Freedom's Debt: The Royal African Company and the Politics of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1672-1752

by William A. Pettigrew

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.

Genres: History, 18th Century

262 pages, Hardcover

First published December 30, 2013

Reviews

[Tré Ventour-Griffiths · Rating 2 out of 5]

A constant struggle filled with academic jargon rather than plain English. This can exclude readers from among the descendants of enslaved Africans from engaging with their own histories (just my experience). This is an academics book on the slave trade, not for us mere mortals! An interesting read nonetheless. The Royal African Company had a monopoly on the English trade and lost trade when independents lobbied for the right to be slave traders under the guise of being blocked from enslavement as unEnglish. This book, I found it has moments of brilliance but ultimately difficult to follow. Still on the look out for British academic work on this subject that also puts the emotion back in (the US actually does this better). As so much UK writing on the British Empire is by detached white intellectuals!

[Solomon Clarke · Rating 3 out of 5]

I understand this book was not meant to focus on slaves. When it moves on to abolition without deviating from the disagreements between the RAC & separate traders, it ends up writing slaves out of the history of their own emancipation in a jarring way.

[Dora A. Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I began reading this book last year, but put it down. Now I am continuing this alongside another slave trade book. This book is not easy reading and is full of ‘tongue twisting, mind boggling big words and sentences,’ as opposed to plain English. Spoken like a true politician. Nonetheless I get the point. Very interesting read (that is the parts that are understandable.). I look forward to getting to the end.
I’m so glad that I have finally finished reading this book that I have been going through on and off over the last five years. It was indeed a very interesting read; the Royal African company were exclusive slave traders and began losing trade when independent slave traders took over the market. The RAC in order to claim back their glory did a 360° turn by suddenly wanting to save the African race from forced immigration and bad treatment by the independent traders. They began their campaign to abolish slavery, under the guise of humanity, charity, and other such language. I can go on further, but that will take me into another story.

This book is a very good read: it would be a brilliant read if it were written in plain English.