WATCH: How Your Banks Made Money From Slavery

In Empires of Dirt, we uncover the ugly history of Europe’s colonial powers – how they oppressed and exploited entire countries, systematically looted their wealth and natural resources, and mined the rest of the world for relentless profit.

In short: It’s a show about Europeans getting rich at the expense of everyone else.

The far-reaching repercussions of colonialism are still with us today, from our financial institutions to the food we have in our cupboards at home.

In this episode, we look at how the City of London and its biggest financial institutions – including high street banks still in operation today – profited from slavery in America long after the slave trade was abolished in the UK.

This is a story about how banks – maybe even the bank you use – made money off the trafficking and exploitation of enslaved Black people.