What do you think?
Rate this book
Queen's Slave Trader
"Throughout history, blame for the introduction of slavery to America has been squarely placed upon the male slave traders who ravaged African villages, the merchants who auctioned off humans as if they were cattle, and the male slave owners who ruthlessly beat both the spirits and the bodies of their helpless victims. There is, however, above all these men, another person who has seemingly been able to avoid the blame that is due her." "The origins of the English slave trade - the result of which is often described as America's shame - can actually be traced back to a woman, England's Queen Elizabeth I." "In The Queen's Slave Trade, historian Nick Hazlewood examines one of the roots of slavery that until now has been overlooked. It was not just the money-hungry Dutch businessmen who traded lives for gold, forever changing the course of American and world history, but the Virgin Queen, praised for her love of music, art, and literature, who put hundreds of African men, women, and children onto American soil." "During the 1560s, on direct orders from Her Majesty, John Hawkyns set sail from England. His West Africa. His to capture humans. At the time, Elizabeth was encouraging a Renaissance in her kingdom. Yet, being the intelligent monarch that she was, the queen knew her country's economy could not finance the dreams she had for it. An early entrepreneur, she saw an open market before her and sent one of her most trusted naval commanders, Hawkyns, to ensure a steady stream of wealth to sustain all the beauty that was her passion." "Like his fellow Englishmen, Hawkyns believed the African people's dark skin stood for evil, filth, barbarity - the complete opposite of the English notion of beauty, a lily white complexion and a virtuous soul, as exemplified by the queen. To him it was simple. If the white English were civilized and pure, the dark Africans must be savage. It was a moral license for Hawkyns to capture Africans." John Hawkyns was
416 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 2004
8 people are currently reading
211 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
May 31, 2022
An extraordinary book! The research that went into making this book is fenomenal. It reads like a biography of John Hawkyns three voyages and its very detailed about his dealings. At times it is hard to read with all the atrocities that were committed but it is a great book to learn from.
October 29, 2018
So... 25 years ago my husband's grandmother gave me a copy of the family tree for the maternal side of his family. Both of Grandma's parents were Mayflower descendants. (My people were European dirt farmers who came to the U.S. beginning around 1879). Looking over the tree, I saw "Sir John Hawkyns" and thought "cool! he's got a Sir in there!" Years later, when Wikipedia was invented, I looked him up and was... Well, it was not good. Hawkyns basically invented the English Triangular Trade. Yup. He kidnapped actual human beings from Africa, burned their villages, and shackled and sold them into slavery. Horrible.
This book essentially maps out not only Hawkyns' role in this "profitable" ( and HIGHLY immoral) business, it explains the degree that Queen Elizabeth I was supportive of it. In fact, she initially disapproved, but changed her mind when presented with the profits, and became an investor.
Hawkyns himself had no such moral qualms. Was he Protestant or Catholic? Depends who he was dealing with. A simple trader or pirate? Depends, again, on which was more advantageous. Worried about the innocents he captured, abused and sold like cattle? Nope.
The author repeatedly uses the phrase "bullyboy tactics" when describing Hawkyns. He was complicated, successful, and highly, highly despicable.
This book essentially maps out not only Hawkyns' role in this "profitable" ( and HIGHLY immoral) business, it explains the degree that Queen Elizabeth I was supportive of it. In fact, she initially disapproved, but changed her mind when presented with the profits, and became an investor.
Hawkyns himself had no such moral qualms. Was he Protestant or Catholic? Depends who he was dealing with. A simple trader or pirate? Depends, again, on which was more advantageous. Worried about the innocents he captured, abused and sold like cattle? Nope.
The author repeatedly uses the phrase "bullyboy tactics" when describing Hawkyns. He was complicated, successful, and highly, highly despicable.
April 17, 2023
Too many assumptions about Hawkins’ thoughts and feelings but a well researched and written book otherwise
November 29, 2014
Fascinating story of one of the first English slavers to reach North America.
March 13, 2018
There have always been people who are prepared to treat other people as commodities. Generally they come from the underbelly of society; people who find themselves able to live with profiting from the misery of others by trafficking them. Yet in the sixteenth century it developed into a gentleman adventurer's trade across Europe, with Spanish, Portuguese and thanks to men like John Hawkyns, increasingly English/British involvement. And with the exception of France expressing a (perhaps partly philosophical) condemnation of the slave trade in 1571, it was largely state sponsored or supported.
I picked this book up hoping to better understand how slavers reconciled their behaviour, but the book wasn't able to clarify this - largely because treating people as commodities was not obviously ever questioned by the key players. What was noticeable was that the attitude of people like Hawkyns spilled over into the way they treated all human beings, summing their value to them personally at any given time and treating them accordingly. Thus there were moments when Hawkyns would be generous to enemies; more than once he let the crew of a plundered ship take their emptied vessel and resume sailing, having more than enough ships of his own. At other times it was who you knew or what you knew that were your protection. After the disastrous battle at St Juan de Ulua, the men Hawkins had rescued from the rest of the English fleet were in danger of starvation on board his one remaining ship, and as a result were borderline mutinous. His solution was to abandon 114 men and boys ashore, with little in the way of food and drink but leaving them with some good to trade, should they reach civilisation. He kept on board his gentlemen companions and the most useful crew members - and his 12 remaining slaves, as valuable as currency on the journey home. Few of the 114 ever made it back; ironically, many of them were cast into slavery themselves.
