Guinea Company

A joint stock company formed in 1618 to govern England’s West African commerce. The company was reincorporated in 1631 and again in 1651. Initially, the transatlantic slave trade was not a major part of the company’s business activities. This is reflected in the surviving charters for the Guinea Company, which specified that members intended to trade in commodities such as gold, ivory, redwood, wax, and hides, but neglected to mention enslaved Africans. It was mostly interloping London merchants trading in a private capacity who drove a trade in enslaved Africans in these early years. However, the business relationships members of the Guinea Company forged with indigenous merchants in West Africa when conducting their gold and ivory trade in the 1620s and 1630s was a key factor in the rapid expansion of English participation in the transatlantic slave trade during the 1640s. The earliest extant example of a slave trading venture to Barbados was undertaken by the Guinea Company and dates to 1641. The Guinea Company also owned a 225 acre plantation in Barbados in 1644, which probably came into their possession as a result of a Barbadian planter defaulting on the debts they owed to the company for the purchase of enslaved Africans. Merchants affiliated with the Guinea Company would continue to be prominent slave traders during the 1640s and 1650s, even when the company’s effective control over its monopoly lapsed during these tumultuous decades. [MB]

Economic Sector: Commerce

Region: West Africa

Category: /