Statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol - would you have it torn down?

Here's the article that got me thinking:

http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/Speaker-s-Corner-Mike-Gardner-Colston-evil-men/story-21229904-detail/story.html

Text of article below:

Retired journalist Mike Gardner visited Bristol for the first time recently. Here he pleads with the city's politicians to acknowledge Edward Colston's role in the slave trade and erase Bristol's many civic tributes to this controversial man.

EDWARD Colston, who was born in Bristol in 1636, was an enormously wealthy entrepreneur who gave generously to charities, churches and schools.

But his company brutally kidnapped more than 100,000 men, women and children from West Africa condemning them to a living hell of unimaginable cruelty.

Today he still lives amongst you, a malevolent presence, more than 200 years after the last terrified black man was stolen from his family, chained, whipped, beaten and tortured by having the initials of Colston's company etched upon his chest with a red-hot branding iron.
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Colston Hall name change under consideration

You can watch a concert at Colston Hall, you can walk down Colston Street, drive along Colston Avenue, attend Colston Primary School and eat a bread bun named after him. You can work at Colston Tower, 'celebrate' his life on Colston's Day and attend a service in his honour in Bristol Cathedral alongside children wearing bronze chrysanthemums, believed to be the slave trader's favourite flower.

But worst of all, in the heart of the city, among the trees, flowers and park benches where children play and cars slowly cruise by, is an imposing – some might say magnificent – statue. It is 18 feet tall, sculpted in bronze and flanked by beautiful dolphins and relief etchings depicting Colston distributing alms to the poor. The epitaph reads: Erected by citizens of Bristol as a memorial of one of the most virtuous and wise sons of their city.

Colston is leaning on his walking stick, surveying the vicinity, a concerned look on his face, and strangers might be forgiven for assuming he was, indeed, a great man.

Yet the Bristol-born merchant and Member of Parliament is one of the most evil men in English history and his portrayal as a kind and generous benefactor brings great shame upon this city. Let's examine his life in more detail.

Colston was a senior partner and deputy governor in the Royal African Company, which held a monopoly on slave trading. By 1672, he had his own business in London trading in cloth, wine, sugar and slaves. A significant proportion of Colston's wealth came directly or indirectly from the slave trade. At one time he owned 40 slave ships.

The Royal African Company erected forts on the West African coast to protect their trade and provide holding pens for slaves purchased from various African chiefs.

Payment was made in cloth, guns, gunpowder, brassware, iron and beads, with one young, healthy slave costing around £25, which translates to around £1,200 in today's money or the price one might expect to pay to purchase the latest colour television.

Between 1672 and 1689, Colston's company transported more than 100,000 slaves from West Africa to the West Indies and the Americas. To maximise profit, his ships divided their hulls into cramped holds, so they could transport as many slaves as possible. They were stripped and chained in leg irons – the women and children were caged separately and were frequently victims of sexual abuse. Unhygienic conditions, dehydration, dysentery, smallpox and scurvy meant mortality rates for the eight-week crossing were as high as 20 per cent. Slaves who died or refused to eat were thrown overboard.

A third perished within three years of arriving in the New World after a short life of unimaginable horror, flogged and chained and starved until they could take no more, farming the fields of cotton, sugar, tobacco and molasses.

The Atlantic Slave Trade, in which Colston was such a central figure, is one of the most evil deeds in mankind's history and comparable with Nazi Germany's genocide of European Jews in the gas ovens of extermination camps such as Auschwitz.

Any reasonable person would be hard-pressed to understand how Colston could have reconciled his faith as a pious Christian with his fondness for accumulating money by the murder and torture of thousands of people. Better to contemplate the wise words of Beilby Porteus, a true man of God and a real hero. The Bishop of London was a leading abolitionist and lifelong opponent of men like Colston. Here is a wonderful quote which eloquently sums up this brave man's view of the slave trade he did so much to eradicate:

"The Christian religion is opposed to slavery in its spirit and in its principle: it classes men-stealers among murderers of fathers and of mothers, and the most profane criminals upon earth."

Evil is a powerful word which should be used sparingly and only for the true monsters of human history such as Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot, Attila the Hun and Joseph Stalin.

Colston's deeds were evil. And he was an evil man. Any attempt to defend his reputation by listing charity donations is ridiculous. Should the Nazis be congratulated for full employment, designing the Volkswagen Beetle or constructing the autobahns? No. Of course not. Here is the argument in just 48 words. Read on and make your own mind up.

FOR: Various gifts and donations to erect churches, schools, hospitals and poor houses.

AGAINST: The planned and brutal kidnapping, torture, starvation and murder for personal profit of tens of thousands of black men, women and children, the equivalent of more than a quarter of Bristol's entire population today.

It is always preferable to cultivate an optimistic disposition, to have faith in the inherent goodness of mankind, to know, deep inside you, without doubt, not for a moment, that good will always overcome evil.

And now it's time to do the right thing. It's time for the city's politicians to unite in a common purpose. It's time to rename the streets, the concert hall, the office block – everything. It's time to stop little girls wearing flowers to celebrate his birthday. It's time to stop Christians praising God for Colton's legacy.

