Before the advent of “The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England, trading into Hudson’s Bay” – the Hudson’s Bay Company or HBC – there was another royally sponsored affair known as the “Company of Royal Adventurers Trading to Africa” – better known as the Royal Africa Company or RAC. The key man in both ventures was one Prince Rupert of the Rhine, cousin to the Stuart King Charles II.
THE PRINCE
Rupert was born into the Palatinate-Simmern cadet branch of the House of Wittelsbach in Prague, Bohemia in 1619, not long after his father, Frederick V of the Palatinate, gained election to the throne of Bohemia by the mostly Protestant estate holders there. That election was seen as one of rebellion by Ferdinand II, the leader of the House of Hapsburg in central Europe. Ferdinand had earlier been crowned King of Bohemia in 1617, followed by Hungary in 1618. With his brother Matthias’ death 20 March 1619 Ferdinand succeeded as Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Dealing with the Protestant actions in Bohemia, Ferdinand – whom the Protestants in Bohemia deposed – marched against his Calvinist successor.
At the Battle of White Mountain, a weakened Protestant force quickly lost the day to Ferdinand’s army led by Field Marshal Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly. With the Protestant army crushed, Tilly marched upon Prague. Baby Rupert almost became left behind as his family rushed to escape. He went with the rest of the family into exile at Den Hague. As a student, he mastered several languages, excelling at art, mathematics and science. A tall youth, by the age of 18, stood 6 foot 4 inches.
A SOLDIER EMERGES
Becoming a soldier at the age of 14, he fought in the Eight Years’ War against Hapsburg Spain in support of Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange. With funds acquired in England, he commanded a Palatinate cavalry regiment in an attempt to regain the electorate of the Palatinate for his brother Charles Louis. That ended with the combined Palatinate-English-French army overwhelmed by the Holy Roman army led by Field Marshal Melchior von Hatzfeldt at Vlotho.
Rupert’s role included a flat-out charge. Initially successful, Rubert’s cavalry became enveloped by attacks from the flanks. Rupert suffered capture. Imprisoned in Linz for the next few years. The Hapsburg’s were unable to convert Rupert from Calvinism to Catholicism. At the end of 1641, he turned down an offer for an imperial command, but in return for a commitment to never again take up arms against the emperor, he was released.
ENGLISH CIVIL WAR – Phase One
Leaving the continent for England with his brother Maurice, he became a popular figure among some because of his staunch Protestantism as he and Maurice became prominent commanders in the royalist army of King Charles I – his maternal uncle. He brought a brutalism learned during his fighting lessons learned with the early battles in the Thirty Years’ War to England. Achieving key victories at Powick Bridge and Edgehill, the war became lost at Naseby in 1645. Charles I was then tried and executed by the Parliament and Rupert suffered banishment from England.
ENGLISH CIVIL WAR – Phase Two
After a period of service in France fighting against the Spanish where he suffered a wound from an ambush, Rupert worked on behalf of his cousin Charles II as the second phase of the English Civil War began. He served this time as a privateer captain in the royalist navy. They served at sea from 1650 until 1653. In late summer of 1651, his little fleet ran into a summer storm. The Constant Reformation, one of his biggest ships, went down with the loss of 333 men – that almost included is brother, Maurice. While the Parliamentary navy pursued Rupert’s forces, he became interested in the reports of gold along the Gambia River. In search of that gold, he sailed 150 miles inland.
Another hurricane hit his fleet near the Caribbean in September 1652 sank the Defiance and this time Maurice aboard, died with the rest. Forced to return to France in March 1653, Rupert left the sea behind him. Possible involvement in an attempt on the life of Oliver Cromwell in 1654, his presence at Charles’ exiled court became a problem. This led Rupert to take off for Germany again the following year. Here he made waves for his brother Charles Louis who had gained back some of the Electorate of the Palatine with the Peace of Westphalia.
RESTORATION
Following the 1658 death of Cromwell left a void at the top, promptly filled by the return of Charles II on 29 May 1660. Rupert then returned to England to a pension of £4,000 a year from the king. With close relations with the new king, Rupert resumed his earlier seat in the House of Lords as the Duke of Cumberland. He would play a maritime role again as a senior admiral during the second and third Anglo-Dutch Wars -1665-1667 and 1672-1674 after which he retired from active seagoing command.
GAMBIAN DREAMS BRING OUT THE ROYAL ADVENTURERS
Arriving in England, he encouraged the government to continue his exploration of the Gambia to find the source of the gold. Plans formulated to gain members to enter into a joint-stock enterprise with each member putting up at least £250. With the Duke of York – Charles’ brother – on board, the king was pleased to grant a royal charter under the name of “The Company of the Royal Adventurers into Africa” on 18 December 1660. Similar to the charter in 1670 to another company of Royal Adventurers – who became the HBC – the African Royal Adventurers received land and adjacent islands on the west coast of Africa from Cape Blanco to the Cape of Good Hope for a period of one thousand years. That meant the entire coast of west Africa from the northwestern edge of today’s Mauritania down the southern tip of South Africa below Cape Town.
CHANGE OF FOCUS
The efforts of what became the Royal African Company – RAC – aimed directed toward the discovery of gold mines initially. Guided by a six-member committee, the RAC could appoint agents to raise soldiers required to maintain martial law. New members could be added in time to the new company with the king himself reserving the right to become an Adventurer. Gold mines seized by the venture would go two thirds to the king and the other third to the company. Other examples of trade noted in the charter included redwood, hides, elephants’ teeth. Not mentioned was the potential trade in slaves.
