The Slave Trade's Bankers: How London Insured the Middle Passage

We often picture slave ships leaving African ports with captains like Luke Collingwood calling the shots. But behind those voyages stood a far more invisible infrastructure: the bankers, insurers, and investors in London and Liverpool who made the trade possible. In this episode, Lucas and Luna trace the financial architecture of the Atlantic slave trade — from the Royal African Company's monopoly to the rise of private underwriting at Lloyd's Coffee House. They explore how insurance policies literally priced enslaved people as cargo, how 'general average' claims turned murder into a business expense, and how the 1781 Zong massacre was ultimately an insurance dispute. The conversation also examines the financial networks that propped up the trade across British, French, and Portuguese empires, and the early abolitionist strategy of targeting insurance and credit. Specific names include James Rogers (a Bristol banker who collapsed under debt), Anthony Bacon (a London merchant who traded slave-produced goods), and John Kennion (a Liverpool slave trader who went bankrupt). The episode touches on the 1807 Abolition Act's financial compensation for slave owners and the long shadow of these financial institutions. #SlaveTrade #Insurance #Lloyds #MiddlePassage #ZongMassacre #RoyalAfricanCompany #Liverpool #London #Banking #GeneralAverage #JamesRogers #AnthonyBacon #JohnKennion #Abolition #Compensation #1807AbolitionAct #History #FexingoHistory Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo