The Royal African Company Is Chartered
A royal monopoly turns the trade in enslaved Africans into a state-backed business transporting people across the Atlantic
Quick facts
- Granted by
- King Charles II
- Monopoly area
- West African coast, Cape Sallee to Cape of Good Hope
- People transported, 1672-1731
- About 186,748 across 652 voyages
What happened
King Charles II granted a royal charter to the Royal African Company on 27 September 1672, giving it a monopoly over English trade along roughly 5,000 miles of the West African coast, from Cape Sallee to the Cape of Good Hope. The company, a reorganization of an earlier Company of Royal Adventurers founded in 1660, traded chiefly in enslaved people, gold, and ivory in exchange for manufactured goods. Between 1672 and 1731 the Royal African Company shipped an estimated 186,748 enslaved Africans to the Americas across 652 voyages, more than any other single institution in the history of the Atlantic slave trade, before losing its legal monopoly in 1698 and finally abandoning the slave trade for ivory and gold in 1731.
Why it matters
The Royal African Company made the transatlantic slave trade an instrument of English state policy rather than a private or piecemeal business, and its trading forts and shipping routes built the infrastructure that independent slave traders exploited even after its monopoly ended.
How we know
The National Archives holds more than 1,400 surviving company records in its T 70 series, covering ships, forts, and the individuals transported, and its 1672 charter document is catalogued at Kew.
Sources
- The National Archives (UK). The transatlantic slave trade · Primary sourcenationalarchives.gov.uk · The domain "nationalarchives.gov.uk" is on our Primary source registry. · 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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