1. Proposals for Liverpool ' s Canning Dock include a pedestrian bridge and contemplation space © Asif Khan Studio the Museum of Liverpool) as well as the Liverpool Arena, Conference Centre and significant numbers of bars and restaurants. Nearby are the‘ Three Graces’ – the iconic Liver Building, Cunard Building and Port of Liverpool Building which are emblematic of the city’ s public representation as a maritime and financial centre. However, this landscape has traditionally made little explicit reference to the city’ s origins as a major imperial port.
Liverpool, Slavery and Empire
Liverpool’ s growth as a city was predicated on the growth of trade facilitated by the expanding docklands, of which the most significant in the city’ s early growth was the transatlantic slave trade. In the 1690s, Liverpool was little more than a fishing village, and its prodigious growth into a city of around 80,000 people by 1800 was largely financed by transatlantic slavery – by the 1740s it was the UK’ s( and probably Europe’ s) principal port involved in the transatlantic slave trade. By 1797, the abolitionist clergyman Reverend William Bagshaw Stevens
EUROPE INSIGHT
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