LOOK AT THE DIRECTION OF THE TRIANGLE....
ITS THE SAME ONE USED BY THE SLAVE TRADERS... SOUTH THEN WEST THEN NORTH ... A PYRAMID OF CRIMINAL TRADE.
NATWEST BANK & SLAVERY
THE LINKS TO THE SLAVE TRADE
Before I comment first read this
reference material:
Address: 32 Corn Street, BS1 1HQ
Date: Georgian period (1714-1837)
Ref:
On the wall of the Natwest Bank there is a
plaque which remembers ‘The Old Bank’ that was first set up in 1750. This was
the site of one of the first banks outside London. The Old Bank was started up
by traders to Africa, which shows the link between the slave trade in Bristol
and the development of the banking system.
The bank's origins date back to 1658 with the
foundation of Smith's Bank ofNottingham.[1] The creation of the modern bank was announced in 1968, and
National Westminster Bank Limited commenced trading on 1 January 1970, after
the statutory process of integration had been completed in 1969.[2] The famous three arrowheads symbol was adopted as the new
bank's logo; it is said to symbolise either the circulation of money in the
financial system or the bank's three constituents, National Provincial Bank,
Westminster Bank, and District Bank (The District Bank was established in 1829, and was acquired
by National Provincial Bank in 1962 and allowed to operate under its own name
until the formation of National Westminster Bank. The District, National
Provincial, and Westminster Banks were fully integrated in the new firm's
structure, while Coutts & Co. private bankers (a 1920 National Provincial acquisition,
established 1692), Ulster Bank in Northern Ireland (a 1917 Westminster acquisition,
established 1836) and the Isle of Man Bank (a 1961 National Provincial acquisition, established 1865)
continued as separate operations. Westminster Foreign Bank (established 1913)
was restyled International
Westminster Bank in 1973. Duncan Stirling, outgoing chairman of Westminster
Bank, became first chairman of the fifth largest bank in the world.[
Slavery and the rise of the Banking system – Background
information
‘From
the 1660s the British economy flourished thanks to banking and other financial
institutions. Overseas trade and colonial expansion relied on trading houses,
insurance companies and banks. The slave trade relied heavily on credit and the
risks meant a growth in maritime insurance. Before the 1660s there were no
banks in London, and even a century later, banking was under-developed outside
the city. The Bank of England was set up in 1694, and underpinned the whole
system of commercial credit, and its wealthy City members, from the governor
down, often made their money wholly or partly in the slave trade. Provincial
banking across England only emerged in the 18th century.
Because
slave voyages could take 18 months, and each of the three legs of the journey
involved buying and selling, credit was used to underwrite the journeys. In the
early days of the slave trade, a group of merchants, or what we would now call
venture capitalists, would finance a ship; over time more formal financial
organisations including Lloyds and Barings banks were established for this
purpose. Enslaved Africans were insured as goods, along with other property’.
Corn Street
Corn Street was the street where many merchants did business during the 1700s. They traded in cloth from India, butter, eggs and chickens from Wales, goods made from iron from the centre of England, and slave produced goods from the Caribbean and North America such as sugar, tobacco, coffee and chocolate.
Natwest Bank
The National Westminster Bank on Corn Street has a plaque on the wall that commemorates the Old Bank, that was originally set up in nearby Broad Street in 1750 (see site 9 of Sweet History? trail). This once was the site of one of the first banks outside London. This was one of the banks that eventually merged into the National Westminster Bank. All but one of the bank’s founders were traders to Africa, including Merchant Venturer Isaac Elton. This shows the connection between Bristol’s slave trade and the development of the banking system.
Corn Street was the street where many merchants did business during the 1700s. They traded in cloth from India, butter, eggs and chickens from Wales, goods made from iron from the centre of England, and slave produced goods from the Caribbean and North America such as sugar, tobacco, coffee and chocolate.
Natwest Bank
The National Westminster Bank on Corn Street has a plaque on the wall that commemorates the Old Bank, that was originally set up in nearby Broad Street in 1750 (see site 9 of Sweet History? trail). This once was the site of one of the first banks outside London. This was one of the banks that eventually merged into the National Westminster Bank. All but one of the bank’s founders were traders to Africa, including Merchant Venturer Isaac Elton. This shows the connection between Bristol’s slave trade and the development of the banking system.
ONCE
heralded as the second city in the kingdom, noted for its industrious residents
and overseas trade, Bristol has a long and illustrious banking history.
The city's first banking enterprise,
founded in 1750 in Broad Street, was the Bristol Bank, known later as the Old
Bank.
Two of the partners, Onesiphorus
Tyndall and Isaac Elton from Clevedon Court, had financial interests in West
Indian sugar and the trade in slaves.
In 1777 the bank moved to Clare Street
and, in 1794, to No 35 Corn Street.
In 1826 the Old Bank merged with rival
bankers Ames, Cave and Co which had established itself as the New Bank in Corn
Street in 1786.
Other partners in the New Bank included
well-known Bristol businessmen Joseph Harford, George Daubeny and Richard
Bright.
Another early bank (1752), situated in
Corn Street, was the Miles Bank, which in 1820 merged with the Harford Bank,
based in Small Street.
The Miles Bank also played an important
role in financing Bristol's sugar trade with the West Indies. Many of the
partners owned estates there.
