Statue of Slave Trader Robert Milligan Taken Down in East London

Authorities in East London removed a statue of British slave trader Robert Milligan from West India Quay on June 9, video posted by a local council shows.

Tower Hamlets Council announced the removal of the statue, which stood outside the Museum of London Docklands. In a Twitter post, the council added that it planned to review “monuments and other sites in our borough to understand how we should represent the more troubling periods in our history.”

Milligan was a British slave trader who owned two plantations in Jamaica and over 500 slaves at the time of his death in 1809, according to the Museum of London.

In a statement posted to Twitter, the museum said that the statue “has stood uncomfortably outside the Museum of London Docklands for a long time.”

The removal of Milligan’s statue comes after protesters in Bristol took matters into their own hands on June 7, dismantling a monument to slave trade Edward Colston and hurling it into the city’s harbor. Credit: Tower Hamlets Council via Storyful