The house is now part of Trinity College, Bristol, England. There is a dark side to the story of Trinity. The college’s main building, Stoke House, was completed in 1669 for Sir Robert Cann, who was a prominent merchant and was, at various times, mayor of Bristol and a Member of Parliament.
Research into the history of Stoke House carried out in 2020 by our Director of Postgraduate Research, Dr Jamie Davies, revealed links between the Cann family and the transatlantic trade in enslaved peoples. It is, he concluded, “beyond reasonable doubt” that Stoke House exists because of profits from this trade. The Cann family, he discovered, was not only passively complicit in this trade, but was itself actively involved through the kidnapping, purchase, and sale of slaves, and was involved in promoting and defending the practice of transatlantic slavery from its inception.
No comments:
Post a Comment