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The Queen's Slave Trader: John Hawkyns, Elizabeth I, and the Trafficking in Human Souls

Nick Hazlewood,

Wachtel (Editor)

3.59 · Rating details · 58 ratings · 11 reviews

Throughout history, blame for the introduction of slavery to America has been squarely placed upon the male slave traders who ravaged African villages, the merchants who auctioned off humans as if they were cattle, and the male slave owners who ruthlessly beat both the spirits and the bodies of their helpless victims. There is, however, above all these men, another person Throughout history, blame for the introduction of slavery to America has been squarely placed upon the male slave traders who ravaged African villages, the merchants who auctioned off humans as if they were cattle, and the male slave owners who ruthlessly beat both the spirits and the bodies of their helpless victims. There is, however, above all these men, another person who has seemingly been able to avoid the blame that is due her.

The origins of the English slave trade -- the result of which is often described as America's shame -- can actually be traced back to a woman, England's Queen Elizabeth I.

In The Queen's Slave Trader, historian Nick Hazlewood examines one of the roots of slavery that until now has been overlooked. It was not just the money-hungry Dutch businessmen who traded lives for gold, forever changing the course of American and world history, but the Virgin Queen, praised for her love of music, art, and literature, who put hundreds of African men, women, and children onto American soil.

During the 1560s, on direct orders from Her Majesty, John Hawkyns set sail from England. His destination: West Africa. His mission: to capture humans. At the time, Elizabeth was encouraging a Renaissance in her kingdom. Yet, being the intelligent monarch that she was, the queen knew her country's economy could not finance the dreams she had for it. An early entrepreneur, she saw an open market before her and sent one of her most trusted naval commanders, Hawkyns, to ensure a steady stream of wealth to sustain all the beauty that was her passion.

Like his fellow Englishmen, Hawkyns believed the African people's dark skin stood for evil, filth, barbarity -- the complete opposite of the English notion of beauty, a lily white complexion and a virtuous soul, as exemplified by the queen. To him it was simple. If the white English were civilized and pure, the dark Africans must be savage. It was a moral license for Hawkyns to capture Africans.

After landing on the African coast, he used a series of brutal raids, violent beatings, and sheer terror to load his ships. The reward for those who survived the attacks: seven weeks chained together in a space not meant for human beings, smallpox and measles, dehydration and malnourishment. Hawkyns realized the cruelty inflicted on these people, and he hoped they would survive. After all, a dead African was a dent in his profit margin.

John Hawkyns was the first English slave trader, and his actions and attitudes toward his cargo set the precedent for how those following him, over the next two hundred years, would act. To fully understand the mind-set of the men who made their living trafficking human souls, one needs to look at the man who began it all -- and the woman behind him. ...more

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Hardcover, 384 pages

Published November 23rd 2004 by William Morrow

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Oct 28, 2018 Anne Edmunds rated it really liked it

So... 25 years ago my husband's grandmother gave me a copy of the family tree for the maternal side of his family. Both of Grandma's parents were Mayflower descendants. (My people were European dirt farmers who came to the U.S. beginning around 1879). Looking over the tree, I saw "Sir John Hawkyns" and thought "cool! he's got a Sir in there!" Years later, when Wikipedia was invented, I looked him up and was... Well, it was not good. Hawkyns basically invented the English Triangular Trade. Yup. H ...more

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Jan 20, 2014 Denise rated it it was amazing

Shelves: books-i-own

Fascinating story of one of the first English slavers to reach North America.

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Mar 13, 2018 Helen Bell rated it liked it

