Royal African Company Ships Over 100,000 Enslaved Africans (1672–1713)

The Royal African Company, chartered in 1672 with a monopoly on English slave trade, transported an estimated 100,000 enslaved Africans to the Americas between 1672 and 1713. Company records document mortality rates of 20–25% during the Middle Passage. The RAC established the infrastructure of the British slave trade — forts on the West African coast, standardized trading relationships with African kingdoms, and transatlantic shipping routes. Its operations institutionalized mass enslavement at an industrial scale.