In 1663 the Royal African Company received a charter to trade along the west coast of Africa, with English royal backing. The company became deeply involved in gold, ivory, and especially the transatlantic slave trade. Its activities linked English finance, African coastal politics, Caribbean plantations, and colonial expansion in a system of immense human suffering.

The company's rise forms part of the historical background to Black Atlantic literature, from oral memory and spiritual song to later slave narratives. Writers such as Olaudah Equiano and Phillis Wheatley emerged from a world shaped by forced migration, linguistic loss, and cultural survival. For poetry timelines, this event marks how empire generated both violent silencing and new diasporic forms of voice.