New report into how Glasgow celebrated links with the slave trade
Audit identifies statues, streets and buildings connected with slavery
Last updated 30th Mar 2022
A report into Glasgow's links with slavery has identified eight statues in the city representing people connected with the trade which involved the forced shipping of people from Africa to work plantations in West Indies and America, and the associated trading of sugar, tobacco and cotton.
Glasgow City Council commissioned the Glasgow Slavery Audit which also looked into the history of the names of many of the streets in the city and the background of many of the most prominent buildings and mansions.
It found 40 of the city's Lord Provosts were linked to the Atlantic slave trade during a two hundred year period, and some sat in office whilst owning enslaved people.
Author, Stephen Mullen, began the project in October 2019, but it had to be paused when the Covid pandemic hit in early 2020 and has also been delayed by restrictions on accessing archives and libraries.
READ MORE: Glasgow building wins vote to host slave trade musuem
Statues linked to the slave trade
The report says eight individuals with connections to Atlantic slavery are commemorated across multiple monuments and other representations in Glasgow, with many of them in a prominent position in George Square.
They include James Oswald, who inherited family wealth tied to slavery, and James Watt – the Greenock-born improver of the steam engine – who was involved with colonial commerce in Glasgow in the 1750s and 1760s, including the trafficking of a Black child named only as Frederick.
The list also include British Army figures John Moore and Colin Campbell who had roles in upholding the system of slavery in the colonies of the British West Indies, and the Lanarkshire missionary David Livingstone, who was a cotton spinner in Blantyre Mill which was owned by Henry Monteith who was in partnership with two Glasgow-West India merchants in the 1810s.
Forgotten history of Glasgow's street names
Addressing the legacy in the built heritage of Glasgow the audit finds 62 streets and locations have a ‘direct’ or ‘associational’ connection to Atlantic slavery, and minimum of 11 existing mansions and urban buildings which connected to individuals who were involved in the trade.
READ MORE: Campaigners change the names of slave trader streets
The backgrounds of the Lord Provosts of Glasgow Town Council between 1636 and 1834 were examined, and the report says 40 out of the 79 had some connection to Atlantic slavery, and some sat in office whilst owning enslaved people.
However, the report also notes its surprise that there are no public monuments to Glasgow’s most famous colonial merchants – the so-called tobacco lords – and suggests this might be a reason that there was not greater public interest in Glasgow’s links to Atlantic slavery until after 2000.