There is a little light shed on the motivation of the Spanish and Portuguese in starting the trade in slaves from Africa. Having arrived in the Americas the Spanish had set about enslaving the local Indians, only to find they were too delicate to take the ill treatment and the workload they expected of them, and once aware of the invader's intentions, too good at evading capture.
The rights to claim 'new' lands and to control Atlantic trade had been split by successive Popes between Spain to the west and Portugal to the east, and the Portuguese had access to what Spanish settlers sought - hardier slaves from Africa. While they began by hunting and capturing slaves themselves, this rapidly created a local industry of warring tribes fighting and selling captured enemies. It is entirely reasonable to deduce, given the existence of earlier African cultures, that the desire for slaves in the Americas trammelled Africa into a dependence on slavery, much as the market for illegal drugs in first world countries traps nations like Afghanistan into dependence on opium production. Hazelwood details the devastating impact of the slave trade on Africa, reflected in many of the problems that face its nations today, in a succinct but powerful summary in the epilogue.
Finally, I was interested in understanding how Elizabeth I (a character I largely admired, mainly for surviving the complex political intrigues that dogged her entire life) could endorse the slave trade that would in the following centuries drive Britain's wealth, and its shame. Again this book couldn't answer that, so it necessitates reading between the lines. There is no indication that she had a vision of the wealth it would in future generate. England's early forays into slaving seemed to be an accidental by-product of privateers she commissioned to disrupt the hold Spain and Portugal had over trade in the Atlantic. Judging from Hawkyns' experiences it came with a heavy cost as well as a significant profit. It seems likely Elizabeth was motivated more by politics and survival - the two major driving forces in her life. Her own experiences and close escapes, endured since childhood, seem to have hardened her to the suffering of others rather than giving her empathy.
Hazelwood is less forgiving of the key players in the slave trade than most previous biographers of Hawkyns and Elizabeth, and with some justification. While it is easy to say that contemporary attitudes made profiting from slavery tolerable to enlightened and educated people, there is evidence that across Europe there was opposition to slavery even in the sixteenth century. But their voices were too few. In the face of rulers like Elizabeth I, one of the first to speak of black people in England as a problem, 'of which kind there are already here to manie,' and to propose repatriation, it would be decades more before attitudes to slavery saw meaningful change.
I picked this book up hoping to better understand how slavers reconciled their behaviour, but the book wasn't able to clarify this - largely because treating people as commodities was not obviously ever questioned by the key players. What was noticeable was that the attitude of people like Hawkyns spilled over into the way they treated all human beings, summing their value to them personally at any given time and treating them accordingly. Thus there were moments when Hawkyns would be generous to enemies; more than once he let the crew of a plundered ship take their emptied vessel and resume sailing, having more than enough ships of his own. At other times it was who you knew or what you knew that were your protection. After the disastrous battle at St Juan de Ulua, the men Hawkins had rescued from the rest of the English fleet were in danger of starvation on board his one remaining ship, and as a result were borderline mutinous. His solution was to abandon 114 men and boys ashore, with little in the way of food and drink but leaving them with some good to trade, should they reach civilisation. He kept on board his gentlemen companions and the most useful crew members - and his 12 remaining slaves, as valuable as currency on the journey home. Few of the 114 ever made it back; ironically, many of them were cast into slavery themselves.
There is a little light shed on the motivation of the Spanish and Portuguese in starting the trade in slaves from Africa. Having arrived in the Americas the Spanish had set about enslaving the local Indians, only to find they were too delicate to take the ill treatment and the workload they expected of them, and once aware of the invader's intentions, too good at evading capture.
The rights to claim 'new' lands and to control Atlantic trade had been split by successive Popes between Spain to the west and Portugal to the east, and the Portuguese had access to what Spanish settlers sought - hardier slaves from Africa. While they began by hunting and capturing slaves themselves, this rapidly created a local industry of warring tribes fighting and selling captured enemies. It is entirely reasonable to deduce, given the existence of earlier African cultures, that the desire for slaves in the Americas trammelled Africa into a dependence on slavery, much as the market for illegal drugs in first world countries traps nations like Afghanistan into dependence on opium production. Hazelwood details the devastating impact of the slave trade on Africa, reflected in many of the problems that face its nations today, in a succinct but powerful summary in the epilogue.
