1672

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.

King Charles II charters the Royal African Company with a monopoly on the English slave trade. Between 1672 and 1713 the RAC transported approximately 100,000 enslaved Africans to the Americas. All slaves carried by RAC ships were branded 'DY' (Duke of York, later James II) on their chests, marking the intimate involvement of the English crown in the trade.

By the 1670s, the Atlantic slave trade had profoundly disrupted West African societies. The Royal African Company's demand for enslaved people incentivized wars between African kingdoms to generate captives for sale. Dahomey, Asante, and other polities expanded militarily in part to capture people for sale to European traders. Coastal communities were raided by slave catchers. Scholars estimate that between 1650 and 1700, roughly 400,000 to 500,000 people were enslaved and transported across the Atlantic, with mortality during capture, holding, and transport meaning the actual human cost was far higher.

Royal African Company records and ship logs from the 1670s–1690s document multiple shipboard revolts by enslaved Africans during the Middle Passage. The 1672 voyage of the English ship Robert saw a revolt in which enslaved captives killed several crew members before being suppressed. The frequency of such revolts — estimated at one aboard every 8–10 slaving voyages — meant that slave ships were extensively armed and crewed with violence-suppression in mind. These acts of collective resistance, often organized by captives who shared languages and communities, were the first systematic armed resistance to the transatlantic slave trade.

By the 1670s, colonial records reference communities of escaped enslaved people ('outlyers' in Virginia parlance) living in swamps, forests, and the backcountry. Virginia laws of 1672 explicitly addressed 'negroes that run away and lie out,' suggesting persistent maroon communities. These proto-maroon settlements — precursors to the more organized maroon communities of the 18th century — represented collective resistance and self-determination, with runaways pooling skills and resources to sustain themselves outside the slave system. They raided plantations for food and supplies and offered refuge to newly escaped enslaved people.

Colonial Virginia records from the 1670s document an extensive pattern of enslaved people running away. Court records show slaveholders filing for reimbursement of costs incurred pursuing runaways; newspaper notices described individuals by name, appearance, skills, and last known location. Some runaways sought to reach Native American communities in the interior; others attempted to pass as free in coastal towns. Virginia laws of 1672 and 1680 authorized the killing of runaways who resisted recapture and offered bounties for their return, reflecting how common and threatening flight had become.

Virginia's 1672 act formally authorized the killing of enslaved people who resisted recapture, with no legal consequence for the killer. It offered bounties — paid in tobacco — for the capture or killing of runaway enslaved people. The law responded to persistent and growing resistance through flight, and its passage documented both the scale of the problem (from the slaveholders' perspective) and the violence used to maintain the system. It also absolved those who killed enslaved runaways of any civil liability, ensuring that violence against enslaved people carried no legal risk.

England grants a monopoly on the West African trade to the Royal African Company, which ships tens of thousands of enslaved people to its American colonies.