Malachy Postlethwayt on slave trade and the prospects of the British Empire in Africa

Malachy Postlethwayt, former director and propagandist of the Royal African Company, was an authority on commercial matters among Anglo-American abolitionists. The author’s unique journey would be appealing to the antislavery cause. In less than a decade, Postlethwayt shifted from offering an apologetic defense of the transatlantic slave trade to arguing that it could hinder the development of a civilized, humane, and profitable commerce in African commodities and staple crops. Over the next decades, the author became the recognized source for an important argument for abolition: the commodity trade with African territories could be at least as profitable as the slave trade. This article reappraises the historical context of Postlethwayt’s publications in the 1740s and early 1750s to demonstrate how the argument for a legitimate commerce with Africa arose amid mid-eighteenth-century debates about the fate of the Royal African Company.