Finally, I was interested in understanding how Elizabeth I (a character I largely admired, mainly for surviving the complex political intrigues that dogged her entire life) could endorse the slave trade that would in the following centuries drive Britain's wealth, and its shame. Again this book couldn't answer that, so it necessitates reading between the lines. There is no indication that she had a vision of the wealth it would in future generate. England's early forays into slaving seemed to be an accidental by-product of privateers she commissioned to disrupt the hold Spain and Portugal had over trade in the Atlantic. Judging from Hawkyns' experiences it came with a heavy cost as well as a significant profit. It seems likely Elizabeth was motivated more by politics and survival - the two major driving forces in her life. Her own experiences and close escapes, endured since childhood, seem to have hardened her to the suffering of others rather than giving her empathy.
Hazelwood is less forgiving of the key players in the slave trade than most previous biographers of Hawkyns and Elizabeth, and with some justification. While it is easy to say that contemporary attitudes made profiting from slavery tolerable to enlightened and educated people, there is evidence that across Europe there was opposition to slavery even in the sixteenth century. But their voices were too few. In the face of rulers like Elizabeth I, one of the first to speak of black people in England as a problem, 'of which kind there are already here to manie,' and to propose repatriation, it would be decades more before attitudes to slavery saw meaningful change.
April 13, 2019
Very disturbing history of how the English entered into the slave trade. Queen Elizabeth sanctioned the piracy of John Hawkyns in raids on the Portuguese and the Spanish, stealing their cargoes, which including human beings. Fairly well written to include view points of the English, Portuguese, Dutch, Spanish, and Rome. Not so much from the many African kingdoms that were complicit in this trade or of the captives, but a good start to gain an understanding of how the English got involved in this despicable act. The English came in well after the Portuguese and the Spaniards, and these 2 came in long after the Arabs, but it is a terrible long chapter.
Much of the motives for the English's piracy was to do damage to the Spanish hegemony of the Western Hemisphere. This was a period of Catholic vs. Protestant and the war for the religions were real. English sailors caught in Mexico were subjected to the Courts of Inquisition and some were found guilty, garroted and burned at the stake. Hard to imagine being a slave in a ship that undergoes battles with other ships, sees the captors become captured and tortured all the while still a slave.
Much of the motives for the English's piracy was to do damage to the Spanish hegemony of the Western Hemisphere. This was a period of Catholic vs. Protestant and the war for the religions were real. English sailors caught in Mexico were subjected to the Courts of Inquisition and some were found guilty, garroted and burned at the stake. Hard to imagine being a slave in a ship that undergoes battles with other ships, sees the captors become captured and tortured all the while still a slave.
June 5, 2018
This book studied the trading voyages of John Hawkyns. In the 1500's, he sailed far and wide, plundering ships and capturing slaves. This book offers up some of the history about these issues. While I enjoyed this book, it did get a tad long and tedious by the end.
May 14, 2014
It may rankle her admirers, but the complicity of Queen Elizabeth I in the early years of the American/New World slave trade is pretty well documented here. As an investor in the voyages of John Hawkyns, she profited early and measurably by England's first ventures into the trade in human beings as commodities. The comedy of this (if you can find anything really funny about it) is seen, in some regard in the manner in which Hawkins was able to force himself and his goods upon Spanish New world settlements. an predictable pattern emerged: Hawkins would come to a port,the Spaniards would fall back on the fact that their king had forbid them from trading (at all) with the English, Hawkins would threaten force and violence- perhaps burning a mangy hut or two for emphasis, and then the residents and he would settle down to a week of amicable feasting, provisioning, and... slave trading. While England were early-in and early-out of the dealing in fellow human beings as captives-for-life, this book shows that so far as profits were concerned, the Empire's wealth was literally built on the backs of the captured African and Indian.
October 27, 2010
Narrative nonfiction is a tough balance - one has to have academic integrity about what one says, while still building an emotional picture. This book failed on the 'emotional' side of the line, with many unsupportable statements, but it was clearly well-researched and there were interesting footnotes and citations throughout, so it wasn't so bad about it as to be bad.
Though I found the story less thrilling than expected. News flash: racism and slavery! Evil people doing evil stuff! The most compelling part, for me, were accounts of how Hawkyns had to, on occasion, attack people and force them to buy what he was selling! That is a scenario stranger than fiction and I find myself wanting to write a space-merchants story now with lots of gritty evil, because look what actually happened!
Though I found the story less thrilling than expected. News flash: racism and slavery! Evil people doing evil stuff! The most compelling part, for me, were accounts of how Hawkyns had to, on occasion, attack people and force them to buy what he was selling! That is a scenario stranger than fiction and I find myself wanting to write a space-merchants story now with lots of gritty evil, because look what actually happened!
November 25, 2009
blah..
Nick Hazlewood gave a lot of great information in this book IMO but I just couldn't finish it.I was interested in the story but I wish to read more on Elizabeth not some much of John Hawkyns.
Too many more good books on the list to stay with one that is only semi-good to me
Nick Hazlewood gave a lot of great information in this book IMO but I just couldn't finish it.I was interested in the story but I wish to read more on Elizabeth not some much of John Hawkyns.
Too many more good books on the list to stay with one that is only semi-good to me
August 10, 2012
I loved this book, a compelling reading about a intresting piece of history. I just couldn't put it down.
Want to read
January 15, 2010Library
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews