Britain entered the Atlantic slave trade significantly later than Portugal, Spain, and the Netherlands, a fact that is rarely acknowledged in reparations discussions.
The first English slave trading voyages were made by John Hawkins in the 1560s, over a century after Portugal had established the trade. Hawkins made three voyages, transporting enslaved Africans to Spanish colonies in the Caribbean and South America. These voyages were commercially successful but remained exceptional rather than establishing a sustained trade.
Regular English participation in the slave trade did not begin until the mid-seventeenth century. The Company of Royal Adventurers Trading to Africa was founded in 1660, reorganised as the Royal African Company in 1672, and given a monopoly on the British slave trade. For the next several decades, the Royal African Company dominated British slave trading, operating from fortresses on the West African coast.
The trade was opened to all British merchants in 1698, and from that point it expanded significantly. The period of Britain’s most intense participation in the Atlantic slave trade was roughly from 1700 to 1807, a period of about 107 years. This is the period against which British moral responsibility is primarily measured.
By the time Britain became a dominant force in the slave trade, Portugal had been running it for over 250 years. The damage done to African societies, the disruption of populations, the establishment of the slave-trading infrastructure along the West African coast, had largely been accomplished before Britain became a major participant. Britain inherited and expanded a system it did not create.
This is not a defence of British participation. Britain did participate, did profit enormously, and does bear responsibility for what it did in that 107-year period. But the historical context matters when assessing relative culpability, and that context consistently disappears from reparations discussions.