And it's time to pull down that statue.

The comments section for the above article is a bit depressing - the most popular comments all seem to be of the form "if you care about this then it means you must not care about other things happening in the world that I think are more important". A pointless fallacy that adds nothing to the topic.

Anyway, I'm hardly expecting to see a defense of slavetrading here (I hope!) but I thought maybe this might generate some interesting discussion on the topic of what is to be done with monuments such as these. And likewise the streets and buildings named after him - should they be renamed? I'm sure this topic is also applicable to many other cities around the world, so other similar examples are of course relevant too.

There certainly is no harm in reordering civic symbolism to match changing ideas. Symbolism can be a potent force.

I'm not a citizen of Bristol, but it is plain that Colston's life and deeds are no longer tolerable as an example to be honored. Given that no one ought to champion Colston, one can go about repudiating his example in a couple of ways: one could expunge his memory by erasing his name and presence from civic places, or decide to leave his name in place, but add plaques that explain who he was and what he did and how later generations feel about that.

The big problem with going the education route is that it is much more complicated and therefore much trickier to manage than pure symbolism, and therefore much easier to misunderstand than simply giving him the boot. On the whole, I'd go with the straight boot to the head over the nuanced approach.

Welp...

nice

Drowning him in the river is a lovely touch.

“The statue should stay there to educate us!” opine 10,000 people who had never heard of Edward Colston until today.

— Samuel Pollen (@samuel_pollen) June 7, 2020

As a yank I’ll affirm I had never heard of him before today so mission accomplished

People on Twitter discussing Penny Lane now - only surefire way to keep everyone happy in this is to rename it Denny Laine.

Why didn't they just write a firm, yet very polite letter to the statues manager?

— Simon Hedges (@Orwell_Fan) June 8, 2020

TBH I think most people just walk past statues without giving them a second thought. There's one I've gone past every day for a decade and I couldn't tell you who it was of.

So yes obviously they should have torn it down but let's not pretend it was providing much educational value.

https://s0.geograph.org.uk/photos/23/08/230856_700fcebf.jpg

this "good samaritan" in my local town centre is one for up-the-arse corner and also it is such a bad piece of sculpture it almost goes back to good again in the sense of laughing at ridiculously shit attempts at public "art".

https://www.change.org/p/uk-parliament-replace-the-statue-of-winston-churchill-in-parliament-square-with-an-evangelion

i don't know why anybody even bothers to address any of the morons quibbling about the Colson statue, anything less than cheering and laughing its destruction is a bad faith argument made by a racist

So yes obviously they should have torn it down but let's not pretend it was providing much educational value.

Doesn't tell you much about slavery but does tell you plenty about the racist imperialists who put it up generations after slavery was abolished and the racist imperialists who have maintained it, against public outcry, since.

... and while we're at it.

Get rid of all these:

https://www.glasgowlive.co.uk/news/history/glasgow-history-slavery-street-names-18369259

Rename them after some of these lads perhaps:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_War

... Glasgow had 900 years of Labour councils, lest we forget.

It would mean renaming the entire district of Dennistoun though apparently!

As a yank I’ll affirm I had never heard of him before today so mission accomplished

No-one outside of Bristol had ever heard of him either, there's so many slave traders memorialized throughout the UK to choose from.

Lolico has just made the statue his Twitter avatar.

Up next: a solemn black and white image of the bus seat Rosa Parks cruelly sat on

Sheer state of Starmer’s reaction. ffs

not very forensic

looking forward to 2022's EHRC report into institutional racism in the Labour Party tbh

Tom D. re. Dennistoun - we can just rename it "Lower Haghill".

Lol @ this from the crowd who blocked discussion of his slaver past on a plaque

BREAKING: First statement from Society of Merchant Venturers, of which Edward Colston was a member. (Up until four years ago, his nails and hair were still on display at their headquarters in Clifton.)

— Martin Booth (@beardedjourno) June 8, 2020

"As people around the world, in the UK & here in Bristol take a stand against racial injustice, we are committed to educating ourselves about systemic racism & its impact. We have a responsibility to identify & challenge racism & inequality in all that we do & wherever we see it"

— Martin Booth (@beardedjourno) June 8, 2020

tbf maybe they've only just heard about the slave trade

First black member in 2020 iirc, so maybe nobody had raised it before. They carry a huge amount of behind-the-scenes influence in Bristol.

Anyone involved in the Rhodes Must Fall campaign learnt that it didn’t matter if you won the moral argument, had democratic legitimacy, or majority of students supporting.

What mattered was a bunch of very wealthy old racists threatening to take the university out of their wills

— Aydin Dikerdem (@AydinDikerdem) June 8, 2020

Final word on this should go to the man himself
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EZ-ePXfXYAEVVC-?format=png&name=900x900

not slaving but drowning

lol that's beautiful

Didn't his sole heir post and basically say "good riddance?"

I love how the only defense people ever offer up is "But history! Education!" So ... maybe consider increasing school budgets and expanding curriculums to include slave traders whose statues got dumped in the river?

Genius from NickB there.

