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.