Sir Hans Sloane was one of the great collectors of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century. His collections now form a core component of the founding collections of the British Museum, the British Library and the Natural History Museum.
From an early age, Sloane showed an inclination towards science, and, at the age of 19, he travelled to London to study at Apothecaries' Hall. In 1687 he travelled to Jamaica with the Duke of Albermarle and took the opportunity to study and collect botanical specimens from the island to bring back to England upon his return in 1689. This book, describing the botany of the Caribbean islands was first published in 1707 and was dedicated to Queen Anne. In 1725, Sloane followed it with a second volume focusing not only on botany but also the wildlife, climate, diseases and trade of the Caribbean. In preparing the volumes, Sloane relied on the knowledge of Indigenous populations as well as information supplied to him by Akan people that had been enslaved and brought to Jamaica to work on the plantations.
In recent years Sloane's legacy has been brought into question. Some of the money he used to amass his vast collection was acquired through his investments in two major companies involved in the transatlantic slave trade, the Royal African Company and the South Sea Company.