In 1877, Miles, Harford and Co merged
with the Old Bank, which had nine partners – the most powerful businessmen in
the city.
However, 1891 saw the end of this
Bristol institution as it became part of a four-way banking conglomerate,
dominated by London's finance houses.
In 1908 this amalgamation, then known
as Prescott's Bank, moved to No 36, Corn Street.
Ten years later, after yet another merger,
the Old Bank came under the umbrella of the National Provincial Bank, which
already had an office in the city.
In 1968, the National Provincial Bank
and Westminster Bank merged to become the National Westminster Bank – NatWest –
now a division of the Royal Bank of Scotland.
Read more: http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/Notable-history-Bristol-s-sterling-bankers/story-19383742-detail/story.html#ixzz3B76QjWVq
Read more at http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/Notable-history-Bristol-s-sterling-bankers/story-19383742-detail/story.html#F8ThXY3hx5ZVPezB.99
On Corn Street is an
impressive, honey-coloured building with a worn stone plaque proclaiming
"the Old Bank". The bank was formed by slave traders and, after being
merged with others, went on to become the NatWest.
Such buildings are testimony to a trade that was conducted with
extraordinary vigour. It is estimated that Britain transported more than three
million African people across the Atlantic (500,000 on Bristol ships alone), an
epic trade that involved some 10,000 voyages and swelled the coffers of the
owners. By the Victorian era, as many as one in six of the wealthiest Britons
derived at least some of their fortunes from slavery. Few seemed to have any
qualms. The Quakers, for example, had been enthusiastic investors.
"Before 1760, they were up to their eyeballs in it,"
said Madge Dresser, associate professor in history at the University of the
West of England. Later they were in the vanguard of the 19th-century
antislavery movement.
The
Triangular Trade
The Transatlantic
Slave Trade had three stages:
STAGE 1
- Slave ships from Britain left ports like London, Liverpool
and Bristol for West Africa carrying goods such as cloth, guns, ironware
and drink that had been made in Britain.
- Later, on the West African
coast, these goods would be traded for men, women and children who had
been captured by slave traders or bought from African chiefs.
STAGE 2
- African dealers kidnapped
people from villages up to hundreds of miles inland. One of these people
was Quobna Ottabah Cugoano who described in the
autobiography how
the slavers attacked with pistols and threatened to kill those who
did not obey. They marched the captives to the coast where they
would be traded for goods. The prisoners would be forced to march long
distances, as Major Galan describes, with their hands tied behind
their backs and their necks connected by wooden yokes.
- On the African coast,
European traders bought enslaved peoples from travelling African dealers
or nearby African chiefs. Families were separated.
- The traders held the
enslaved Africans until a ship appeared, and then sold them to a European
or African captain. It often took a long time for a captain to fill his
ship. He rarely filled his ship in one spot. Instead he would spend three
to four months sailing along the coast, looking for the fittest and
cheapest slaves.
- Ships would sail up and
down the coast filling their holds with enslaved Africans. On the brutal ‘Middle Passage',
enslaved Africans were densely packed onto ships that would carry them
to the West Indies.
- There were many cases of
violent resistance by Africans against slave ships and their crews. These
included attacks from the shore by ‘free' Africans against ships or
longboats and many cases
of shipboard revolt by slaves.
STAGE 3
- In the West Indies enslaved Africans would be sold
to the highest bidder at slave auctions.
- Once they had been bought,
enslaved Africans worked for nothing on plantations.
- They belonged to the plantation owner, like
any other possession, and had no rights at all. The enslaved Africans were
often punished very harshly.
- Enslaved Africans resisted
against their enslavement in many ways, from revolution to silent,
personal resistance. Some refused to be enslaved and took their own lives.
Sometimes pregnant women preferred abortion to bringing a child into
slavery.
- On the plantations, many
enslaved Africans tried to slow down the pace of work by pretending to be
ill, causing fires or ‘accidentally' breaking tools. Whenever possible,
enslaved Africans ran away. Some escaped to South America, England or
North America. Also there were hundreds of slave revolts.
- Two thirds of the enslaved
Africans, taken to the Americas, ended up on sugar plantations. Sugar was
used to sweeten another crop harvested by enslaved Africans in the West
Indies - coffee.
- With the money made from
the sale of enslaved Africans, goods such as sugar, coffee and tobacco
were bought and carried back to Britain for sale. The ships were loaded
with produce from the plantations for the voyage home.
..............................................................................................................
AND My 2 cents:
1. There’s NO doubt that
the British banking institutions have profited from the slave trade.
2. Particularly, one of
the main ones was created by what is known as the” triangular trade”. This was
the symbol which was and still is the forerunner of the modern day NATWEST
which is now owned by the Royal Bank of Scotland.
3. The culprits or
merchants who were in the slave trade were bailed out by the government of the
day for their own mistakes. Similar to what happened in 2008 ; Many of those responsible
for the slave trade were compensated which is even sick to consider now.
And what have the people of Africa and their
descendants been compensated with?
More instability, more exploitation and more
insecurity.
Until Britain acknowledges its debt to the slave
trade and to Africa and acts on it– all of
us will not be free.
We don’t want your charity, we want your respect.
Robin Denton
President
Africa Unite Movement
Bristol.UK
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