Hawkins Begins Triangular Trade

1562

John Hawkins fitted out his first slaving voyage at Plymouth, underwritten by Elizabeth I and by prominent London aldermen. The pattern of English ships carrying trade goods to Africa, enslaved Africans to the Caribbean, and tropical goods back to England, took its grim first shape. Elizabeth I's personal investment, including the loan of a royal warship, implicated the English crown in the slave trade from its earliest beginnings.