Interlopers are individuals or businesses who breach the monopoly of established

guild A guild ( ) is an association of artisans and merchants who oversee the practice of their craft/trade in a particular territory. The earliest types of guild formed as organizations of tradespeople belonging to a professional association. They so ...

livery company A livery company is a type of guild or professional association that originated in medieval times in London, England. Livery companies comprise London's ancient and modern trade associations and guilds, almost all of which are Style (form of a ...

or other body granted monopoly trading rights.

Interlopers in the English East India trade

The term was used for English merchants who breached the

monopoly A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek and ) is a market in which one person or company is the only supplier of a particular good or service. A monopoly is characterized by a lack of economic Competition (economics), competition to produce ...

held by the English

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ...

(EIC) over trade between England and the

East Indies The East Indies (or simply the Indies) is a term used in historical narratives of the Age of Discovery. The ''Indies'' broadly referred to various lands in Eastern world, the East or the Eastern Hemisphere, particularly the islands and mainl ...

. This monopoly forbade English merchants or vessels to trade anywhere from the

Cape of Good Hope The Cape of Good Hope ( ) is a rocky headland on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa. A List of common misconceptions#Geography, common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Afri ...

Cape Horn Cape Horn (, ) is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island. Although not the most southerly point of South America (which is Águila Islet), Cape Horn marks the nor ...

without a license from the EIC.

Madagascar slave trade 1670-1700

The

Madagascar Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar, is an island country that includes the island of Madagascar and numerous smaller peripheral islands. Lying off the southeastern coast of Africa, it is the world's List of islands by area, f ...

slave trade was part of the

Atlantic slave trade The Atlantic slave trade or transatlantic slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of Slavery in Africa, enslaved African people to the Americas. European slave ships regularly used the triangular trade route and its Middle Pass ...

, however as it entailed sailing to the east of the Cape of Good Hope, merchants engaging in this trade were generally interlopers. Evidence of this trade dates back to the 1670s. However, despite being able to take a lawsuit against such interlopers, the EIC were indifferent to their activity. However, the Royal Africa Company (RAC), founded 1660, held a monopoly on trade between England and the west coast of

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

. This was the principal trading organisation involved with the English transatlantic slave trade. They were concerned that the interlopers were trading enslaved

Malagasy people The Malagasy ( or ) are a group of Austronesian-speaking ethnic groups indigenous to the island country of Madagascar, formed through generations of interaction between Austronesians originally from southern Borneo and Bantus from Southeast ...

, whom they had bought at a cost of 10 shillings, compared to the cost of about £3-4 encountered by the RAC per enslaved African on the West coast of Africa. However, when the RAC entreated the EIC to take action against the interlopers, no action was in fact taken. In the English colonies in the Americas, the instructions to governors only obliged them to enforce parliamentary legislation and

royal proclamation A proclamation (Lat. ''proclamare'', to make public by announcement) is an official declaration issued by a person of authority to make certain announcements known. Proclamations are currently used within the governing framework of some nations ...

s, whereas the monopolies were only laid out in

royal charter A royal charter is a formal grant issued by a monarch under royal prerogative as letters patent. Historically, they have been used to promulgate public laws, the most famous example being the English Magna Carta (great charter) of 1215, but ...

s; thus, they took no action. However, in the 1690s a number of pirates had settled in Île Sainte-Marie, an island off the east coast of Madagascar. From here they raided shipping lanes in the

Red Sea The Red Sea is a sea inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. Its connection to the ocean is in the south, through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden. To its north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and th ...

and

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or approximately 20% of the water area of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia (continent), ...

. Such interlopers as the New York merchant, Frederick Philipse and Stephen Delancey, began trading with the pirates selling them such goods as food, drink, guns and ammunition as well as catechisms and bibles. In return they received

bullion Bullion is non-ferrous metal that has been refined to a high standard of elemental purity. The term is ordinarily applied to bulk metal used in the production of coins and especially to precious metals such as gold and silver. It comes from ...

, East India goods and slaves. Frederick's son Adolphus Philipse also participated in this trade, and they were all protected by

Benjamin Fletcher Benjamin Fletcher (14 May 1640 – 28 May 1703) was colonial governor of New York from 1692 to 1697. Fletcher was known for the ''Ministry Act'' of 1693, which secured the place of Anglicans as the official religion in New York. He also built ...

, colonial governor of New York.

References

British East India Company Economic history of Madagascar {{international-trade-stub