The Royal African Company Wins a Crown Monopoly on English Slaving
Charles II's chartered company brands captives with its initials and ships tens of thousands to England's Caribbean colonies
Quick facts
- Chartered
- 1672 (reorganized from 1660/1663 predecessor)
- Major shareholders
- Charles II and the Duke of York
- Estimated captives shipped
- 100,000-150,000, 1672-1698
- Monopoly ended
- 1698
What happened
England's first chartered slaving company, the Company of Royal Adventurers, received a royal monopoly in 1660 and an expanded charter explicit about the slave trade in 1663 before collapsing under debt in 1667. It reorganized in 1672 under a new royal charter as the Royal African Company, with a monopoly on English trade along the West African coast, including the exclusive right, in the company's own charter language, to the buying and selling of enslaved people. The company branded captives with the initials RAC or the Duke of York's initials as a mark of ownership before shipment, a practice documented in company records and later court testimony. Between 1672 and the loss of its monopoly in 1698, the Royal African Company transported an estimated 100,000 to 150,000 enslaved Africans to England's American colonies.
Why it matters
The Royal African Company was the mechanism through which the English crown itself, rather than private individual traders, became a direct commercial party to the slave trade, with King Charles II and his brother the Duke of York as its largest shareholders. Its loss of monopoly status in 1698 opened the trade to independent merchants across England, which is what allowed Bristol and then Liverpool to grow into the trade's dominant English ports.
How we know
The company's original charters and stock records are held in British archives; historical summaries of its structure and branding practices are documented across multiple institutional histories, including PBS's Africans in America project and Encyclopedia Virginia's holdings of the original 1660s charter text.
Sources
- Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Slavery and Remembrance. Transatlantic Slave Trade · General sourceslaveryandremembrance.org · Cited as a "reference" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- Encyclopedia Virginia. A Charter granted to the Company of Royall Adventurers of England Trading into Africa · General sourceencyclopediavirginia.org · Cited as a "reference" source (no stronger domain match).
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Related timelines
- The British Empire → · The Royal African Company made the English crown a direct commercial party to the slave trade before Parliament opened it to independent merchants in 1698.