Hugo Grotius, the African Slave Trade, and the Natural Law Tradition

Abstract The following paper brings together the history of the Atlantic slave trade in the seventeenth century and Hugo Grotius’s treatment of slavery, war, and trade in the De iure belli ac pacis . In this paper I focus on the practices of slave raids during the trade in the 1630s through the 1640s in Central and West Africa. The practice of slave raids was often described and categorized by both Africans and Europeans as war or acts of war. I argue that given Grotius’s depictions of a solemn war, it is difficult to legally distinguish an intent to enslave in a raid from an act of war against an enemy nation.