Impact of slave trade on British ports

• London was a major port for slave ships in the 18th century and the city prospered as a result of Britain’s involvement in the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
• London was a major port sending slave ships to Africa and the Americas and handling and processing most of the sugar and other slave-produced goods imported into the country.
• Many of the major institutions in London from the Bank of England to the National Gallery and British Museum are connected with the money generated by the slave trade.
• Bristol became one of the biggest centres of the transatlantic slave trade, with Bristol merchants financing over 2,000 slaving voyages between 1698 and 1807.
• These ships carried over 500,000 enslaved Africans from Africa to slave labour in the Americas.
• Many buildings and industries (sugar-refining, glass making) were set up based on Bristol’s slavery role.
• The city also sold products produced by enslaved people.
• Bristol’s Edward Colston was one of Britain’s most prominent slave traders and grew very wealthy due to the his company’s monopoly on Black African enslaved people.
• Liverpool was the main British port for slave ships and its merchants dominated the transatlantic slave trade in the second half of the 18th century.
• Located on the west coast of England, Liverpool was well positioned for journeys to and from the Americas.
• By 1795 Liverpool controlled over 60 per cent of the British and over 40 per cent of the entire European slave trade.
• The town and its inhabitants derived great civic and personal wealth from the trade which laid the foundations for the port's future growth.
• Liverpool developed a huge shipbuilding industry as a direct result of its involvement in the slave trade.
• Thousands found work because of the slave trade, including carpenters, rope makers, dock workers and sailors.
• Liverpool’s Town Hall was constructed from profits made through the slave trade.
• Liverpool also sold many of the products that were grown by those enslaved.
• Thomas Leyland became Liverpool’s richest person – he won a large sum of money in the lottery and eventually moved into the slave trade – organising slave voyages.
• Glasgow was not one of the major ports for slave ships but many businessmen became wealthy through trade based on slaving such as tobacco and sugar.
• During the 18th century Glasgow handled more tobacco imports than any other British city.
• In the 18 century, a group of wealthy merchants, known as the ‘Tobacco Lords’ pumped money made from exploiting black enslaved people on plantations into Glasgow and Edinburgh.
• Scots owned more enslaved people, plantations and shares of trade in goods such as tobacco and sugar than most other European countries.
• Many of Glasgow's streets have with references to the slave trade - Jamaica Street, Virginia Street and Tobago Street.
• Some of Glasgow’s most prominent architecture was built using profits from the slave trade.
• The Gallery of Modern Art was formerly the home of William Cunninghame, who paid for its construction from the profits of plantations he owned in Jamaica.