Dundee's untold history with the slave trade

The Black Lives Matter campaign has started a debate around the untold history of Britain and the Slave trade.

There's growing pressure from anti-racism protesters for cities to recognise the notable figures who made their riches from the sale of enslaved African people.

Bristol City Council says the statue of 17th century slave trader Edward Colston will be put in a museum after it was thrown into a river by anti-racism protests.

Meanwhile, Edinburgh City Council is in talks to place a plaque on the statue of Henry Dundas, who towers above St Andrew Square.

Dundas's life has come under fire, due to obstructing the abolition of slavery, leading to thousands more black people being taken into slavery.

Tay News has been hearing how Dundee is no different, as slaves across the Atlantic were dressed in Linen from the City of Discovery.

Dundee's textile industry may not have been as successful as it has if weren't for the slave trade, according to a Scottish historian.

Professor of Scottish History from Dundee University, Chris Whatley, said: "In the later 18th and early 19th century Dundee was renowned for its ability to make coarse linen. That cloth was old in large quantities, I'm talking about hundreds of thousands of yards over the years to the slave plantations.

"Many of the individuals and small companies established in and around Dundee in the 18th Century owe much of their profits to this particular market."

Professor Whatley added: "It seems that the Chamber of Commerce in Dundee was not particularly excited about, perhaps even opposed to the abolition of slavery.

"Apparently they didn't want to get involved in that campaign, partly because they feared, of course, that the market that they'd established by this time it was expanding it into South America and other places like Haiti, and they didn't want to lose that market."

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