Oswald, James

has biography | a une biographie: Scottish merchant and politician in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Oswald's wealth firmly derived from the proceeds of transatlantic slavery, both through his own familial network and his commercial interests as a cotton manufacturer. His father, Alexander Oswald (1738-1813), was a 'tobacco lord' in Glasgow, while his cousin, Richard Alexander Oswald (1771-1841), was awarded slavery compensation for the Pemberton Valley estate and Boscabelle Pen in Jamaica. Legacies of British Slavery has possibly linked Oswald himself to further compensation claims in Jamaica, but there is no evidence at present to fully confirm this.

As Member of Parliament for Glasgow, Oswald did support Parliamentary moves towards the abolition of slavery in 1834, when he assisted representatives of the pro-slavery Glasgow West India Association on their visit to London, as well as an abolitionist petition calling for an end of the apprenticeship system in the British Caribbean. Oswald's changing position on the question of slavery may have been the result of a shift in his own personal values, but it could equally have been a commercial recognition of the broader shift towards free-trade in Britain.
was born | est né: 2 May 1779
died in | est mort par: 3 June 1853
has nationality | a la nationalité: Scotland; United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
has type | est de type: depicted

is referred to by | est référencé par: Wikipedia; Legacies of British Slavery - James Oswald; Legacies of British Slavery - Richard Alexander Oswald; Stephen Mullen, 'Glasgow, Slavery and Atlantic Commerce: an Audit of Historic Connections and Modern Legacies', (Report for Glasgow City Council, 2022)

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Items with "main figure depicted | personnage principal représenté: Oswald, James"
Statue of James Oswald, Glasgow