Trade Importance Quotes



This was an expression of concern from the merchants of Rhode Island to England regarding curtailing aspects of the slave trade. Ironically, this Remonstrance is one of the first documents objecting to the management of America’s affairs by England when America had no representation. Therefore it played a part in the process which culminated in the American Revolution and freedom from England. And yet the subject was not freedom at all but just the opposite—the prerogative of maintaining the slave trade. Note that the appeal to the Board of Trade was not couched in ethical or political argument but as a mercantile argument—Rhode Islander’s would import less British goods.