BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY: SLAVE TRADE AND SLAVERY IN BRISTOL:

The Society Of Merchant Ventures  an Organisation of Elite Merchants in Bristol wanted to commence participation in the African Slave Trade and after much pressure from them and other interested parties in and around Britain, the Royal African Company control over the Slave Trade was broken in 1698. As soon as the monopoly was broken the first Bristol Slave ship. The Beginning owned by Stephen Barker purchased enslaved Africans and delivered them to the Caribbean. Some Slaves average prices from £20, £50 or £100. In her will of 1693 Jane Bridges widow of Leigh Upon Mendip bequested her interest of £130 in this very ship to her grandson Thomas Bridges and she indicated that the vessel was owned by the City Of Bristol.

Business boomed, however due to the over crowding and hash conditions on the ships it is estimated that approximately half of each cargo of slaves did not survive the trip across the Atlantic. Between 1697 and 1807 known ships left Bristol 2108 made the trip to Africa and on wards across the Atlantic with Slaves. An average of twenty voyages set sail a year approximately 500,me. Profits 000 slaves were brought into slavery by these ships representing one-fifth of the British Slave Trade during this time. Profits from the Slave Trade ranged from 50% to 100%  during the early 18th century. Bristol was already wealthy before the slave trade, but prospered in further with the slave trade in its doors.