Until very recently, there were still many people across our city and across Scotland who were unaware of Glasgow's dark past.

We wouldn't think it now as our diverse city sports a rich cultural heritage, supports equality, vigorously backs radical change and fights for the disadvantaged in society. 

But, only three centuries ago, Glasgow played a significantly shameful part in Scotland's slave trade.

Between the years of 1706 to 1766 - a 60 year period - historians record 19 slave voyages leaving Glasgow's satellite ports of Greenock and Port Glasgow, with each ship carrying around 2000 to 3000 slaves on board. 

Aspects of this dark secret remain with us in Glasgow today, where many our city centre streets are named after tobacco lords, plantation owners and members of the "sugar aristocracy" – who all profited on a substantial scale from the slave trade.

Alongside infamous street names and landmarks as reminders, we can continue to learn about Glasgow's hidden secret through the city's architecture - some of this still standing, some not. 

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1. The Cunninghame Mansion - known today as the Gallery of Modern Art (above)

Today, in Merchant City, stands the Gallery of Modern Art, once home to one of the most notorious tobacco and sugar merchants in Scotland. 

William Cunninghame of Lainshaw (1731 - 1799) paid £10,000 for the mansion off the back of the plantations he owned in Jamacia. 

It has been reported he owned 300 slaves. 

Glasgow Times: Picture from Glasgow City Archives attached (ref: C852), circa 1896. Picture from Glasgow City Archives attached (ref: C852), circa 1896.

Glasgow Times: After Cunninghame's death, the mansion became part of the Royal Bank of Scotland then in 1996 the Gallery of Modern Art. 

Today, the mansion stands as a reminder of Glasgow's rich tobacco trade cultivated by enslaved people.

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2. St Andrew's Square (above)

St Andrews in the Square was completed in 1758 as a commission from the tobacco lords as a place for them to worship.

The square became a fashionable residence for some of Glasgow's wealthiest merchants and became a display of their wealth and power. 

Glasgow Times: Picture from Glasgow City Archives attached (ref: C444), circa 1860Picture from Glasgow City Archives attached (ref: C444), circa 1860

3. Tontine Hotel (above)

Reputedly, The Tontine Hotel was the first in the city and was named "The Hottle" by Glaswegians at the time. 

Before being destroyed by fire in 1911, the Tontine Coffee Rooms at Trongate would host leading figures from the community and soon became a favoured meeting place for the rich tobacco and textile merchants of Glasgow. 

It soon became renowned as the city merchants' "social hub".

The hotel made way for the city's first ever paved street outside its front door, where it has been alleged the tobacco lords would meet to discuss the price of slaves in Africa, the growing conditions of tobacco in Virginia, the sugar crop in Jamaica and the tobacco market in France. 

Glasgow Times: 42 Miller Street in 1909 (Glasgow City Archives, C1761)42 Miller Street in 1909 (Glasgow City Archives, C1761)

4. The Tobacco Merchant's House, Miller Street (above)

Still standing today at 42 Miller Street lies the former home of a major tobacco importer, Robert Findlay.

Findlay had made his fortune from tobacco in Virginia, where he had travelled to at the age of 16 to join two uncles who already owned slave plantations.

The premises once even had an iron door as shameful cash from the tobacco business were stored in the heart of the building. Some of the original iron safes where money was stored still exist today.

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Today, No. 42 has a plaque marking it as one Glasgow most important historic buildings.

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5. Tobacco Exchange (Virginia Court, above)

Just off Virginia Mansion lies the Tobacco Exchange, otherwise known as Virginia Court.

Sugar and tobacco were traded amongst Glaswegians here in te 18th and 19th centuries. 

The now pleasant court takes its names after the Virginia Mansion, which once stood on Virginia Street.

The mansion was built by Tobacco Lord Andrew Buchanan of Drumpellar, the uncle of Andrew Buchanan whom Buchanan Street is named after.

6. Tontine Heads (below)

The stone heads located on the Tontine Building were given their name after a society was established in 1781.

The heads, however, belong to the building when it was Glasgow’s Town Hall, built between the 1730s and 1750s.

They were designed to inform and entertain in equal measures while representing that the city sold tobacco.

Carved with feathered headdresses, the head followed the fashion of the time to advertise American tobacco on trade cards using crude caricatured images of Native Americans wearing similar headdresses.

Pictured behind them are slaves loading tobacco into barrels while one shelters a merchant with an umbrella.

Underneath a Tontine Head at a Glasgow Museum collection, an interpretation panel about slavery has been installed to educate visitors about their slavery links. 

7. The Black House

Once located on the corner of Argyle Street and Queen Street - where Primark now stands - towered a grand mansion made of stone from the Black Stone quarry, which was once between St George’s Road and North Woodside Road in North Glasgow.

Records show the house would have been built between 1753 and 1777 for the McCall family.

The location and style of the property indicated that the family were among Glasgow’s elite businessmen  – the famed Virginia Dons, or Tobacco Lords. Along Queen Street, they were all neighbours.

A family painting of the McCall family records the same style and colours as of that to renowned plantation owner John Glassford.

It has allowed researchers to imply the great tobacco merchants and bankers of Glasgow shared the same taste in the city they managed and developed through the proceeds of slavery.

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8. Kingston Bridge (above)

It has been alleged that like Jamacia Street, the Kingston Bridge was named in celebration of Glasgow's slave links to merchants in the Caribbean.