CHAPTER XV THE ENGLISH SLAVE TRADE AND THE AFRICAN SETTLEMENTS THE English slave trade had a life of about a century and a half as an active branch of national commerce, and during this period it contributed greatly to the building of the overseas Empire on both the eastern and western coasts of the Atlantic. To it in no small measure was due the economic progress of some of the American sea-board colonies and of the West Indies, while from the posts established for the pursuit of the trade the British West Africa of to-day has developed. The vital importance of this trade in the seventeenth century as the very foundation of West Indian prosperity has been to some extent obscured, partly by later arbitrary distinctions between commercial history and colonial history, and partly by the work of the humanitarian writers of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, who have made the slave trade appear so dark a disgrace to those who shared in it that there is a natural reluctance to admit its great importance in the overseas Empire of the Stuarts and Hanoverians. No such separation of the interests of the colonies from those of trade existed in the days of the Board of Trade and Plantations, and no reluctance to give the slave trade its due weakened estimates of its value by contemporary writers. An anonymous pamphlet of 1749 expresses views typical of those found in many others: The most approved Judges of the commercial Interests of these Kingdoms have ever been of opinion that our West-India and African Trades are the most nationally beneficial of any we carry on. It is also allowed on all Hands, that the Trade to Africa is the Branch which renders our American Colonies and Plantations so advantageous to Great Britain: that Traffic only affording our Planters a constant supply of Negroe Servants for the Culture of their Lands in the Produce of Sugars, Tobacco, Rice, Rum, Cotton, Fustick, Pimento, and all other our Plantation Produce: so that the extensive Employment of our Shipping in, to, and from America, the great Brood of Seamen consequent thereupon, and the daily Bread of the most considerable Part of our British Manufactures, are owing primarily to the Labour of Negroes; who, as they were the first happy instruments of raising our Plantations: so their Labour only can support and preserve them, and render them still more and more profitable to their Mother-Kingdom. The Negroe-Trade therefore, and the natural consequences resulting from it, may be justly esteemed an inexhaustible Fund of Wealth and Naval Power to this Nation.1 The rise of this all-important trade, if the English share only be considered, was extraordinarily rapid. In 1650 England had no organised slave trade, yet twenty-five years later a flourishing trade was being carried on by an English company. Two factors contributed to this rapid progress: the first that though the English had no slave 1 Anon., The national and private advantages of the African Trade considered, London, 1749. trading company in 1650 they had an old-established African trade, and the second, that an Atlantic slave trade had been developed by other European countries so that the pioneer work had already been done when English merchants in the mid-seventeenth century began to share in it. The early English voyages to Africa have been treated in another chapter of this volume,1 and here the story is taken up at the time when royal patronage was openly given to groups of Guinea Adventurers. Part of the price of English support to Don Antonio in his struggle against Spain was the opening of the Portuguese African territories to English enterprise, and in 1588 Queen Elizabeth made the first royal grant of privileges for trade with Africa. 2 Within the district of the Senegal and Gambia only, the Adventurers were allowed a monopoly of the trade. Supported by royal patronage the organisation of the African trade advanced rapidly. In 1618 James I granted a monopoly of the trade in West Africa to Sir William St John and others, under the title of "The Governor and Company of Adventurers of London trading to Gynney and Bynney". These Adventurers, however, failed to serve the object of their charter-the securing of a large supply of gold—and their privileges were adjudged a grievance in the monopoly debates of 1620-1.4 A second company was composed of some of the interlopers who had broken the Gynney Company's monopoly. They united under Sir Nicholas Crisp and received a grant of the sole trade of the African coast for thirty-one years, and the sole right to import any African commodities into England. The special service of this Company to the development of the English African settlements was the building of a fort on the Gold Coast at Cormantine, and a walled factory near Sierra Leone, to protect its trade. These Adventurers continued to be the English monopolists of the African coast until changes were made under the Commonwealth. In spite