1/ Statues of slave traders are toppling both in USA & in the UK. But it’s not just statues, slavery is built into every brick of this country. Barclays Bank was founded with slave profits, Bank of England funded the slave trade,
2/ & City of London was centre of slave finance. From 1761 to 1807, British traders enslaved 1,428,000 African people & pocketed £60 million about £8 billion in today's money which was invested into the UK economy. In 1770s slave profits were around 70% of investments into UK.
3/ slave profits funded the industrial revolution. Bristol was built on trading in slave sugar, Liverpool on cotton & Glasgow on tobacco. It’s baked into the bricks of country mansions & our grand buildings. During the US civil war merchants in Liverpool paid for a warship to
4/ break the blockade on the southern state’s to get access to slave produced cotton. When slavery was abolished in UK in 1883 it continued in its colonies & City of London continued to profit. 40% of UKs national budget was paid in compensation to 3000 UK richest slave owning
5/ families. Uk tax payers only paid off that debt in 2015. So kick over the statues but also demand reparations. (ps during the Cotton famine in Lancashire poor, destitute mill workers refused to handle slave produced cotton. Thats called class solidarity!) #BlackLivesMatter
6/ Whilst 15 Lord Mayors of London, 25 sheriffs, 38 aldermen were shareholders in Royal African Company of slave traders. 40 MPs were making their money from slave investments as were Anglican bishops who used to brand slaves SPG (Society for the Propagation of the Gospel).
7/ and if you don’t see slavery as sitting at the very heart of the establishment, the family of David Cameron (former PM) was paid £3 million in compensation for their slaves. Shocked? wait till you find out about colonialism & imperialism & how global South developed the UK.
