Bristol slave trade

Statue of slave trader Edward Colston, formerly in The Centre, Bristol, erected in 1895, toppled in 2020

Bristol, a port city in the South West of England, on the banks of the River Avon, has been an important location for maritime trade for centuries.[1]

In the time of Anglo-Saxon England, Bristol was the principal port for the export of English slaves to Ireland.

Bristol was the leading English port in the transatlantic slave trade in the 17th and 18th centuries. It has been estimated that Bristol merchants traded over 500,000 enslaved African people.

  1. ^ E. M. Carus-Wilson, "The overseas trade of Bristol" in E. Power & M. M. Postan, Studies in English Trade in the Fifteenth Century (London, 1933).