Who Am I?

Born in 1632 I was educated at Westminister School and Oxford. In 1663, while teaching at Oxford I became an investor in the company of Royal Adventurers into Africawhich held a monopoly on the English African trade - including the slave trade, which comprised a quarter of its income.

In 1670 I drafted a constitution for the new colony of Carolina, the "Grand Model". Under this constitution, the common people had no voting rights nor could they leave the land they worked on without permission of the land's owner. The "Grand Model" also included a paragraph describing slavery as an "institution to be accepted."

In 1672, when the company of Royal Adventurers was wound up, I invested 400 pounds in the its successor, the Royal Africa Company. I invested a further 200 pounds in the Royal Africa Company in 1675.

In 1690, in a major work of political philosophy, I described slavery as a "state of war continued between a lawful conqueror and a captive".

I died in 1704.