apparently due to the influential society called the 'Society of Merchant Venturers'. They seem to be a self elected but very wealthy and influential group in Bristol with places on all the boards of governors, charities etc and while it might be clear what the people and politicians have wanted, they have been blocking things for decades.
But why have they done this?
I know from experience that to engage in this kind of resistance means some people had a very vested interest in that statue remaining where it was. It's a lot of work and effort to continually push for a policy against the tide of public opinion in this manner.
So why? What's the reason for their position? Because I think it could be very illuminating to discover why they've continually blocked the removal.
graphic content warning, his company branded the slaves – including women and children – with its RAC initials on their chests.
I suspect the majority of those branded would have been women and children. Henry Louis Gates has done a tremendous amount of very detailed work on the Atlantic slave trade, and discovered that around 75 percent of ALL African slaves trafficked to the Americas were women and children.
When l learnt that, it really shocked me but, of course, it makes logical sense. Many slaves were essentially prisoners of war/pillage/internecine violence, so many of the adult males of their tribe or family would have been killed in the process.
It's also very hard to capture an adult male and force him into chains/into a holding cell/onto a ship, unless you've a lot of manpower and weapons (and this is a time, o vs, before effective firearms).
So when we talk about the Atlantic slave trade, we are essentially talking about the trafficking of women and children, which I personally think gives the subject a very certain particular type of profundity.