Freedom's debt : the Royal African Company and the politics of the Atlantic slave trade, 1672-1752 /

"In the years following the Glorious Revolution, independent slave traders challenged the charter of the Royal African Company by asserting their natural rights as Britons to trade freely in enslaved Africans. In this comprehensive history of the rise and fall of the RAC, William A. Pettigrew g...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author:	Pettigrew, William A. (William Andrew), 1978- (Author)
Corporate Author:	Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture (sponsoring body.)
Format:	eBook
Language:	English
Published:	Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, [2013]
Series:	UNC Press law publications. Slavery in America and the world: history, culture & law. Prestatehood legal materials.
Subjects:	Royal African Company > History. Slave trade > Political aspects > Great Britain > History > 17th century. Slave trade > Political aspects > Great Britain > History > 18th century. Slave trade > Africa > History. Slave trade > West Indies, British > History. Slavery > Law and legislation > Great Britain > History. Electronic books.
Online Access:	Connect to the full text of this electronic book

Description
Summary:	"In the years following the Glorious Revolution, independent slave traders challenged the charter of the Royal African Company by asserting their natural rights as Britons to trade freely in enslaved Africans. In this comprehensive history of the rise and fall of the RAC, William A. Pettigrew grounds the transatlantic slave trade in politics, not economic forces, analyzing the ideological arguments of the RAC and its opponents in Parliament and in public debate. Ultimately, Pettigrew powerfully reasons that freedom became the rallying cry for those who wished to participate in the slave trade and therefore bolstered the expansion of the largest intercontinental forced migration in history. Unlike previous histories of the RAC, Pettigrew's study pursues the Company's story beyond the trade's complete deregulation in 1712 to its demise in 1752. Opening the trade led to its escalation, which provided a reliable supply of enslaved Africans to the mainland American colonies, thus playing a critical part in entrenching African slavery as the colonies' preferred solution to the American problem of labor supply"--
Item Description:	"Published for the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia."
Physical Description:	1 online resource (262 pages) : illustrations, portraits.
Bibliography:	Includes bibliographical references and index.