Obstruction

During the 18th and 19th centuries, owning a burial plot at the Ramshorn Cemetery was a status signifier amongst the merchant class. The plots were intended to function as monuments to the wealth of those who could afford them. Many of the merchants who purchased plots there traded principally in goods produced by slaves. Many of the merchants buried there were slave owners. Many of these merchants also served on Glasgow’s city council. The cemetery is now administered by the city council. When the cemetery is open, it operates as a public site of historical tourism and sustains the continued veneration of Scottish families who built Glasgow through their pivotal roles in the slave economy and the colonization of Maryland, Virginia, and Jamaica. Its unauthorized closure is a black antagonism of this “heritage.”