New research has revealed that over 1,000 women invested in companies at the heart of Britain's slave trade. This finding challenges the conventional idea that women were largely passive beneficiaries or primarily fought for abolition.
Researchers discovered that women bought, sold, and brokered shares in entities such as the Royal African Company (RAC) and the South Sea Company. They utilised profits from the trafficking of enslaved Africans to secure financial independence and provide for their families.
By 1752, when the RAC was dissolved, women accounted for around 10% of its shareholders. The Register of British Slave Traders, exclusively revealed in the Guardian, indicates that women from various social strata actively financed and sustained the transatlantic trafficking of enslaved Africans.
Investors ranged from queens and princesses to titled nobility, merchants, shopkeepers, and cowherds. Letters within the archives show women discussing profits from "African stock," and company records detail one investor, Helen Gladman, requesting the RAC transport a young African girl to England to serve in her household.
Lila O’Leary Chambers, a lecturer at the University of Cambridge involved in the research, stated that women contributed financially and expected returns from the slave trade across the Royal African Company's history. The research identifies 1,100 female investors, though the actual number is likely higher.
For many, these investments were vital for economic independence. Almost half of the 457 women whose marital status could be identified were widows, and just over 42% were unmarried. Single or widowed women, under English law, controlled their own property and could operate as legal persons, providing a crucial source of capital for the RAC during financial crises.