More than 1,100 women invested in British companies involved in the trafficking of enslaved Africans, research reported by The Guardian has found. The evidence challenges the view that women were mainly passive beneficiaries of the trade or became politically significant only through later abolition campaigns.

Researchers identified female investors across the Royal African Company (RAC), the South Sea Company and other ventures. Their roles included buying, selling and brokering shares, supplying goods such as barrels and swords, managing company property, lending money and using family and social connections to support the companies’ finances and influence.

The RAC trafficked about 150,000 enslaved people before it was dissolved in 1752. By that time, women represented about 10% of its shareholders. The research identifies 1,100 female investors across the companies’ histories, although researchers believe the actual number was higher. Investors came from a wide range of backgrounds, including royalty, aristocracy, merchants, shopkeepers and cowherds.

Lila O’Leary Chambers, a University of Cambridge lecturer involved in the research, said women contributed financially throughout the RAC’s existence and expected financial returns. She said investments could provide economic independence, particularly for single women and widows, who under English law could control property and act as legal persons. Married women generally could not do so independently.

Records show women also sought influence through informal channels because they apparently did not vote or serve on company boards. Meeting minutes record them witnessing events, petitioning for wages, passing information and arranging goods and finance. RAC secretary John Perry wrote to female investors urging them to exchange company debts for shares and persuade relatives and friends to do likewise, according to the research.

The archives include correspondence about “African stock” and a request by an investor, Helen Gladman, for the RAC to transport a young African girl from Sherbro Island to England for household service. Chambers said the findings complicate accounts that place white women primarily at the point of abolition. Olivette Otele of Soas University of London said records about enslavers may also help researchers recover details about enslaved women, while stressing that archives cannot provide a complete history of their lives and agency.