It’s 1802 in Glasgow, and the area that will come to be known as the Merchant City is in full swing. Ostentatious residences and warehouses have sprung up over the past 50 years to accommodate the “tobacco lords”: the small band of men who made their vast fortunes, lightning fast, from the triangular trade. A rapacious profit-driven system that has flourished for 150 years and is completely dependent on the enslavement of millions of African people. But the tide is turning. The abolitionist movement is growing. In five years’ time, King George III will sign into law the scrapping of the slave trade in the British Empire.
The establishment at this time, of course, remains as unshakeable as the foundations of the city’s grand new
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