Virginia Opens Slave Trade Beyond RAC Monopoly (1698)

When the Royal African Company's monopoly on the English slave trade was broken in 1698, Virginia and other colonies gained access to independent slave traders. The result was a dramatic expansion in the volume of enslaved Africans imported directly to the Chesapeake. Slave imports to Virginia more than tripled in the decade after 1698 compared to the prior decade. This liberalization of the slave trade massively expanded the enslaved population and entrenched the plantation economy.