Abolition of the Royal African Company's monopoly

The abolition of the Royal African Company's monopoly in 1698 ended its exclusive claim to England's lucrative African slave trade. The company had been protected by royal prerogative, but after the Glorious Revolution, a legal challenge and an extensive petition campaign shifted the decision to Parliament, where opponents framed free access to trade as a national interest. The episode shows how a change in political authority could turn a once-protected monopoly into a target of organized public pressure, without ending the slave trade itself.

Royal Privilege and the Company's Monopoly

The Royal African Company's charter was issued by Charles II in 1660. His brother James, then the company's governor and a major shareholder, became its principal royal protector. The company claimed a monopoly over the profitable trade in enslaved people from West Africa to the Americas, while other English Atlantic trade was open to competition. Independent traders, known as interlopers, challenged the restriction by attempting to buy enslaved people in West Africa and sell them in the Americas.

James II assiduously defended the company's monopoly against these traders. The dispute therefore concerned more than commercial access: the monopoly rested on a prerogative that allowed the Crown to grant exclusive trading rights, and its survival depended on royal support. After 1688, the political conditions that had sustained that arrangement changed. James lost the throne and the company its most powerful ally.

A Legal Challenge Shifts Authority

In 1689 the company seized the cargo of an interloper named Nightingale. Nightingale sued over the seizure, and Chief Justice Holt ruled that it was unlawful for the company to enforce a monopoly created by royal prerogative. Holt held that monopoly privileges could be created only by statute, placing the authority to establish them in Parliament rather than the Crown.

The ruling had implications beyond this single seizure: future monopolies, not only the Royal African Company's, were placed under parliamentary authority. Before 1688, a king could have removed a judge who issued such a decision. In the changed political order, the ruling stood, and Parliament had to decide what should happen to the company's privilege.

Petitioning and Abolition

The decision set off a contest in petitions. Interlopers submitted 135 petitions demanding access to Atlantic trade, while the Royal African Company answered with petitions of its own. The petitioners opposing the monopoly presented their cause as a matter of national interest rather than merely private advantage. Only five of their 135 petitions were signed by interlopers themselves, and 73 came from provinces outside London, compared with eight for the company. In the colonies, where petitioning was also permitted, the interlopers gathered 27 petitions and the company 11. Their petitions carried about 8,000 signatures, against 2,500 for the company's side.

The number and reach of these petitions helped the opponents of the monopoly prevail. The contest continued until 1698, when the Royal African Company's monopoly was abolished. Parliament's decision ended the company's exclusive trading privilege; it did not abolish the trade in enslaved people.

Political Significance and Limits

The episode formed part of a broader shift after 1688, when Parliament became the firm center of state policy. Parliamentarians with investments in trade and industry had a stake in property rights and commercial policy, while petitioning gave people beyond those represented in Parliament a means to press for change. The monopoly dispute demonstrates how that channel could bring a broad campaign to bear on an economic privilege previously defended by the Crown.

The outcome was not a simple victory over exploitation: the petitions sought open access to a trade in enslaved people, not its abolition. The event's significance lies in the institutional change it reveals. Royal prerogative no longer sufficed to protect a monopoly against legal challenge and organized petitioning; decisions about economic privilege had become subject to parliamentary contest.