Royal African Company 95pay the Company a 10 percent tax on all goods and slaves
shipped. Th e purpose of the tax was to maintain the Com-
pany’s ports and facilities. Even with the revenue derived
from the tax, the Company was struggling. Company of-
fi cials still maintained for several years that the other
merchants involved in the trade were intruders on their
territory and attempted to persecute those individuals. Th e
Company’s stock value and profi ts continued to decline and
the British government repealed the tax, but it was unable
to win back exclusive privileges.
Aft er the year 1700, the total average of slaves trans-
ported by British vessels annually grew to more than 20,000.
Th e British, by far, now led the world in the slave trade. In
addition, America had changed over the course of the rise
of the Royal African Company from labor based upon in-
dentured servants who could work in the Americas to pay
off debt and to be relieved of criminal sentences to a labor
force that was based on the enslavement of Africans. At its
height, the Royal African Company had shipped in excess
of 150,000 Africans, against their will, from freedom in Af-
rica to slavery in the colonies. Politically, the Crown’s eff orts
to regulate and control slave traffi cking was never popular
in England and was never really effi cient. Some scholars
challenge that slave trade overall was never really profi table.
In the long run, most of the Company’s profi ts were almost
completely eliminated with the construction and main-
tenance of the ports and facilities needed to continue the
trade. During the period that the Company maintained its
monopoly of the slave trade, it shipped most of the health-
ier and more vibrant Africans to the Spanish colonies while
at the same time transported the weaker and older slaves to
the British colonies. Th e plantations in America were also
charged the greatest prices for the slaves they imported.
Aft er the turn of the 18th century, merchants involved
in the slave trade increased dramatically. Before the year
1710, there were more than three times the number of
non-Company vessels to Company vessels involved in slave
traffi cking. Also the market prices that plantation owners
were paying for Africans had skyrocketed. Before the year
1700, the average price that plantation owners were paying
for Africans amounted to approximately 3 British pounds
in trade goods. By 1710, the price had increased to more
than 12 British pounds. From 1700 to 1710, the major Brit-
ish merchant in Bristol, England, transported more than
160,000 Africans to the West Indies alone. Th e involve-
ment of the Royal African Company in the slave trade hadIn 1672, the Crown, along with additional resources,
took the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading to Africa
and formed the Royal African Company. Operating with
the same basic policies, goals, resources, and monopoly that
the previous organization had, the Royal African Company
was basically the same organization with a diff erent name.
It was aft er 1672 and the next few decades that followed
when most Africans were enslaved and brought to the col-
onies as a labor supply. Th e Company built walled struc-
tures on coastal Africa to hold Africans until they could be
loaded and shipped. In eff ect, the resulting monopoly of the
Company included all goods, slaves, ships, and plantation
production involving Africans and ensured that they were
controlled by the Royal African Company. Aft er 1672, the
quantity and the cost of slaves rose dramatically.
From 1680 and 1686, the Royal African Company en-
slaved and sold an average of more than 5,000 slaves per
year and had sponsored more than 250 slave expeditions
by 1688. By 1689, more than 100,000 Africans had been
forcibly brought to the colonies. Most of the Company’s
stock was owned by businessmen who also had holdings
in North America. Th e Company’s outstanding debts rose
gradually with every year it was in operation, and by 1690,
it was indebted for more than 160,000 British pounds. As
time went by, controversy surrounding the company arose
from other English commercial entities and the plantation
owners in the colonies. Both complained of infl ation that
had exacerbated since 1672. Other merchants wanted to get
involved in the slave trade. Plantation owners complained
that they needed more slaves and many of the ones they had
received suff ered from disease, starvation, and were weak-
ened from being transported from Africa in inadequate
ships. Commercial interests seized the opportunity by capi-
talizing on the interests of the plantation owners by insist-
ing that opening up the markets to all traders would more
adequately supply the needs of the plantations and would
increase productivity in Britain by supplying more prod-
ucts. In addition, many argued that any benefi ts that the
government derived from being able to regulate the trade
were eliminated due to having only a select few that profi ted
from trading. In July 1698, the British expelled King James
II in the Glorious Revolution and halted the Company’s ex-
clusive African trading privileges.
As a result, the Company’s profi ts were signifi cantly
reduced with competition. Any other merchant who now
wished to become involved in the African trade had to