Slavery and Capitalism: The Business Behind the Atlantic Slave Trade — Who Really Profited?

Sun, 30 Aug 2026 01:00:02 +0200

The Atlantic slave trade wasn't just a moral catastrophe — it was the most profitable business operation in human history. For over three centuries, a vast financial machine connected three continents, generating wealth that built cities, funded banks, bankrolled the Industrial Revolution, and created dynastic fortunes that are still compounding today.

In this video, we follow the money. From the Portuguese trading posts of the 1400s to the boardrooms of Lloyd's of London. From the sugar plantations of Jamaica, where enslaved workers had a life expectancy of seven years, to the grand townhouses of Liverpool, where merchant families lived in extraordinary luxury funded by human cargo. From the Royal African Company — a crown-backed corporation that branded enslaved people with its initials — to the Bank of England, whose early governors profited directly from the slave economy.

We examine the triangular trade not as a historical diagram, but as a fully integrated global financial system. We look at who invested, who insured, who extended credit, and who collected the dividends. We explore how slave trade profits became the seed capital for Britain's Industrial Revolution, how New England merchants ran closed-loop supply chains of rum, sugar, and enslaved people, and how the British government paid slave owners £20 million in compensation when slavery was abolished — a debt so large that British taxpayers were still paying it off in 2015.

This is the story of who really profited from the Atlantic slave trade, and why the financial architecture they built is still shaping the world today.

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