Area
Monopolistic trade (slaves, gold, ivory, wax, timber); Establishment of forts and trading posts.
Notes
Established by Royal Charter in 1672, succeeding earlier companies, with a legal monopoly on English trade with West Africa.15 Its main objective was to supply slaves for the English colonies in the Caribbean and North America, but it also traded in gold, ivory, wax, and dyewoods.15 It operated from forts and trading posts on the African coast, with a regional headquarters at Cape Coast Castle (present-day Ghana).15 Other important posts included Gambia, Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast, the Slave Coast (Offra, Whydah), and Benin.15 It faced competition from other European powers (Dutch, Portuguese, French, Brandenburgers, Danes) and from independent English merchants ("interlopers").15 It depended significantly on local African suppliers and workers for food, services (canoers), and commercial mediation.15 The monopoly was effectively broken by Parliament in 1698 (the Navigation Act), allowing independent merchants to participate in the trade by paying a 10% fee to the company.15 The company continued to operate but faced financial difficulties and increasing competition, gradually losing its prominence in the slave trade to independent traders in the early 18th century.65 Its records are preserved mainly in the National Archives (London) and in the Rawlinson Collection of the Bodleian Library (Oxford).15
Source(s)
DAVIES, Kenneth Gordon. The Royal African Company. London: Longmans, Green and Co, 1957. 15 LAW, Robin (ed.). The English in West Africa, 1681-1699: The local correspondence of the Royal African Company of England, 1681-1699. Oxford: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 1997-2006. 3 v. (Fontes Historiae Africanae, New Series). ISBN 9780197263939 (v.3). 15 PETTIGREW, William A. Freedom's Debt: The Royal African Company and the Politics of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1672–1752. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013. ISBN 9781469611815. 71 THE BRITISH ACADEMY. The Royal African Company of England in West Africa 1681–1699. Disponível em: https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/documents/577/11-law.pdf. Acesso em: 2 maio 2025. WILLIAM & MARY SCHOLARWORKS. The Royal African Company Slave Trade to Virginia, 1689-1713. Disponível em: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/context/etd/article/4997/viewcontent/10625100.pdf. Acesso em: 2 maio 2025.
Year of Source 1
1672 (Royal Charter)