of their privileges they found difficulty in carrying on the trade because of the heavy burden of defence against European enemies and the rivalry of English interlopers who were extremely active on the coast at the time. The Commonwealth Council of State considered the African trade of sufficient importance to merit careful investigation and in 1650 the Council of Trade was instructed to prepare recommendations "for settling the trade to the best advantage of the Commonwealth". The Council of Trade gave the Company an opportunity to defend itself and after making investigations drew up a report (9 April 1651). Its proposals were based on two serious considerations, first that the quarrels between the Company and the 2 Hakluyt, V, 443-50. 1 See chap. II. 3 Carr, C. T., Select Charters of Trading Companies (Selden Soc. Publications), XXVIII, 99. 4 C.J. 1, 793. 5 Cal. St. Pap. Dom. 1631-3, p. 186. P.R.O., Interregnum Entry Book, 1650, 1, 9. 7 Ibid. 1651, 1, 65. SIR NICHOLAS CRISP'S GUINEA COMPANY 439 separate traders had been disastrous to the prosperity of the English interest in West Africa, and second that this trade was conditioned by "peculiar circumstances" which needed careful attention. Among these circumstances was the difficulty of preventing the market for English goods from being ruined, when, as frequently happened in an unregulated trade, a number of vessels chanced to anchor at the same time off the English ports on the coast. The consequent glut resulted not only in a lowered price for English goods, but also diminished the return in gold for the merchandise carried out, and gold was the great object of the trade. Another particular condition was the need of forts on the coast to protect the English traders against molestation by their European rivals, the Portuguese and the Dutch. These conditions suggested the value of the monopolist Company which had built forts and carried on a regular trade in spite of Dutch opposition, though both activities had demanded a very heavy expenditure, and the Adventurers were stated to have lost £100,000. In investigating the Company's claims to consideration the Council of Trade also took into account its propositions for the future. The Adventurers engaged to provide an ample supply of commodities for barter, to regulate trade with the Dutch, and to undertake a new search for gold, of which they engaged to bring to England £10,000 worth in three years. In consideration of the past services of the Company and its promise of future assistance to national commerce the Council of Trade agreed to allow it to continue as a limited monopoly in spite of the outcries that had been made against such grants. The resulting privilege was restricted to a fourteen years' tenure of land lying twenty leagues on each side of the two chief trading places established by the Company, Cormantine on the Gold Coast, and a port in Sierra Leone, and the Council suggested that a like privilege of forty leagues' monopoly should be granted for fourteen years in respect of any new discovery by the Company on condition that the place should be fortified and secured "to the interest of the Commonwealth". This report of the Council of Trade was sufficiently favourable to encourage the Company to continue its activities, but the undertaking was made dangerous by Prince Rupert's enterprises in preying on vessels off the African coast. Though gold appeared in the Council of Trade's report as the object of the African trade it was under the aegis of this Company that attention was transferred from gold to slaves. In 1651 some of Crisp's associates undertook a voyage to the Gambia with the declared object of securing a cargo of slaves, and had it not been for the continuance of the conflict between Commonwealth and Royalists at sea it seems possible that the English slave trade might have been established under Puritan rule. The hazards of the war were, however, too great and in 1657 the Company sold the remaining years of the lease of the Gold Coast to the East India Company to whom the forts were valuable as providing ports of call for its ships on the way to the East.1 Though the Commonwealth government failed to establish an English slave trade a beginning had been made, and the way was prepared for more successful measures under the later Stuarts. The Restoration Government in making arrangements for the African trade did not at first specifically promote the slave trade. In 1660 a charter was granted to a group of merchants under the title of "The Company of Royal Adventurers into Africa", who received the privilege of incorporation, and the right to hold the land and islands of West Africa from Cape Blanco to the Cape of Good Hope for 1000 years. The chief trade for which the Company was incorporated was that of "discovering the golden mines", and the other commodities to be procured were ivory, dye-woods and hides, no allusion being made to a trade in slaves. As there