Edward Colston: The father of Bristol's slave shame

Retired journalist Mike Gardner visited Bristol for the first time recently. Here he pleads with the city’s politicians to acknowledge Colston’s role in the slave trade and erase Bristol’s many civic tributes to this controversial man.

Edward Colston, who was born in Bristol in 1636, was an enormously wealthy entrepreneur who gave generously to charities, churches and schools.

But was it enough to compensate for the brutal exploitation of more than 100,000 men, women and children who Colston’s company kidnapped from West Africa before cramming into slave ships and sailing to the New World and a living hell of unimaginable cruelty.

EDWARD Colston still lives among you, a malevolent presence, more than 200 years after the last terrified black man was stolen from his family, chained, whipped, beaten and tortured by having the initials of Colston’s company etched upon his chest with a red-hot branding iron.

You can watch a concert at Colston Hall, you can walk down Colston Street, drive along Colston Avenue, attend Colston Primary School and eat a bread bun named after him. You can work at Colston Tower, ‘celebrate’ his life on Colston's Day and attend a service in his honour in Bristol Cathedral alongside children wearing bronze chrysanthemums, believed to be the slave trader’s favourite flower.

But worst of all, in the heart of the city, among the trees, flowers and park benches where children play and cars slowly cruise by, is an imposing - some might say magnificent - statue. It is 18 feet tall, sculpted in bronze and flanked by beautiful dolphins and relief etchings depicting Colston distributing alms to the poor. The epitaph reads: Erected by citizens of Bristol as a memorial of one of the most virtuous and wise sons of their city.

Colston is leaning on his walking stick, surveying the vicinity, a concerned look on his face, and strangers might be forgiven for assuming he was, indeed, a great man.

Yet the Bristol-born merchant and Member of Parliament is one of the most evil men in English history and his portrayal as a kind and generous benefactor brings great shame upon this city.

Let’s examine his life in more detail.

Colston was a senior partner and deputy governor in the Royal African Company, which held a monopoly on slave trading. By 1672, he had his own business in London trading in cloth, wine, sugar and slaves. A significant proportion of Colston's wealth came directly or indirectly from the slave trade. At one time he owned 40 slave ships.

The Royal African Company erected forts on the West African coast to protect their trade and provide holding pens for slaves purchased from various African chiefs.

Payment was made in cloth, guns, gunpowder, brassware, iron and beads, with one young, healthy slave costing around £25, which translates to around £1,200 in today’s money or the price one might expect to pay to purchase the latest colour television.

Between 1672 and 1689, Colston’s company transported more than 100,000 slaves from West Africa to the West Indies and the Americas.

To maximise profit, his ships divided their hulls into cramped holds, so they could transport as many slaves as possible. They were stripped and chained in leg irons - the women and children were caged separately and were frequently victims of sexual abuse. Unhygienic conditions, dehydration, dysentery, smallpox and scurvy meant mortality rates for the eight-week crossing were as high as 20 per cent. Slaves who died or refused to eat were thrown overboard.

A third perished within three years of arriving in the New World after a short life of unimaginable horror, flogged and chained and starved until they could take no more, farming the fields of cotton, sugar, tobacco and molasses.

The Atlantic Slave Trade, in which Colston was such a central figure, is one of the most evil deeds in mankind's history and comparable with Nazi Germany's genocide of European Jews in the gas ovens of extermination camps such as Auschwitz.

Any reasonable person would be hard-pressed to understand how Colston could have reconciled his faith as a pious Christian with his fondness for accumulating money by the murder and torture of thousands of people. Better to contemplate the wise words of Beilby Porteus, a true man of God and a real hero.

The Bishop of London was a leading abolitionist and lifelong opponent of men like Colston. Here is a wonderful quote which eloquently sums up this brave man’s view of the slave trade he did so much to eradicate:

The Christian religion is opposed to slavery in its spirit and in its principle: it classes men-stealers among murderers of fathers and of mothers, and the most profane criminals upon earth."

Evil is a powerful word which should be used sparingly and only for the true monsters of human history such as Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot, Atilla the Hun and Joseph Stalin.

Colston’s deeds were evil. And he was an evil man.

Any attempt to defend his reputation by listing charity donations is ridiculous. Should the Nazis be congratulated for full employment, designing the Volkswagen Beetle or constructing the autobahns? No. Of course not. Here is the argument in just 48 words. Read on and make your own mind up.

FOR: Various gifts and donations to erect churches, schools, hospitals and poor houses. AGAINST: The planned and brutal kidnapping, torture, starvation and murder for personal profit of tens of thousands of black men, women and children, the equivalent of more than a quarter of Bristol’s entire population today.

It is always preferable to cultivate an optimistic disposition, to have faith in the inherent goodness of mankind, to know, deep inside you, without doubt, not for a moment, that good will always overcome evil.

And now it’s time to do the right thing. It’s time for the city’s politicians to unite in a common purpose. It’s time to rename the streets, the concert hall, the office block - everything. It’s time to stop little girls wearing flowers to celebrate his birthday. It’s time to stop Christians praising God for Colston’s legacy.

And it’s time to pull down that statue.

By Mike Gardner

Originally published in Bristol Post