This book explores the connections betweenthe origins of the English empire and unfree laborby exploring how England’s imperial designs influenced contemporary politics and debates about labor, population, political economy, and overseas trade. Focusing on the ideological connections between the growth of unfree labor in the colonies, particularly the use of enslaved Africans, and the development of English imperialism during the early modern period, the book examines the overlapping, often competing imperial agendas of planters, merchants, privateers, colonial officials, and imperial authorit ... More

This book explores the connections betweenthe origins of the English empire and unfree laborby exploring how England’s imperial designs influenced contemporary politics and debates about labor, population, political economy, and overseas trade. Focusing on the ideological connections between the growth of unfree labor in the colonies, particularly the use of enslaved Africans, and the development of English imperialism during the early modern period, the book examines the overlapping, often competing imperial agendas of planters, merchants, privateers, colonial officials, and imperial authorities in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. It pays particular attention to how and why slavery and England’s participation in the transatlantic slave trade came to be widely accepted as central to the national and imperial interest by contributing to the idea that colonies with slaves were essential for the functioning of the empire. The book argues that the prevalence of African slavery in the English West Indies was not inevitable and did not occur in colonial isolation but was deeply connected to metropolitan concerns, politics, and conflicts.