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The Guardian owner has apologized for his role in the slave trade and announced a decade-long program of restoration.

The Scott Trust will invest more than £10m in the program following an investigation that found the newspaper’s founders, including John Edward Taylor, invested in transatlantic trade.

Taylor, the journalist and cotton merchant who founded the paper in 1821, and at least nine of its 11 patrons, had ties to slavery, mainly through the textile industry.

Taylor had multiple ties through partnerships in the Oakden & Taylor cotton manufacturing company and the cotton trading company Shuttleworth, Taylor & Co, which imported large quantities of raw cotton produced by enslaved people in the Americas.

Researchers from the universities of Nottingham and Hull were able to identify Taylor’s ties to plantations in the Sea Islands, along the coast of South Carolina and Georgia, after reviewing an invoice book showing that Shuttleworth, Taylor & Co received cotton from the region, which included the initials and names of the landowners and slaveholders.

West Indies merchant Sir George Philips, another early Guardian financier, was also part owner of the Success sugar plantation in Hanover, Jamaica, The Guardian reports.

Philips unsuccessfully tried to claim compensation from the British government in 1835 for what he considered the loss of his human property, which numbered 108 people.

However, his partner successfully claimed £1,904 in compensation, which is worth approximately £200,000 today.

The Scott Trust also announced that millions will be dedicated to affected communities linked to the slavery investments of the 19th century founders of The Guardian.

The trust also apologized for early editorial positions that served to support the cotton industry and thus the exploitation of enslaved people.

The Guardian announced it would also expand its reporting on Black communities in the UK, US, Caribbean, South America and Africa, with plans to create 12 new Guardian journalistic roles and launch new editorial formats to better serve to black audiences.

The Scott Trust will also fund a new global scholarship program for black mid-career journalists and expand the Guardian Foundation’s training scholarship scheme.

Ole Jacob Sunde, Chairman of the Scott Trust, said: “The Scott Trust deeply regrets the role that John Edward Taylor and his backers played in the cotton trade. We recognize that apologizing and transparently sharing these facts is only the first step in addressing The Guardian’s historical links to slavery.

“In response to the findings, the Scott Trust is committed to funding a restorative justice program over the next decade, to be designed and delivered in consultation with local and national communities in the US, Jamaica, UK and elsewhere, focused on long-term initiatives and significant impact.”