ABSTRACT
The British first began to trade with Africa in 1553. In August of that year, two vessels under the command of Thomas Windham, sailed from Portsmouth on a voyage to Guinea and Benin. The second voyage was made in 1554, by John Lok, who reported that he carried “five blaca-moors” to England. To Sir John Hawkins, one of the great sea captains of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, belongs the infamous distinction of being the first Englishman who engaged in the importation of slaves from Africa. Elizabeth, at first, seems to have revolted at the very thought of the new British traffic, and to have foreseen the evils to which its continuance might lead. We find her sending for Captain Hawkins on his return from his first voyage to Africa and Hispaniola, whither he had carried slaves, and expressing her anxiety lest any of the negroes should be carried off without their free consent, declaring that “it would be detestable, and call down the vengeance of Heaven upon the undertakers.” Captain Hawkins promised to respect the scruples of his royal mistress, but when he reached the coast of Africa, on his second voyage, the sight of so much “black ivory” proved too strong a temptation for him. He seized many of the inhabitants, carried them off as slaves, and sold them to the Spaniards to work in the mines and plantations. “Here,” says Hill, the historian, “began the horrid practice of forcing the Africans into slavery, an injustice and barbarity, which, so sure as there is vengeance in heaven for the worst of crimes, will sometime be the destruction of all who allow or encourage it.”