was uncertainty about conflicting rights to parts of the coast granted to the Adventurers it was provided that these should be investigated before the new Company's privileges were fully confirmed to it. The rival claims were those of the East India Company, whose lease of the Gold Coast still had five years to run, and those of the holders of the Crisp patent. As the East India Company's rights were based on an arrangement made in the Interregnum they were disregarded, and only the claims of the Crisp Company were considered. These were finally dropped and after the expiration of Crisp's patent a new charter was granted to the Royal Adventurers. The two years of trading from 1660 to 1662 were responsible for great changes both in the organisation and objects of the Adventurers. The new charter of 16634 gave them the title of "The Company of Royal Adventurers of England Trading into Africa", and increased their territorial privileges, the boundaries within which they were to have a monopoly being extended on the north to reach the borders of Morocco, while the Cape of Good Hope remained the southern boundary. In keeping with their greater privileges more elaborate arrangements were made for the government of the Company, which was to have a governor, sub-governor, deputy governor, court of assistants and an executive committee. The greatest change was in the object to be pursued by the Company. The needs of the Plantations for labour had become increasingly insistent, and the Royal Adventurers therefore decided to make the slave trade their main pursuit. It was expressly provided in the new charter that they should have the "sole, entire and only trade" in negroes on the West African coast. This was the first English charter in which definite statement was made of the slave trade as a recognised branch of 1 Cal. St. Pap. Col. 1574-1660, p. 383. 2 For the charter see Carr, p. 172. 3 Zook, G. F., The Company of Royal Adventurers Trading into Africa, p. 14. 4 Carr, p. 177. FRENCH, DUTCH AND ENGLISH ON GOLD COAST 441 English commerce, and from this time onwards until the Abolition Act of 1807 it was ranked as a valuable national asset, essential to the progress of the commercial empire. This first slave-trading company had a brief life, as the expense of setting up an effective organisation was disastrously heavy, owing to the rivalry of the other European traders, which necessitated elaborate outlay for naval and military defence upon the coast. The Dutch had ousted the Portuguese from many of the best trading places, and like them claimed to exclude all other nations, and the French had gradually secured a strong position in the Senegal region. Both French and Dutch entered into conflict with the English, and a triangular struggle took place. In 1663 after the revision of the Royal Adventurers' charter an English force was despatched to the Guinea Coast for the protection of the forts and trade.1 Admiral Holmes, in charge of the expedition, found a severe conflict going on in the Gambia with the Dutch, who were attacking the English traders from their base on the island of Goree, which was captured and then garrisoned by the Company's servants. Retaliation for this came in 1664, when de Ruyter recaptured the island.2 The struggle was also waged on the Gold Coast where the Dutch fort, Cape Coast Castle, surrendered to Holmes in 1664. de Ruyter was less successful on the Gold Coast, and Cape Coast Castle remained with the English, though they lost their fort at Cormantine. In the peace of 1667 their right to share in the African trade received formal recognition, and the transfer of Cape Coast Castle was confirmed. About the same time the third European Power in the contest, the French, were advancing their power under the care of Louis XIV's able minister, Colbert. In 1664 a French West India Company was established, the successor to a series of unsuccessful companies. This organisation, which was supported by the French Government and active in the Senegal region, became a serious rival both to English and Dutch. Well-defended forts were essential for a trade so strongly contested, and this expense taxed the resources of the Companies. At the same time the Adventurers could not satisfy the demands of the West Indies for negroes, and petitions that the West Africa trade should be thrown open were heard from 1668 onwards. In addition there was a burdensome war with interlopers, and the profits of the Company were insufficient to meet its liabilities. Being so heavily burdened by debt the Royal Adventurers were willing to surrender their charter in 1672,3 and a new Company, "The Royal African Company of England", immediately followed them, receiving a royal charter in the very year of the Adventurers' dissolution. The privileges granted to this Company were in many points similar to those of its predecessors. Its monopoly grant 1 Zook, p. 18. 2 Ibid. p. 20. 3 Ibid. p. 27. ♦ Carr, p. 186. |