How the British Crown profited directly from human trafficking

Long before modern apologies, the British monarchy and its investors built fortunes on the transatlantic slave trade The question of slavery and reparations has recently returned to the center of international debate, particularly in Africa and the Caribbean.

The conference held in Ghana on reparations for the transatlantic slave trade and slavery, as well as the petition filed by a Jamaican delegation to the British king, engaged in the struggle for historical recognition.

The debate has also been brought into sharper focus by an investigation published by The Guardian, which examined the involvement of the British monarchy in the system of slavery and the historical links between the Crown and the trafficking of Africans.

Taken together, the developments raise a fundamental question: How can the British monarchy and the British state genuinely address a past in which the Crown was directly connected to the economic and political structures of slavery? There are symbols that, on their own, encapsulate centuries of history.

A crown branded with a red-hot iron onto the skin of an enslaved human being is one of them.

It was a real, documented practice carried out by the South Sea Company, directly supported by the British monarchy during the reign of Queen Anne.

Read more Why offering the West a say on reparations is a trap In 1713, this partnership secured for Britain the exclusive right to deliver nearly 4,800 enslaved Africans every year to the Spanish colonies in the Americas.

This chilling figure was only the beginning of a broader system in which the British monarchy was a central actor.

The monarchy as a shareholder History often portrays the transatlantic slave trade as an impersonal economic phenomenon, driven by commercial companies, far removed from political power.

The reality is very different though.

The Royal African Company, one of the most important slave-trading companies in British history, was directly led by James, Duke of York, who would later become King James II.

Under his leadership, the company forcibly transported at least 150,000 Africans across the Atlantic.

Around 13,000 investors in the British slave trade have been identified, more than 10,500 of whom now have detailed biographical information.

They include members of parliament, merchants, more than a thousand women from the aristocracy and bourgeoisie, as well as members of the royal family itself.