British Imperialism and its Legacies: Transatlantic Slavery

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Glasgow Museums has a range of collections connected to transatlantic slavery. Objects include maps showing the expansion of Glasgow as its wealth grew through trade in products produced by enslaved people. There are also portraits and busts of merchants who made money as a result, such as Arthur Connell, James Ewing, John McCall, and John Glassford and family, with an enslaved child in the background. There are artworks that capture the growth of Glasgow, its new streets named after prominent merchants, and buildings, such as sugar houses, that relied on transatlantic slavery. The collection also holds associated items such as punch bowls, tobacco pipes, fine clothing made of cotton, and mahogany furniture.

While in comparison to some English ports, few ships left Glasgow with the principal aim of trading in cargoes of enslaved people, Glasgow’s merchants did virtually monopolise the trade in tobacco and sugar produced by enslaved people, and cotton provided employment for numerous millworkers in the west of Scotland. Many Glaswegians would have found employment in the Caribbean as plantation owners, overseers and doctors.

However, these items don’t reveal much about the brutal experiences of being enslaved. Enslaved people, who were forcefully brought from Africa to the Americas, were primarily used for land preparation, the harvesting of crops and their preparation. The work was extremely intensive, especially during harvest time, and many enslaved people were literally worked to death.

The system of transatlantic slavery saw people, and land, as commodities to exploit in order to produce products that made white Europeans and North Americans rich. Fulfilling demand for products such as sugar, tobacco and cotton relied on the expansion of plantations, in turn demanding the greater use of enslaved people and the destruction of the natural environment to create space for these crops. This huge loss of biodiversity across the Americas contributed to today’s climate crisis.

Enslaved people never just passively accepted their oppression; they fought against their enslavers, sometimes overtly – organised rebellions and the establishment of Maroon communities across the Americas – and sometimes in more subtle, coercive ways. Occasionally they managed to escape their enslavement, and while we have some objects testifying to these experiences – such as ‘Runaway Slave’ adverts in The Mitchell Library – the majority of the collection focuses on the people who profited from transatlantic slavery, or the products produced by enslaved people.

But we do have items reflecting the richness and complexity of African societies before, during and beyond transatlantic slavery, and evidence of some of the ways enslaved people retained their African cultural identities and practices despite attempts to suppress them. For example, Glasgow Museums has a collection of orisha figures by Cuban artist Filiberto Mora that show how African religious practices were adapted and continued by enslaved people in the Americas.

When it comes to understanding the histories of transatlantic slavery, what histories would you like to see represented? What objects or artworks could tell these stories? Get in touch to share your thoughts.

Broader term

British Imperialism and its Legacies

Narrower term

British Imperialism and its Legacies: Africa before, during and beyond enslavement

British Imperialism and its Legacies: Experiences of Enslavement

British Imperialism and its Legacies: Scotland’s built heritage

British Imperialism and its Legacies: The Products of Enslavement