1700-1800: “State-Sponsored” Slave Trade: The eighteenth-century French slave trade was fundamentally driven by the enormous economic output and labor requir…

1700-1800: “State-Sponsored” Slave Trade: The eighteenth-century French slave trade was fundamentally driven by the enormous economic output and labor requirements of the St.-Domingue colony. To support this industry, the French government provided extensive state subsidies to slave traders until the outbreak of the French Revolution. Nuance: This means the French public and monarchy were direct investors in the Middle Passage. Without these subsidies, the high-risk voyages to the Bight of Benin (which had longer transit times and higher costs) might have been economically unviable.