English monarchs & rulers

From 1561, Elizabeth I provided money and ships for privateers like John Hawkins and Sir Walter Raleigh to voyage abroad. In 1562, Hawkins violently captured around 300 Africans on the West African coast, selling them for huge quantities of spices, sugar, jewels, and other commodities.

Elizabeth I continued to profit from this and similar excursions which she funded, as well as skirmishes with Portugal and Spain. In 1585 she formed the Barbary Company in order to trade with places like Algiers and Morocco in North Africa.

In 1600 she granted a royal charter to the East India Company (EIC) with a mandate to trade with the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, and East Asia. The EIC was dissolved by the British government in 1857 when it took control of India during a period called the British Raj.

In 1606 James I granted a royal charter to the Virginia Company with a mandate to explore and colonise North America. Made up of merchants and nobles, it sought to develop colonies in Virginia and Sagadahoc, Maine which survived through the export of tobacco which was often itself used as currency. The first enslaved Africans were transported to Point Comfort, Virginia, in 1619.

In 1618 James granted a monopoly to the Company of Adventurers of London Trading to the Ports of Africa, at that time generally known as the Guinea Company.

In 1625 Charles decreed that the colony of Virginia should be under royal authority. It was increasingly reliant on plantations worked by enslaved Africans.

By 1631 the Guinea Company had run into economic difficulties and was reformed with Charles I granting a royal charter to the Company of Merchants Trading to Guinea. After this, they set up a factory called Wiampa on the Gold Coast of Africa. By the 1640s the Guinea Company had been trafficking enslaved Africans to Barbados for some time to work crops such as indigo, ginger, sugar, tobacco, and cotton. In 1636 the Governor and Council of Barbados said “[enslaved people]…that came here to be sold, should serve for Life, unless a Contract was before made to the contrary.”

In 1637 Charles I was concerned that too many people were leaving England, and issued a proclamation that only approved Anglican conformists could emigrate to New England in North America, requiring everyone to have a testimonial from their minister to say that they conformed to the order and discipline of the Church of England.

Charles I also required clergy to obtain permission from both the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London in order to emigrate, as he was worried they might otherwise promote non-conformist divisions. This is one of the earliest occasions when the Bishop of London was given some oversight over the Church of England in the colonies, although it was probably not until Charles II’s reign that he was formally given jurisdiction overseas.

Charles II became king once the monarchy was reinstated after the republic presided over by Oliver Cromwell. In 1663 he granted a royal charter to the Company of Royal Adventurers of England Trading into Africa. This gave it exclusive trading rights with Africa and a 40 year monopoly over the English transatlantic slave trade.

In 1672, the Company of Royal Adventurers was reformed as the Royal African Company (RAC) and was funded by the king, the state, merchants, aristocrats and the Royal Navy. It was given the legal monopoly and regulation of the slave trade in Africans for over 2,500 miles of the African coast.

James II served as governor of the Royal African Company for 28 years, first as the Duke of York, and then as king. For all that time, the company, and James himself, profited from the trafficking of enslaved Africans.

Although he sold his majority share for the modern equivalent of £1 million when he was usurped by William and Mary, without this continuous supply James ran out of money and tried to raise more when he sought refuge in Ireland.

The Bishop of London, Henry Compton was one of many to support the Protestants William and Mary in the ‘Glorious Revolution’ to oust King James II.

New research by Dr Brooke Newman, of Virginia Commonwealth University, has discovered that William was given £1,000 in Royal African Company shares, which would be worth about £163,000 today. Dr Newman also thinks that William and Mary continued to profit from the shares during the expansion of the slave trade.

George was governor of the South Sea Company which was set up to supply enslaved Africans to the Spanish West Indies as part of the trade agreement called the Treaty of Utrecht which granted the British a monopoly. It was called the Asiento de Negros and allowed the South Sea Company to work with the Royal African Company.

It is thought that George made a profit from his shares despite the company’s catastrophic collapse.

Elizabeth was the monarch when many countries gained their independence from British rule. Her face was depicted on the bank notes of the countries where she remained head of state.

Many of her properties and much of her wealth is thought to be the result of the monarch’s historical links with slavery.

King Charles III has expressed his ‘profound sorrow’ about the transatlantic traffic in enslaved Africans, and has announced that he is supporting research into the English/British monarchs’ historic links with transatlantic slavery. The Historic Royal Palaces are facilitating access to its collection and archives for this purpose. Some people think King Charles should apologise for the monarch’s role in slavery and make some reparation to descendants of the enslaved.