French traders played a limited role in the trans-Atlantic slave trade in the seventeenth century. However, things changed dramatically after 1713, when the Crown offered generous subsidy schemes to support French shipping and participation in the slave trade. By 1793, French slave traders had transported more than a million Africans to the Americas. The vast European colonies that produced invaluable cargoes of sugar, coffee, and indigo depended on slave labour, and the French became addicted to this cheap supply of workers. The European market could not have enough of these exotic goods, but ships needed an outward cargo to be profitable. African slaves became a dependable source of profit for cash-strapped shipowners and merchants.