What are your links to slavery?

Anonymous argues that some of those connected with the slave trade by the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography have only the most tenuous of associations

IN 2020, JESUS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE announced its intention to remove the seventeenth-century marble memorial monument to its benefactor Tobias Rustat (right) from the college chapel where he is buried. Rustat, declared the college, a Stuart courtier described by John Evelyn as a “very simple, ignorant, but honest and loyal creature” acquired his enormous fortune through the slave trade, some of which he then redistributed to Jesus College. He had to go. I am not on the side of the statue-smashers, but I initially unquestioningly accepted Jesus College’s description of Rustat as having made his money through slavery. So I was therefore surprised to discover that Rustat’s involvement in the slave trade consisted of buying a few shares in the Royal African Company after he had already become wealthy. In fact,…

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The Critic (Digital) - 1 Issue, June 2023

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