65. The Tobacco Lords & the Slave Trade, Merchant City, Glasgow

In this episode Neil takes us on a very personal journey around his old stomping ground, the Merchant City district in Glasgow. It was built by the mighty Glaswegian Tobacco Lords, men whose trading fortunes made them the Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates of their time. In the late C17th and into the C18th their trading ships ensured great wealth poured into Glasgow and they built huge warehouses, veritable cathedrals to commerce, to store their goods . But these riches came at a deadly human cost, every pound and dollar was made on the backs of African slaves. The Triangular slave trade transported men, women and children from Africa to the American colonies, then tobacco, cotton and other commodities were brought back to Europe on the return trip.

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