George Myers wrote:

>>The unmarked pig iron gives me the willies. This according to Karl Polanyi
>was the basis of the slave trade in Africa, the bottom line of commerce by
>which all prices in silver, gold, etc., was set.

There was a definite connection between the slave trade and the early
American iron industry. Some of the entrepreneurs who started Virginia
blast furnaces in the 1720s were, in fact, associated with the Royal
African Company.

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