Captain Robert Holmes set out at once with a fleet of five ships on loan from the British fleet. Loaded with goods needed for projected gold mining, the ships arrived off the mouth of the Gambia the following March. Evicting the members of a small outpost on St. André Island from the Duchy of Courland, the set up their seat of operations. A fire destroyed their small fort and much of the equipment brought south from England. Abandoning their first post, they set up on two other islands – Charles Island and James Island – which seemed better suited for both defense and trade.
A NEW CHARTER
The search for gold went nowhere. Disease and the climate depleted their efforts. Returning with one heavily laden ship in July, Holmes cargo – elephants’ teeth, wax and hides sold for £1567.80 as opposed to an initial outlay of between £4,000 and £4,500. New money was needed along with new subscribers. A new charter was also granted by the king in January 1663.
With a new name – “The Company of Royal Adventurers of England Trading into Africa” or the RAC – the territory in the charter now extended further north to Cape Sallee in Morocco. And while the provisions for gold mines still remained, the Adventurers gained another provision, “the whole, entire and only trade for the buying and selling bartering and exchanging of for or with any Negroes, slaves, goods, wares and merchandises whatsoever to be vented or found at or within any of the Cities” found along the west coast of Africa. No ships other than the company’s could trade on those coasts with those transgressors liable to forfeiture of both ship and goods.
In addition, the administration of the company became revised with a governor, sub-governor, deputy governor, court of assistants along with the smaller committee to run day-to-day business. Selected as governor was the Duke of York. The cost of a share’s subscription saw a raise to £400.
ANGLO-DUTCH WARS
Timing in trade, as with real estate, is everything. Time definitely did not belong to the RAC. Their charter did nothing for the Dutch West India Company – GWC – which had set itself up along the Guinea coast. The GWC aimed directly at the slave trade, taking slaves to the Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch parts of the New World. In 1663, in order to counteract the Dutch influence, Holmes captured or destroyed all of the Dutch settlements along the Gold Coast – so-named for the amounts of gold dust involved in the trade here as well as Gambia.
In response, the Dutch named Michiel Adriaenszoom de Ruyter, with a Dutch fleet, to sail for Africa and undo the English conquest. De Ruyter rolled back the English capturing all of the forts except at Cape Corse. Following his African sortie, he then pushed across the Atlantic to take on the English on the other side of the ocean.
The losses incurred by the RAC during the Second Anglo-Dutch war proved ruinous to the company. Much like Hitler’s dream of a thousand-year Reich, the RAC’s thousand-year charter died relatively quickly in 1672.
ROYAL AFRICAN COMPANY OF ENGLAND
In place of the RAC, the Royal African Company of England arose complete with a new charter. With six forts set up along the Gold Coast – Ghana – and another post at Ouidah on the Slave Coast, the new iteration of Prince Rupert’s original gold seeking operation surged forward with the Dutch to busy at home fighting both England and France during the Third Anglo-Dutch War -1672-1678 – to carry the fight to Africa. This left the new RAC alone among the English to up their game in the slave trade. During the 1680s, the company transferred around 5,000 slaves from Africa to the Caribbean many branded “DoY” for the Governor, the Duke of York, who soon ascended the throne as James II in 1685. Other slaves gained the brand “RAC” burnt onto their chests.
Europeans built 27 forts on the coast of Ghana. The Dutch captured two forts from the Portuguese, and building nine others while the British built ten, all before 1660.
With the Glorious Revolution in 1688, the RAC lost its monopoly as James II fled England in face of William of Orange’s intervention came to fruition. Deputy Governor of the RAC, Edward Colston, gave a large part of his holdings in the Royal African Company to William III in early 1689 to curry favor with the new powers in London. The monopoly of trade in Africa finally ended with the 1697 Trade with Africa Act which opened African trade to all English merchants paying a ten per cent levy to the RAC so they could maintain the trade forts through which trade – especially of slaves – passed.
STRUGGLES AFTER THE GLORIOUS REVOLUTION
With increased competition, the RAC struggled, becoming insolvent in 1708. Purchase and transport of slaves by the company continued until 1731 when they concentrated on ivory and gold dust. Gold provided by the Royal African Company to the English Mint – 1688-1722 – went into coins featuring an elephant below the royal bust leading to the nickname of the coins as guineas.
End for the RAC came in 1750 with the African Company Act. The company then with a new charter and new structure – it ran as a regulated company instead of as a joint stock company, regained a final life. With an annual grant from Parliament to cover the costs of both the London office and re-entered the slave trade. The government finally prohibited the slave trade in 1807 though the company continued to operate the trade for several years afterwards. When knowledge of the continuance became public knowledge, the government abolished the company in 1821.
IMPACT
The Royal African Company played a major role in the development of the triangular trade network between Britain, Africa and the Caribbean. In the years between 1672 and 1731, 187,697 slaves moved to the New World on RAC ships. During transport, 38,497 slaves died along the journey. The earlier version of the RAC in England, the Company of Royal Adventurers, transported 26,925 slaves across the waters with 6,620 dying along the way.
While the RAC involved itself in other trade, its legacy remains tied to the development of the transatlantic slave trade. With close ties to the highest political offices in England from the start, the profits merchants and investors derived from their involvement with the RAC would help become a major source of wealth while also playing a direct role in the development of Britain’s colonies in America.
While the British were not the only participants in the slave trade, the RAC provided the government an early opportunity to develop imperial ambitions. The impact of slavery led to disruption of West African society, depopulation, economic and social consequences as well as political instability. Instability which continued on after the end of the slave trade when outright imperialism replaced covert hegemony.
Compared to the impact of Rupert’s other chartered company – the HBC – intense in its own fashion, the RAC stands out on its own ominous, dark perch.
