On Tuesday, the 24th of April we went to the David Livingstone Centre in Blantyre near Glasgow. As we had been studying the Transatlantic Slave Trade, we went to David Livingstone’s birthplace to find out more about what this famous Scottish missionary/doctor/explorer did to end the slave trade.

We learned that:

the coal miners were lodgers in David Livingstone’s house. -Aimee

David slept with four of his brothers and sisters in one bed. -Megan F.

24 families had to stay in the same house and each family got only one room to live in. -Ross

bread was kept in a basket hanging from the ceiling so that mice and rats couldn’t get it. -Charlie

the eldest daughter would have to go downstairs with a yoke and buckets to collect the water. -Kate and Ross

David’s Granny put leftover porridge into a drawer to keep for another day. They didn’t waster food. -Jordan

at the age of 10 he worked in a cotton mill. It was exhausting, backbreaking, dangerous work. He didn’t like it. -Taryn

the only food they ate was vegetables, pig’s hooves and sometimes cow’s organs as well. -Chloe

they had outside toilets and no toilet paper. They used leaves and put sand over their waste. -Kloe

even though David Livingstone died in Africa, his body was brought back to Britain (without his heart and his other organs, which were buried under a tree in Africa). -Lauren K. and Lewis

his friends wrapped his body in bark and bamboo sticks and in cotton and carried it for miles to a ship. -Charlie

David Livingstone wasn’t selfish and he cared about the victims of the slave trade. He tried to stop the slave trade by creating other ways to trade handmade items like beads. -Lauren C and Aimee