Send More Slaves to America!

It was in 1696 that the House of Commons received a petition objecting to the monopoly of this hateful trade in humans then held by the Royal African Company (RAC). The petition was signed by individuals referring to themselves as "merchants and traders of Virginia and Maryland," who argued that their "plantations" were "capable" of much greater profit and production and if they were "sufficiently supplied with Negroes, they would produce twice the quantity they do now"--indeed, "the shortage of slaves was hindering the development of the tobacco colonies." After wrangling, their prayers were answered, leading to spectacular increases in the number of Africans in chains crossing the Atlantic.

--Gerald Horne, introduction to The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America (New York: New York University Press, 2016), 5.