Historical Context
From the 16th to the 19th century, Britian became one of the leading powers in the transatlantic slave trade—a vast system that forcibly transported more than three million Africans to the Americas. British merchants, shipowners, and investors made immense profits from enslaved labor on sugar, tobacco, and cotton plantations across the Caribbean and American colonies. The trade fueled Britain’s economic rise and imperial expansion, embedding slavery into the nation’s commerce, culture, and politics. Understanding this history reveals how deeply the slave trade shaped Britain’s wealth, social order, and global influence long before its abolition in 1834.
John Hawkins
One of the first men known to participate in the slave trade was Sir John Hawkins, whose story is explained in the video above. In the late 1550s, Hawkins kidnapped 300 African people, shipped them to Spain’s Caribbean colonies, and traded them for animal hides to bring back to Britain. Queen Elizabeth I supported two more of his slave trading voyages, realizing that this triangular trade could be very profitable for the country. The royal family continued to support the Transatlantic Slave Trade after the 1600s. King Charles I approved of the transportation of enslaved Africans to the Caribbean, King Charles II supported British companies, and founded the Royal African Company, that bought and sold kidnapped Africans, and Queen Anne directly profited from a contract she created regarding selling enslaved people to Spain’s colonies (“What can portraits tell us”). Starting in the sixteenth century, as seen with Elizabeth I, British monarchs had been encouraging overseas trade as an easy source of finance for the government. The royals gave trading companies special privileges that allowed them to monopolize the market. James, Duke of York, was a major shareholder in the Royal African Company, and with King Charles II’s support and collaboration with Edwyn Stede, governor of Barbados, the scale of British slaving rapidly increased. Separate traders made petitions and pamphlets to protest the Company's domination of the trade, supporting the idea of economic self-interest and individualism for overall economic growth. Both parliamentary parties, Whigs and Tories, had many members who were supportive of the slave trade for purposes of economic expansion, so neither the Royal African Company nor separate traders were attached to a specific party ideology.