Object Talks: Dr Anthony Lewis

Curator of Scottish History, Dr Anthony Lewis, discusses some of Glasgow Museums’ slavery related collections, currently in storage at Kelvin Hall.

This YouTube Playlist contains four videos:

1. The Ram’s Horn/Chest of Drawers

Glasgow made money from trading in tobacco. The crop was grown, harvested and prepared by enslaved African people in America, and then shipped to Port Glasgow and Greenock.

2. Print of the Trongate

This view of Trongate shows the Town Hall, called the Tontine after 1782. It was in here that Lord Provosts, and councillors, and then sugar merchants, took decisions to develop the city, and Port Glasgow, to accommodate tobacco, sugar, cotton and the goods grown by enslaved Africans on American and Caribbean plantations.

3. The Cotton Industry

The textile industry was fundamental to Glasgow, and Scotland’s development in the 1700s. Weavers, spinners and mills dominated the workforce, and skyline. Cotton grown and harvested by enslaved Africans in America and the Caribbean, was fundamental to the industry’s success.

4. Hogshead Barrel

Barrels called hogsheads were a basic unit of measurement for importing and exporting goods. Barrel after barrel of tobacco and rum, for examples, were shipped from America and the Caribbean to Port Glasgow for Glaswegian merchants to sell on throughout the known world. These hogsheads were full of the products enslaved people had grown on the plantations of the British Empire and its trading partners.