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

The Atlantic Slave Trade: Empire Built on Human Suffering — Fexingo History · Jul 12, 2026 · 8m · transcript

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…