350 years ago, this year and this month, a charter was given by the Crown to the Royal

African Company of England. This did not mark the beginning of the slave trade. In 1562,

Captain John Hawkins became the first known Englishman to include enslaved Africans in

his cargo. But as today's guest writes in his book Freedom's Debt, the Royal African

Company of England shipped more enslaved African women, men and children to the Americas

than any other single institution during the entire period of the Transatlantic slave

trade from its foundation in 1672 to the early 1720s, the African Company transported close

to 150,000 enslaved Africans, mostly to the British Caribbean. Today's podcast explores

the story of England's involvement in and later dominance of the Transatlantic slave

trade. And my guest is William Petrogrou, Professor of History at the University of Lancaster.

He's written much about the Transatlantic trade and then slave peoples, the East India

Company and the relationship between corporations and the state in history. Among his books is

the one I've already mentioned, Freedom's Debt, the Royal African Company and the politics

of the Atlantic slave trade, 1672 to 1752, published by the University of North Carolina

Press in 2013. And Professor Petrogrou is currently leading a team to explore the legacies

of the British slave trade, examining the structures and significance of British investment

in the Transatlantic slave trade. So I welcome him to talk about the Royal African Company.

Well, it is a great treat to have a chance to speak to you about this topic you've worked

so much on and I've been reading lots of your work and what we're going to talk about

is fascinating. We are marking an anniversary, the anniversary of the charter given to the

Royal African Company, but that wasn't the first entity to operate on the west coast

of Africa and all was it the first two trade in enslaved Africans. So perhaps you can give us

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