ECW 25: The Guinea Company

England's participation in the Western African trade started very slowly, and the slave trade was explicitly rejected by early English traders to Africa.  Still, within 40 years, English participation in the slave trade became common, and England's most valuable colony (Barbados) had shifted to slavery as a labor source.  

This episode looks at the history of that trade, as well as nuances of the history of the adoption of slavery in Virginia.