Born on November 12, 1636, Edward Colston was an English slave trader, merchant, philanthropist, and Member of Parliament. He supported and endowed schools, almshouses, hospitals, and churches in Bristol, London, and elsewhere. A significant proportion of Colson’s wealth came directly or indirectly from the slave trade.
Colston lived to the ripe old age 84 and wanted to be buried with no pomp and circumstance, but his wishes were ignored. His body was taken back to Bristol and was buried at All Saints’ Church on Corn Street.
A statue of Colston was designed by John Cassidy, was erected in the center of Bristol in 1895 to commemorate Colston’s philanthropy.
However, in recent decades, with increasing recognition of Colston’s role in the slave trade, there has been growing criticism of the commemoration of Colston in Bristol. According to the BBC, Colston was a member of the Royal African Company, which transported about 80,000 men, women and children from Africa to the Americas.
The moment #BlackLivesMattterUK pulled down the statue of merchant slave trader Edward Colston in #Bristol
Epic. pic.twitter.com/fU0BToyLNI
— Sam (@SamuelLiddell) June 7, 2020
On Sunday, June 7, protesters gathered in Bristol, and before long, Colston’s statue was ripped down with ropes to loud cheers from a crowd of demonstrators. A black protester promptly jumped on the podium and raised his protest sign to cries of delight. Another protester knelt, putting his knee on the statue’s neck.
The statue was later dragged through the streets of Bristol and thrown into the harbor. The empty plinth was used as a makeshift stage for protesters. Home Secretary Priti Patel called the tearing down of the statue “utterly disgraceful”, adding that “it speaks to the acts of public disorder that have become a distraction from the cause people are protesting about.”
“It’s right the police follow up and make sure that justice is undertaken with those individuals that are responsible for such disorderly and lawless behavior,” she said. The Avon & Somerset police confirmed there would be an investigation into the “act of criminal damage”.
Historian David Olusoga says that the statue should have been taken down long before now. He said: “Statues are about saying ‘This was a great man who did great things.’ That is not true, he [Colston] was a slave trader and a murderer.”
