In order to navigate your way around the Bristol trail you can either click on the boxed numbers located on the map above or click on the links on the right-hand side of this page. Another way to search for specific areas of research is to enter the search term in the search box at the top of this page.
This is a town trail with a difference. It aims to show you what the handsome squares and quaint buildings of a pleasant English city have to do with one of the ugliest and most destructive events in human history… the Transatlantic slave trade.
Bristol is over 1000 years old. It has been a city for over 700 years. Its involvement with the Transatlantic slave trade lasted just over 150 years from around the 1660’s to the early 1800’s. So the history of Bristol is not just about the enslavement of Africans. Nor was Bristol the only slaving port in Britain. But it was the trade in Africans, and even more importantly, the trade in the goods from slave plantations, which helped to make Bristol such a beautiful and prosperous port. The places you will visit on this trail are real places and you will learn about those who walked these same streets before you — in the days of slavery.
