- Home
- Period
- General Early Modern
- He made a fortune from Britain’s slave trade. But did he regret it?
He made a fortune from Britain’s slave trade. But did he regret it?
Edward Colston gave millions in today's money to schools, almshouses and charitable causes, carefully crafting an image of himself as a Christian benefactor. But his wealth was bound up with the trafficking of enslaved Africans. Could he ever see that contradiction?
- James Osborne
Published: August 23, 2026 at 11:05 AM
Save
- Share on facebook
- Share on twitter
- Share on whatsapp
- Email to a friend
Edward Colston spent much of his life constructing an image of virtue.
Ad
He gave money to schools, hospitals, churches and almshouses. He supported his native city of Bristol so extensively that, long after his death in 1721, his name remained attached to streets, buildings, institutions and annual commemorations. For generations, he was celebrated locally as a model philanthropist: a wealthy man who had used his fortune for public good.
That fortune was inextricably connected to the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade.
Did Colston ever acknowledge the contradiction between his public charity and his involvement in human trafficking? Did he express remorse for the suffering from which he profited?
“There’s no record of any regret or anything like that,” says historian Richard Stone, speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast.
“If anything, Colston probably would have been quite proud of his life, proud of his achievements, and proud of everything he’d done.”
Who was Edward Colston?
As Stone explains, “Edward Colston was a 17th- and early 18th-century merchant.”
“I always like to put ‘philanthropist’ as an afterthought because I think it’s important to balance what he was and who he was.”
Colston was born in Bristol in 1636 into a prosperous merchant family connected to the city’s commercial elite. Bristol was already one of England’s leading ports, trading with Ireland, continental Europe and, increasingly, the Atlantic world.
Much of Colston’s career, however, was made in London. He traded in goods, lent money and moved within the expanding commercial and financial networks that were helping to turn England into a major imperial and maritime power.
“He was a merchant and moneylender who was involved in many different things,” Stone says, “but the one he’s most noted for is his involvement with the Royal African Company.”
The Royal African Company was established under royal patronage in the 17th century. Its activities included trade in commodities such as gold and ivory. Most notoriously, it also organised the capture, purchase and transportation of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic.
This 1748 document concerns the Royal African Company, which established forts and trading posts on the West African coast and became a major participant in the transatlantic slave trade. Edward Colston was a prominent member of the company in the late 17th century, serving on its governing body and deriving part of his wealth from a commercial system built on the trafficking and enslavement of Africans | Credit: Getty Images
Colston became involved with the company in 1680.
“It had a monopoly granted by the king, giving it exclusive rights to trade with Africa, including, of course, the trafficking of enslaved people,” Stone says. “He was quite a big player in the company.”
“We know he was actively involved in decisions about buying and selling enslaved people in Africa and then, of course, shipping them across the Atlantic. He eventually rose to become deputy governor, which was basically the CEO,” Stone explains. “So, by the end of his involvement with the Royal African Company, he was the person in charge of Britain’s slave-trading company.”
The exact scale of Colston’s personal profit is difficult to calculate. But what isn’t in doubt is his seniority. During the years of his involvement, company ships transported tens of thousands of enslaved Africans into the Atlantic plantation economy.
No surviving letter, diary entry or instruction records Colston expressing repentance for his role in the slave trade.
The transatlantic slave trade was legal, commercially important and supported by the English crown. It was sustained by merchants, investors, shipowners, politicians and consumers across the country – all of whom financially benefited from the practice.
But there were some who spoke out against slavery as an aberration. Some European religious groups, including sections of the Quaker movement, increasingly criticised slavery. Sailors, missionaries and observers recorded the horrific conditions aboard slave ships and on plantations.
So, Colston didn’t live in a world where no alternative view was imaginable, or where no one had begun to question the morality of slavery. But he did belong to a commercial, political and religious culture that gave men of his class powerful reasons not to question the system from which they benefited. Law, profit, empire, racial ideology and social status all helped normalise enslavement while entirely diminishing the experiences of the enslaved.
How much did Colston give away?
At the same time, Colston’s philanthropy was genuinely extensive.
Stone cites figures calculated by researchers associated with the Bristol Radical History Society.
“They reckon he gave about £83,000 over the course of his life to various different causes, which is about £18.1 million today according to standard inflation calculations. Of that, around £63,000 – probably about £13.7 million today – went to causes in Bristol.”
Such comparisons are necessarily imprecise, and Stone agrees that there is “some uncertainty” about how the figures translate. Even so, it’s clear that Colston gave substantial sums.
His donations supported education, religious institutions, almshouses for elderly or impoverished people, and charitable schemes designed to impose discipline and order on those who received assistance.
Who created the “cult of Colston”?
Colston’s posthumous reputation was something that he had played an active hand in designing.
“In terms of cementing his legacy, I think there’s very little doubt that this was a big part of it,” Stone says.
The statue of slave trader Edward Colston on display after protesters pulled it down and threw it into Bristol Harbour during a Black Lives Matter demonstration in June 2020. Its toppling brought renewed attention to Colston’s involvement in the transatlantic slave trade and sparked wider debate over how Britain commemorates figures whose wealth was connected to slavery | Credit: Getty Images
“He wanted to perpetuate his name. He wanted that immortality. People often say that he wanted no pomp or ostentation in his funeral because he says so in his instructions for it,” Stone explains. “But then he goes on to give a detailed list of how many carriages there should be and who should attend from the various schools and institutions.”
His tomb, too, was an advert for his generosity.
“On the back of his tomb there’s a list of all the charities he gave to.”
“So who started the cult of Colston? Well, Edward Colston.”
Colston’s philanthropy was also highly selective. He supported causes that reflected his religious, political and social beliefs. As Stone notes, “I think he had a concern for the future and for the kind of society he thought should exist. Colston was very particular in his views.”
Colston was a committed High Church Anglican. That meant he belonged to a strand of the Church of England that emphasised hierarchy, episcopal authority, ceremony and loyalty to the established church. Politically, he was a High Tory, devoted to monarchy, social order and the established religious settlement.
“If someone was a Whig, he’d fall out with them. If someone was a Dissenter – a Quaker or another nonconformist – he didn’t want them attending his schools.”
Dissenters were Protestants who worshipped outside the Church of England, including Baptists, Congregationalists and Quakers. Many faced legal and social restrictions during Colston’s lifetime.
Colston’s schools were not intended to encourage independent or progressive thinking. “He was very specific in the instructions he gave about how the boys in his school should be educated, who should be admitted, and what they should be given.”
“Even the people in his almshouses were subject to detailed rules: no drinking, no swearing, nothing like that.”
“He wanted to shape the way people behaved. He wanted to shape the future of society in his own image, and he used charitable giving as a vehicle to do that.”
As for how Colston would have reacted to still being spoke about today, Stone says that “on the one hand, I think he’d be delighted that he’s being remembered and that his name is still known.” This would satisfy the desire for immortality visible in his charitable foundations, funeral arrangements and tomb.
“On the other hand, I think he’d probably be arguing with us, asking why we’re being so critical. Why aren’t we talking about the positives? Why are we condemning his business activities?”
How do we reconcile these many, complicated facets of Colston?
“People often talk about Colston the monster,” Stone says. “I tend to try to think about him as a human being because I think that’s really important.”
Humanising Colston does not mean minimising the suffering caused by the trafficking and enslavement of Africans, or treating his actions as unavoidable products of his time. But it does reflect that support for practices later condemned as immoral can often be committed by people who believe themselves principled, respectable and morally justified.
“There’s a lesson there that any of us have the potential to do the wrong thing while believing it’s the right thing,” Stone says.
Focusing only on Colston creates another problem.
“He draws all the fire, and we forget that there were over 2,000 other people in Bristol who also invested in the trafficking of enslaved people,” Stone says.
“I always say that not to defend Colston, but as a reminder that we should be thinking about everyone else as well.”
Bristol, Liverpool and London became major centres of Atlantic commerce in a vast system of exploitation. Colston’s prominence in that system makes him an important subject of scrutiny, but concentrating every moral judgement on him can allow the wider structures – and thousands of other participants – to fade from view.
Ad
Richard Stone was speaking to Dave Musgrove on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.
Authors
James OsborneSenior content producer
James Osborne is a senior content producer at HistoryExtra
Ad
Ad
Loading...
Ad
Loading...