“It Wisnae Us”
Glasgow’s built heritage, TOBACCO, the Slave Trade and a ABOLITION
Union with England in 1707 removed the legal barriers that prevented Scotland from participating in trade with the New World. This allowed Scottish merchants access to new markets. By the mid eighteenth century, Glasgow and Greenock, the city’s satellite ports. Many Scottish merchants also funded slave ships from other ports such as London, Bristol, Whitehaven and Liverpool, in what became known as the ‘triangular trade.’ British ships traded manufactured goods for slaves in Africa, and then on to slave plantations in America and the West Indies.
The direct trade with these colonies, the largest of which were in Virginia and Jamaica, led to major economic growth for Glasgow. Much praise has been heaped upon the merchant’s business acumen while the brutal reality, that sugar and tobacco were produced almost exclusively on slave labour, has been almost casually dismissed with a trite, “it wisnae us”. Only recently, has the brutal truth of this episode in Glasgow’s economic past been examined and properly acknowledged.
THe golden age of tobacco created the Tobacco Lords, who accumulated great wealth and became the Glasgow elite. They constructed townhouses, built churches, endowed public buildings and developed estates around the city that, even today, testify to their wealth. Some of these buildings are described in this guide. They illustrate the opulence in which the Tobacco Lords lived from day today, where they socialised and where they prayed. Exploring this history gives us extraordinary insight into the role of slavery in Glasgow’s mercantile past.
This map guide takes the reader on a historical journey of discovery that highlights the largely untold story of Glasgow and slavery.