Freedom's Debt: The Royal African Company and the Politics of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1672-1752 (Published by the Omohundro Institute of Early ... and the University of North Carolina Press)

"In the years following the Glorious Revolution, independent slave traders challenged the charter of the Royal African Company by asserting their natural rights as Britons to trade freely in enslaved Africans. In this comprehensive history of the rise and fall of the RAC, William A. Pettigrew grounds the transatlantic slave trade in politics, not economic forces, analyzing the ideological arguments of the RAC and its opponents in Parliament and in public debate. Ultimately, Pettigrew powerfully reasons that freedom became the rallying cry for those who wished to participate in the slave trade and therefore bolstered the expansion of the largest intercontinental forced migration in history. Unlike previous histories of the RAC, Pettigrew's study pursues the Company's story beyond the trade's complete deregulation in 1712 to its demise in 1752. Opening the trade led to its escalation, which provided a reliable supply of enslaved Africans to the mainland American colonies, thus playing a critical part in entrenching African slavery as the colonies' preferred solution to the American problem of labor supply"-- Provided by publisher Cover......Page 1 Contents......Page 8 List of Illustrations and Tables......Page 10 PROLOGUE: “This African Monster”......Page 12 Part One. Deregulation, 1672–1712......Page 20 ONE: The Politics of Slave-Trade Escalation, 1672–1712......Page 22 TWO: The Interests: “A Well-Governed Army of Veteran Troops” versus “an Undefinable Heteroclite Body” of “Pirates” and “Buccaneers”......Page 56 THREE: The Ideas: Challenging the “Tales of . . . Mandevil”......Page 94 FOUR: The Strategies: “As Witches Do the Devil”......Page 126 Part Two. Re-regulation, 1712–1752......Page 162 FIVE: The Outcomes: Tropical Burlesques......Page 164 SIX: The Legacies: Free to Enslave......Page 190 EPILOGUE: Confused Commemorations......Page 222 APPENDIX 1 Data Supplements for Annual Slave-Trading Voyages, 1672–1752......Page 230 APPENDIX 2 A Directory of Independent Slave Traders, 1672–1712......Page 238 APPENDIX 3 A Directory of Lobbying Independent Traders, 1678–1713......Page 246 APPENDIX 4 A Directory of Royal African Company Directors, 1672–1750......Page 248 APPENDIX 5 Africa Trade Petitions to Parliament on the Royal African Company’s Monopoly, 1690–1752......Page 251 Acknowledgments......Page 258 A......Page 260 B......Page 261 C......Page 262 E......Page 264 G......Page 265 J......Page 266 L......Page 267 N......Page 268 P......Page 269 R......Page 270 S......Page 271 T......Page 272 Y......Page 273