In 1562 Sir John Hawkins (1532-1595) kidnapped about four hundred Africans and sold them in the West Indies for pearls, ginger, sugar, and hides. Two years later this Englishman sailed again, capturing five hundred. Between 1562 and 1569, he enslaved over 1,500 men, women, and children. Nearly three times this amount were likely killed during the village raids.1 Why did Hawkins begin trading in human flesh? Money. The slave trade made him a wealthy man, and for nearly three hundred years it lined the pockets of England’s elite. By the late eighteenth century, the “heinous practice generated millions of pounds […]