Their large number of supporters and the regional media had called them the “Colston Four”. The four young anti-racist activists Rhian Graham, Milo Ponsford, Jake Skuse and Sage Willoughby were all acquitted on Wednesday 5 January after a months-long trial at Bristol Royal Court with a popular jury. They had been indicted at the end of 2020 for “criminal damage” in connection with the unbolting of the statue of the slave owner Edward Colston, much contested protector of this large city in the south-east of England, the main beneficiary of the triangular trade between the Africa, England and its Caribbean colonies in the 18th centurye century.
Built at the end of the 19th centurye century in the heart of Bristol, the statue of Edward Colston (1636-1721), was torn from its pedestal on June 7, 2020, at the end of a demonstration in tribute to George Floyd, the African-American killed by a police officer in Minneapolis (Minnesota) in May 2020, then dragged to the nearby port, and dumped in the waters of the Avon. The very right-wing Minister of the Interior, Priti Patel, had estimated that the perpetrators of the unbolt should be prosecuted, considering as “Absolutely shameful” the birth of the Bristolian.
The event, experienced live by thousands of people, had toured the world and launched a movement to challenge the symbols in the public space of a colonial history previously written by white elites. Since then, around twenty statues of historical figures linked to the triangular trade have been removed – by order of local authorities or universities – in the United Kingdom, including those of the slave traders Robert Milligan and Sir John Cass, in London. .
An independent historical commission
The Johnson government raised the tone when the massive statue of Winston Churchill, which faces the Palace of Westminster in Parliament Square, was attacked in turn – at the end of June 2020, protesters tagged ‘was a racist’ (‘was a racist’). a racist ”) on his pedestal. To attack the ex-prime minister, a national icon, hero of the second world war, is “Shameful and absurd”, then reacted Boris Johnson, author of a biography of his illustrious predecessor.
Colston’s legacy had been quietly contested for at least two decades by activists and historians in Bristol, who called for if not the scrapping of his statue, at least the installation of a new plaque recalling his past. The one fixed on its pedestal for more than a century celebrated “One of the most virtuous and wise sons of this city”. Coming from a very old family of the local bourgeoisie, Edward Colston became in 1680 one of the members of the Royal African Company (RAC), holding the monopoly of the lucrative transport of African slaves to the British colonies of the Antilles. During Colston’s time, the RAC took over 80,000 Africans across the Atlantic – men, women and children. About 19,000 died during the crossings, not to mention tens of thousands of other victims in the Caribbean.
You have 44.46% of this article to read. The rest is for subscribers only.
