The Prince of Slavers: Humphry Morice and the Transformation of Britain's Transatlantic Slave Trade, 1698–1732

Matthew Mitchell, MLitt 2005

Prince of Slavers studies the career of Humphry Morice (1679-1731), who was responsible for at least 103 voyages to Africa and for the involuntary transportation of over 30,000 enslaved human beings across the Atlantic.

The book demonstrates how Morice's rise and catastrophic fall depended on innovative business practices that made him the developmental link between the seventeenth-century version of the British slave trade, conducted under the monopoly of the Royal African Company, and the peak-volume phase of the late eighteenth century dominated by independent slave traders primarily from Liverpool.

Mitchell also explores Morice's massive fraud against the Bank of England, and the horrifying consequences of Morice's profit-driven decision-making for the men, women, and children he forcibly trafficked.

ISBN: 978-3-030-33839-8