The English "Andalusia Company" was the "Brotherhood of St George"

Silence has been cast over the history of early English slaveholding in Spain by Gordon Connell-Smith’s study of the English Andalusia Company. It is time to recognize as a historical fact that the majority of the English merchants resident in Andalusia such as Robert and Nicholas Thorne, the geographer Roger Barlow, and Thomas Mailliard–were slave owners. See Shakespeare Studies, Volume 31 edited by Leeds Barroll, Susan Zimmerman ” Some of the merchants trading in Andalusia at that time had places of business both in England and in Spain. One of these was to play a particularly important part in the colony at this time: William Ostrych, who is recorded as living and trading at Sanlucar as early 1523, when he described himself as a citizen of Bristol. His name had appeared for the time in the Bristol customs records for the years 1517-18. In 1523 wine growing had become so predominant that there was a shortage of wheat and for a time the planting of new vineyards was forbidden.”

“The Mallards must be ranked among the leading slave owners in the Iberian Peninsula considering that the average number of slaves owned by the landed nobility was fifteen.” “English trade with Morocco was a natural extension of the existing trade established by the Andalusia company in Spain and in the Levant. Individual voyages can be traced as far back as the 1520s or 1530s” See Shakespeare Studies, Volume 31 edited by Leeds Barroll, Susan Zimmerman “All the evidence is that the English merchants were rugged individuals and rivals. Trading together in one small town, they must have known one another, but during the days of prosperity, there is no hint of any combination or organization. Only in adversity did they combine together and then not very effective. They did so once in order to petition the duke. To give coherence to their organization and standing in the eyes of the English government they petitioned King Henry VIII and in September 1530 he granted them a constitution. It was then that the Andalusia Company, commonly known as the Brotherhood of St George, came into being. In the thirteen years since the dukes charter, conditions between Spain–with its intense Catholicism–and England had deteriorated greatly. For a short period in 1528, the two countries had been at war. In 1529 the English merchants complained that they were the least favored nation and that their privileges were not being observed.” Source: Sherry By Julian Jeffs

“By the time of Henry VIII’s charter, the church of St George had been built the first of three churches to be built on the site, and the last is still standing. Under the charter, the merchants were to assemble for the purpose of electing a consul or governor and twelve’s ancient and expert persons’ to be assistants, with ‘full power to levy such impost as shall be thought necessary, and to make ordinances for their Welfare’. Besides the London merchants, there were to be two each from Bristol and Southampton, though the evidence is that far more were trading from the former port. The impost was inevitable to prove unpopular, yet without them, it was impossible for the company to exist. Indeed, its life was short. Nothing is known of it immediately after its formation but on 24 April 1539, a meeting was held in St George church which was attended by eighteen merchants who elected William Ostrych as their governor.” Source: Sherry By Julian Jeffs Records show that the first English slaveholders and traders of “enslaved Moors” were the English merchants resident in Andalusia in the last decades of the fifteenth and early decades of the sixteenth centuries, and further, that the English were the pioneers of the English slave trade with Morocco. … See Portia & the Prince of Morocco Essay By Ungerer, Gustav

“In the early years’ trade may have been tranquil and profitable, but during the reign of Henry VIII and Elizabeth it was full of perils and the English settlers were continually molested by the Inquisition. The Andalusia Company continued in existence until 1585, by which time it owned a vineyard and some property in the nearby village of Chipiona. In this year ships on the Guadalquivir laden with the possessions of the English merchants who were taking them out of Andalusia were seized, while some of the merchants who were taking them out of Andalusia were seized, while some of the merchants and sailors were handed over to the Inquisition. All that remained were a few Catholics.” Source: Sherry By Julian Jeffs

“They met together on St George’s Day 1591 and, led by the sinister Jesuit Rober Persons (or Parsons) with twelve ordained priest from Valladolid on their way to England, resolved that their lands and impost should be devoted to the seminary, used as a posting station to send missionaries to England. By this time the church, which had been ‘much in decay’ had been repaired by English seminary priests with aid from the King and the Duke of Medina Sidonia. From then on in the hands of Irish Catholic priests and, not unnaturally, the exiled Protestants were furious. There was an attempt to revive the company on a much larger scale and it existed in a new form from 1604 to 1606, but neither in its latter years nor in its revival was it a very significant force in the wine trade. The revived company may well have succeeded had not the disastrous choice been made to appoint Roger Bodenham as consul at Sanlucar.”