ROYAL AFRICAN COMPANY
(Company Of Royal Adventurers)
In 1672, the English trading company, the Company Of Royal Adventurers, rechartered itself changing it name to the Royal African Company to focus on the Slave Trade. By 1687 the company was given the exclusive right to trade between the Gold Coast and the British colonies in America. James, Duke of York, (later to be King James II, was interested in this company, and it agreed to supply the West Indies with three thousand slaves annually. in 1698, on account of the incessant clamor of English merchants, the trade was opened generally, and any vessel carrying the British flag was, by act of Parliament, permitted to engage in it on payment of a duty.
The Royal African Company (RAC) was an English mercantile (trading) company set up in 1660 by the royal Stuart family and City of London merchants to trade along the west coast of Africa. It was led by the Duke of York, who was the brother of Charles II and later took the throne as James II. It shipped more African slaves to the Americas than any other company in the history of the Atlantic slave trade.
