by the Royal Navy.