It wasn't the real sole heir, it was just some dude with the same name. He probably regretted that within about two minutes of it going viral.

Aw. Still funny.

Had a colleague giving it SO SHOULD WE TEAR DOWN ALL THE CHARITIES AND BLAH BLAH BUILDINGS BLAH LEGACY BLAH this morning along with a PRESERVING OUR HISTORY chaser.

Apparently someone upset him by putting up alternative street name signs next to Glasgow's many slavery tributes at the weekend.

I'm just glad Robert Burns never took up that offer to work in a plantation in Jamaica or else we'd be looking at a pretty big hole in Scotland's culture industry opening up.

As a yank I’ll affirm I had never heard of him before today so mission accomplished

― Evans on Hammond (evol j), Sunday, June 7, 2020 4:39 PM bookmarkflaglink

One step further, I was all, "Wow there are a lot of protestors in ESPN's hometown."

(xp) As ever he was skint and had woman troubles tbf.

very pleased to see this happen. I was at the march but the statue was still up (albeit covered in a black cloth) when we walked past

Had a colleague giving it SO SHOULD WE TEAR DOWN ALL THE CHARITIES AND BLAH BLAH BUILDINGS BLAH LEGACY BLAH this morning along with a PRESERVING OUR HISTORY chaser.

Apparently someone upset him by putting up alternative street name signs next to Glasgow's many slavery tributes at the weekend.

My brother is involved in a Facebook argument with some guy over the rights and wrongs of pulling down this statue - a Scotsman who lives in Prague, funny how these guys often live somewhere where there aren't many black people.

always felt that these statues should never be taken away to sit in museums as it always seemed far too dignified an exit and so unbefitting monsters like colston, pleased his removal was such a festive, creative act. there should be arts council funding for an annual festival where every year someone is commissioned to build a colston statue and on the anniversary there's a theatrical staging of it being dumped in the harbour, like a mix between guy Fawkes and the fourth plinth in Trafalgar. the arnolfini should be building it into their programming already.

Seen a few people saying 'what about Marx's grave? should we throw that in the river too?'

Daaamn they got us. They got us.

I assume those same people wish all the toppled statues of Lenin and Stalin had been preserved--what about the historical value of the Berlin Wall?

I'm having some difficulty finding Stalingrad on Google Maps, should I contact Google?

xxp no doubt all those people were VERY ANGRY when Marx's grave was repeatedly defaced by right-wing nutters? Er, actually, no they didn't give a shit.

anybody got any figures on how many people Marx killed or sold into slavery?

just add up how many died in Cambodia and China during collectivisation and terror campaigns, then multiply it by two and then conveniently forget that capitalism will still have indirectly killed 10 times whatever number you've got there!

I hear Anne Applebaum could give you a more precise number seeing as she's been repeatedly writing the same book about how evil commies are for the last 15 years!

a bit shocked you said indirectly there calzino—is ilx softening you :)

I've melted!

but of course the direct death tolls from slavery and British imperialism are truly shocking and there isn't some cut off point where it becomes - to quote that french fascist on the nazi killing centres - "the details of history".

I’m in a bubble but honestly pleasantly surprised by how many people I’ve seen *not* doing the standard british denial thing over this atm. something seems to have given slightly, for now. still dreading backlash

Wait til the second spike is blamed in its entirety on the protests.

yeah

This morning the Leopold II statue in the Belgian city of Ekeren has been prepared for transport to the Middelheim Museum. #leopoldII #belgium #blm #BLMBelgium pic.twitter.com/e1fQnmAl6q

— Gert Huskens (@gerthuskens) June 9, 2020

Beautiful.

i’d prefer it was being prepared for transport to the bottomharbour museum but i’ll take it

Wait til the second spike is blamed in its entirety on the protests.

Protests warning as coronavirus death toll passes 40,000 https://t.co/hmTjrYF9Ga

— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) June 5, 2020

(Of course they’re not arsed about how we got to 40,000, that can be the fault of this weekend’s protests too)

you've got to admire the deftness with which they bamboozle a supine media and a literally braindead public

When the second wave of Covid-19 hits the U.K., please be wary of the media. They will show you pictures of black and brown faces protesting. They will not show you white faces at the seaside, nor white faces protesting. Please remember this when the time comes.

— anja madhvani (@anja_madhvani) June 4, 2020

5 says later...

#BREAKING: The City of Jacksonville began the process of removing Confederate statues overnight.

Crews were seen removing a confederate monument in Hemming Park. More are expected to be taken down in the coming days.https://t.co/N4LxC7ZBvG

— Travis Akers (@travisakers) June 9, 2020

Times up Cunt pic.twitter.com/HQsAZHkKt8

— Scott Gibson (@BigScottGibson) June 9, 2020

Good news

NEW: 'The Colston Four' - Rhian Graham, Milo Ponsford, Sage Willoughby and Jake Skuse - have been cleared at Bristol Crown Court of criminal damage for toppling a statue of slave trader Edward Colston during a Black Lives Matter protest in June 2020. pic.twitter.com/jQVCCP2jau

— Nadine White (@Nadine_Writes) January 5, 2022