Did profitable slave trading enable the expansion of empire?: The Asiento de Negros, the South Sea Company and the financial revolution in Great Britain

Review of periodical literature for 2021

“…Zahedieh thus argued that it is necessary to re‐evaluate the connections between slavery and the rise of merchant capitalism, as the links between the two were multifaceted, affecting capital markets, division of labour, specialization, and innovation. Price and Whatley studied how profitable the Asiento de Negros – an international monopoly in the trade of African slaves to Spanish America that the British government awarded the South Sea Company – was to its shareholders and the state in the period 1713–43. They found that the trading of enslaved people made a direct contribution to shareholder returns and government revenue.…”