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

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 despicable act. The English came in well after the Portuguese and the Spaniards, and these 2 came in long after the Arabs, but it is a terrible long chapter.

Much of the motives for the English's piracy was to do damage to the Spanish hegemony of the Western Hemisphere. This was a period of Catholic vs. Protestant and the war for the religions were real. English sailors caught in Mexico were subjected to the Courts of Inquisition and some were found guilty, garroted and burned at the stake. Hard to imagine being a slave in a ship that undergoes battles with other ships, sees the captors become captured and tortured all the while still a slave.