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ROYAL AFRICAN COMPANY LOSES ITS MONOPOLY. Folio (11.5 inches). 9 & 10 William III, Chapter 26. General title leaf + pages 503-519. Royal coat of arms, headpiece ornament, and factotum initial. Text in Black Letter. Neatly extracted from a bound volume and expertly mended. The Royal African Company (RAC) was founded in 1672 by Royal Charter granted by King Charles II and was headed by his brother Duke of York (later James II). Having taken over for the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading to Africa (which had been chartered in 1660, but failed some seven years later due to the war with Holland), the London-based RAC held its monopoly over trade with Africa for more than two decades, and pursued an aggressive and lucrative trade in gold, ivory, Negro slaves, and other exotic commodities. The African trade was immensely important to Great Britain, as revealed by the opening remarks of the Trade to Africa Act, 1698: / / Whereas the Trade to Africa is highly Beneficial and Advantageous to this Kingdom, and to the Plantations and Colonies thereunto belonging / / . With the passing of the Act, the British government ended the RACs monopoly and opened the African trade to all British merchants operating with British-built ships. As a result, the British trade with Africa (and particularly the trade in Negro slaves) expanded significantly. The legislation was implemented primarily to introduce new fees to assist with the enormous cost of operating, defending, and maintaining the trading infrastructure on the African coastline, including the fortified trading castles that were used as holding pens for slaves. The Act also awarded the RAC with subsidies to help it adjust to the new laws and the loss of its monopoly. But according to its own business records, the RAC was the victim of its own mismanagement through financially wasteful and disorganized expansions of operations rather than abandonment of unprofitable satellite forts, corporate fraud, poorly-informed and managed employees, interference from pirates, and fierce competition from adjacent French and Portuguese trading operations. The enlarged trade access guaranteed by the Act saw the number of Negro slaves transported on British ships increase from 5,000 per year to nearly 20,000 per year. Between 1698 and 1807, Britain became the dominant slaving country in the world, and transported an estimated 3 million slaves to the West Indies and American colonies. A multitude of merchants, manufacturers, traders, planters, and ship owners, together with many of England's leading families (including the Royal Family), politicians, public officials, bankers, religious figures, and general speculators participated in the despicable industry of the Negro slave trade, and received remarkable returns on their investments. Wealth brought into the nation was used for the construction of grand estates and mansions and costly infrastructure projects that would have otherwise been impossible. The British government also did well by collecting duties on trade goods and slaves alike.
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