HOUSES, LIVES, AND SOME MILLIONS — NATHANIEL WHITE
WESTERN SOCIETY DOES NOT LACK TRIBUTES TO SLAVE OWNERS. FOCUSING ON HIS HOMETOWN, NATHANIEL USES PHOTOGRAPHY TO LOOK INTO BRISTOL'S LANDMARKS, BOTH ICONIC AND EVERYDAY NORMALITIES, THAT ARE DEEPLY ROOTED TO SLAVERY
by NATHANIEL WHITE
6 HOUSES, 12193 LIVES, AND SOME £16,000,000
Colston Tower, Colston Hall, Colston Avenue, Colston Street, Colston's Girls' School, Colston's School and Colston's Primary School, Colston’s Statue. My beloved Bristol does not lack tributes to slavers. Many have railed against these celebrations of slavery. There is however, a more subtle remnant of the slave trade in Bristol. And that is the city itself.
Many of Bristol’s houses were built or bought with money made through the enslavement of African people. When British lawmakers passed the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act in 1833, some 46,000 Britons legally owned 800,000 enslaved African people, twice the current population of Bristol. The following year, government paid out an equivalent of £17 billion pounds in today’s money to compensate slave owners – or 40% of their government expenditure. The enslaved people, on the other hand, had to work 45 hours per week for their former masters for a further 4 years, receiving no pay.
Seeing the houses and places built and bought with the profits from enslavement produces a kind of mental dissonance. It makes my love for Bristol a complicated one. Like their history itself, the houses of slavers are easily overlooked. There are no Count Dracula-esque mansions, no opulent displays of wealth. Only many shades of beige.
"The Bristol people have done all in their power to ruin the rural beauties of Clifton Hill by the number of abominable buildings they have erected all over it" – JAMES BOSWELL, 1776
Colston Tower, Colston Hall, Colston Avenue, Colston Street, Colston's Girls' School, Colston's School and Colston's Primary School, Colston’s Statue. My beloved Bristol does not lack tributes to slavers. Many have railed against these celebrations of slavery. There is however, a more subtle remnant of the slave trade in Bristol. And that is the city itself.
Many of Bristol’s houses were built or bought with money made through the enslavement of African people. When British lawmakers passed the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act in 1833, some 46,000 Britons legally owned 800,000 enslaved African people, twice the current population of Bristol. The following year, government paid out an equivalent of £17 billion pounds in today’s money to compensate slave owners – or 40% of their government expenditure. The enslaved people, on the other hand, had to work 45 hours per week for their former masters for a further 4 years, receiving no pay.
Seeing the houses and places built and bought with the profits from enslavement produces a kind of mental dissonance. It makes my love for Bristol a complicated one. Like their history itself, the houses of slavers are easily overlooked. There are no Count Dracula-esque mansions, no opulent displays of wealth. Only many shades of beige.