There have always been people who are prepared to treat other people as commodities. Generally they come from the underbelly of society; people who find themselves able to live with profiting from the misery of others by trafficking them. Yet in the sixteenth century it developed into a gentleman adventurer's trade across Europe, with Spanish, Portuguese and thanks to men like John Hawkyns, increasingly English/British involvement. And with the exception of France expressing a (perhaps partly ph There have always been people who are prepared to treat other people as commodities. Generally they come from the underbelly of society; people who find themselves able to live with profiting from the misery of others by trafficking them. Yet in the sixteenth century it developed into a gentleman adventurer's trade across Europe, with Spanish, Portuguese and thanks to men like John Hawkyns, increasingly English/British involvement. And with the exception of France expressing a (perhaps partly philosophical) condemnation of the slave trade in 1571, it was largely state sponsored or supported.
I picked this book up hoping to better understand how slavers reconciled their behaviour, but the book wasn't able to clarify this - largely because treating people as commodities was not obviously ever questioned by the key players. What was noticeable was that the attitude of people like Hawkyns spilled over into the way they treated all human beings, summing their value to them personally at any given time and treating them accordingly. Thus there were moments when Hawkyns would be generous to enemies; more than once he let the crew of a plundered ship take their emptied vessel and resume sailing, having more than enough ships of his own. At other times it was who you knew or what you knew that were your protection. After the disastrous battle at St Juan de Ulua, the men Hawkins had rescued from the rest of the English fleet were in danger of starvation on board his one remaining ship, and as a result were borderline mutinous. His solution was to abandon 114 men and boys ashore, with little in the way of food and drink but leaving them with some good to trade, should they reach civilisation. He kept on board his gentlemen companions and the most useful crew members - and his 12 remaining slaves, as valuable as currency on the journey home. Few of the 114 ever made it back; ironically, many of them were cast into slavery themselves.
There is a little light shed on the motivation of the Spanish and Portuguese in starting the trade in slaves from Africa. Having arrived in the Americas the Spanish had set about enslaving the local Indians, only to find they were too delicate to take the ill treatment and the workload they expected of them, and once aware of the invader's intentions, too good at evading capture.
The rights to claim 'new' lands and to control Atlantic trade had been split by successive Popes between Spain to the west and Portugal to the east, and the Portuguese had access to what Spanish settlers sought - hardier slaves from Africa. While they began by hunting and capturing slaves themselves, this rapidly created a local industry of warring tribes fighting and selling captured enemies. It is entirely reasonable to deduce, given the existence of earlier African cultures, that the desire for slaves in the Americas trammelled Africa into a dependence on slavery, much as the market for illegal drugs in first world countries traps nations like Afghanistan into dependence on opium production. Hazelwood details the devastating impact of the slave trade on Africa, reflected in many of the problems that face its nations today, in a succinct but powerful summary in the epilogue.
Finally, I was interested in understanding how Elizabeth I (a character I largely admired, mainly for surviving the complex political intrigues that dogged her entire life) could endorse the slave trade that would in the following centuries drive Britain's wealth, and its shame. Again this book couldn't answer that, so it necessitates reading between the lines. There is no indication that she had a vision of the wealth it would in future generate. England's early forays into slaving seemed to be an accidental by-product of privateers she commissioned to disrupt the hold Spain and Portugal had over trade in the Atlantic. Judging from Hawkyns' experiences it came with a heavy cost as well as a significant profit. It seems likely Elizabeth was motivated more by politics and survival - the two major driving forces in her life. Her own experiences and close escapes, endured since childhood, seem to have hardened her to the suffering of others rather than giving her empathy.
Hazelwood is less forgiving of the key players in the slave trade than most previous biographers of Hawkyns and Elizabeth, and with some justification. While it is easy to say that contemporary attitudes made profiting from slavery tolerable to enlightened and educated people, there is evidence that across Europe there was opposition to slavery even in the sixteenth century. But their voices were too few. In the face of rulers like Elizabeth I, one of the first to speak of black people in England as a problem, 'of which kind there are already here to manie,' and to propose repatriation, it would be decades more before attitudes to slavery saw meaningful change. ...more

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Apr 13, 2019 Glenn Robinson rated it really liked it

Very disturbing history of how the English entered into the slave trade. Queen Elizabeth sanctioned the piracy of John Hawkyns in raids on the Portuguese and the Spanish, stealing their cargoes, which including human beings. Fairly well written to include view points of the English, Portuguese, Dutch, Spanish, and Rome. Not so much from the many African kingdoms that were complicit in this trade or of the captives, but a good start to gain an understanding of how the English got involved in this ...more

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Jun 05, 2018 Kayla Tornello rated it liked it

Shelves: adult, non-fiction

This book studied the trading voyages of John Hawkyns. In the 1500's, he sailed far and wide, plundering ships and capturing slaves. This book offers up some of the history about these issues. While I enjoyed this book, it did get a tad long and tedious by the end. ...more

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May 10, 2014 Mark rated it liked it

Shelves: history

It may rankle her admirers, but the complicity of Queen Elizabeth I in the early years of the American/New World slave trade is pretty well documented here. As an investor in the voyages of John Hawkyns, she profited early and measurably by England's first ventures into the trade in human beings as commodities. The comedy of this (if you can find anything really funny about it) is seen, in some regard in the manner in which Hawkins was able to force himself and his goods upon Spanish New world s ...more

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Jul 19, 2010 Marie rated it liked it

Narrative nonfiction is a tough balance - one has to have academic integrity about what one says, while still building an emotional picture. This book failed on the 'emotional' side of the line, with many unsupportable statements, but it was clearly well-researched and there were interesting footnotes and citations throughout, so it wasn't so bad about it as to be bad.

Though I found the story less thrilling than expected. News flash: racism and slavery! Evil people doing evil stuff! The most com ...more

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Nov 20, 2009 girl rated it did not like it

Shelves: tudor-house

blah..
Nick Hazlewood gave a lot of great information in this book IMO but I just couldn't finish it.I was interested in the story but I wish to read more on Elizabeth not some much of John Hawkyns.
Too many more good books on the list to stay with one that is only semi-good to me ...more

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