The apology comes as Britain increasingly reckons with the legacy of its colonial past in the wake of the Black Lives Matter global anti-racism protests. Following the publication of an academic study commissioned by the Glasgow City Council on the city’s links to human trafficking. “Follow the trail of money for the slavery of the Atlantic and its tentacles reach every corner of Glasgow,” council leader Susan Aitken told colleagues at a meeting Thursday. “It’s clear what this report says is that the blood of victims of trafficking and African slaves, their children and their children’s is built on the very bones of this city.” One of the main findings of the report was that 40 of the 79 presidents or mayors of Glasgow were involved in the Atlantic slave trade between 1636 and 1834. Some were sitting at the desk holding enslaved people. At least 11 buildings in Glasgow are associated with people involved in trade, while eight people involved have monuments or other monuments in the city. A total of 62 streets in Glasgow are named after slave owners who built their fortunes on tobacco plantations. These include Buchanan Street and Glassford Street, named after “tobacco lords” Andrew Buchanan and John Glassford. James Watt, whose locomotive improvements led to the Industrial Revolution, was personally involved in the trafficking of a black child for sale to a family in northeastern Scotland, the report said. “The amendment I am proposing today can no longer be ignored and asks us to do three things: acknowledge, apologize and act,” Aitken said. Glasgow council executive Annemarie O’Donnell said the city recognized that blacks, Asians and minority citizens wanted the council to “recognize the historical legacy of slavery based on the exploitation of African slaves.” The report, by Stephen Mullen, an academic at the University of Glasgow who has written extensively on the city’s bondage to slavery, was “a step towards healing the anger and frustration” these citizens feel, he added.
