Edward Colston
1636 – 1721 English Merchant, slave trader, philanthropist
Bristol merchant and Royal African Company official who grew rich from the slave trade and whose statue was toppled in 2020.
- Religion
- Church of England
- Affiliations
- Royal African Company
Edward Colston was a Bristol-born merchant who rose to be a senior official of the Royal African Company, the body that held the English monopoly on the West African slave trade. Under his tenure the company trafficked tens of thousands of enslaved Africans, many branded with its mark, across the Atlantic. He gave much of his fortune to Bristol charities and schools, and the city long honoured him with a statue and place names. In 2020 protesters pulled down his statue and threw it into the harbour, forcing a reckoning with how the wealth was made.
In the timeline
- 1500 – 1866 The transatlantic slave trade a merchant who profited from it
- 1672 The Royal African Company and the Slave Trade a senior official of the company
- 1672 Royal African Company chartered a leading figure of the company