The increase in the need for slaves in the eighteenth century was the result of the increase in plantation production (Benjamin 341). Over time the slave trade became larger and more competitive. There were multiple methods of trading, with one being more successful. For three centuries the slave trade dominated Atlantic commerce.
The slave trade was a large, multifaceted world wide enterprise.
The eighteenth-century increase was largely due to increased plantation production and gold mining in Brazil. Brazilian gold production peaked in the 1720s until 1745. By 1790, the British and French had large gains on their sugar islands, producing 290,000 tons of sugar per annum. While gold mining was a large source of slave labor, it was the plantations that “were the economic engines that led to the forced immigration of millions of Africans,” (Benjamin 341).
Over four million captives went to Brazil during the trade. Spanish America saw the influx of over 1.662 million slaves during the slave trade era. The French sugar islands imported almost 1.7 million slaves and the British Caribbean islands received almost 1.65 million.
The European trade business was divided into two different ways: monopolies and free trade. Charter companies were given contracts or charters that gave them a monopoly of a certain colony or region, even the entire Atlantic. These companies built forts along the African coasts to guard and hold captives before their passage.
Some merchants traded
In conclusion, the introduction of the Atlantic slave trade drastically changed America. Economically speaking, the African slaves allowed the Southern plantations to prosper and grow at an exponential rate. Socially speaking, the African slaves and racism towards them led to larger gaps in social classes. However, geographically speaking, the need for labor in Southern agriculture was present both in the eras prior and after African slavery.
The enslaved also became known as personal property to their masters and lost all their rightful customary rights being human beings. Portugal and Spain did end up dominating the slaver trade during the 16th century; as a result they shipped over two thousand Africans per year to the Americas. The trading that took place of import goods in exchange with the return of the exporting of Africans was a complete consequence of the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade. The profits from the slave trade were so great the Dutch, French and English become involved in 1550. With the development of tobacco as a cash crop in Virginia and Maryland during the 1620's and with the large expansion of sugar production the demand for African slaves grew. The end result and the direct consequence was that England and France compete with the Dutch to take over the Atlantic Slave trade. After a host of wars England then took over the Trans Atlantic Slave trade which overthrew the Dutch in 1764 and victories over France and Spain occurred in 1713. This allowed English traders the right to supply slaves to all of Spain's American colonies. The profits of the Atlantic Slave trade produced in the America's by slave labor were invested in England and consequently helped fund the industrial revolution during the 18th century. In return, Africa became a market for cheap English manufactured
To start, in Brazil the Portuguese become convinced that full-scale exploitation of the land was imperative for the safety of their entire overseas empire. Sugar cultivation was the ideal crop to guarantee the existence of a profitable colony. As a result, the Portuguese dominated the Atlantic slave trade. Various slaves from different parts of Africa were brought to Brazil and experienced difficult working and in living
Trade during colonial America was done between Europe, Africa, and the New World. They traded food, natural resources, animals, and slaves. History proves to show that trade highly increases economies and through the Triangular Trade route the economy of the colonies shot up. It was really easy for colonists to buy slaves from Africa and have them shipped across the Middle Passage just as easy as it was to be over an indentured servant. As stated above, colonists preferred slaves over indentured servants, so they chose African slaves. This allowed for a rapid growth in the number of slaves within the British North American colonies that increased trade and economic power for the colonies.
Two factors that prompted the growth of the slave trade in half the century before the civil war were the cash value for slave increased and the slave trade ended. This happened because the legal importation of slaves to U.s. was ended in 1808. So, selling slaves became a huge business for brokers and auctioneers. Because they could gain more money by selling the slaves rather than just getting another slave for one who works better. Because the importation ended they had to start selling slaves locally. This made the slaves
The economic problem relating to the increasing dependency on slavery is also related to the increasing demand of slave trade as a way to make profit (document 9). Slave trade is unreliable because of the fluctuating demands of slavery. English slave imports to American between 1600 and 1780 would gradually increase in the West Indies and Southern Mainland, but not at a constant rate (document 9). On the other hand, slave imports in the Mid-Atlantic and New England varied around 1,000 to 2,000 slaves from 1701 to 1780, which would drastically impact the profits of slave traders (document 9).
The triangular trade thereby gave a triple stimulus to British industry. The Africans were purchased with British manufactures; transported to the plantations, they produced sugar, cotton, indigo, molasses and other tropical products, the processing of which created new industries in England; while the maintenance of the Negroes and their owners on the plantations provided another market for British industry.
With the European discovery of the New World, African slave trade began to grow. Slaves were traded and bought and then shipped to some other place and then sold. Europeans would trade things for slaves then bring them to places like the West Indies and sell them. They would then buy goods and bring the goods back to Europe. This was the triangular trade system. Slaves played a vital role in trade all over the world, old and new. Although African slavery had already existed, there were many reasons as to why it was needed during the Atlantic World and there were many effects of this.
The Atlantic Slave Trade lasted between 1450 and 1750 and drastically impacted the lives of both European and African people. During this time, the Europeans, such as the British, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Dutch, traveled to Africa in search of labor workers. In total, over twelve million slaves were taken, mainly because they workers to make money, but it also had to do with their race, religion – as they were not Christian – and to civilize them because the Europeans did not believe that they were humans. Due to these European beliefs, the Europeans saw themselves as the most powerful group and viewed slave trade as a business. The Africans, on the other hand, had a harder time transitioning into slavery. Many of them were taken from their homes and forced to accept a new life working as a slave. These events did not come without many sacrifices from the African people. One of the major reasons the slave trade was so expansive is due to the low life expectancy of the slaves after their capture. While the Europeans believed that they were helping the African culture, as well as themselves, the African society as a whole suffered the most.
Slave trading was a business and “over the four centuries of Atlantic slavery, millions of Africans and their descendants were turned into profits.” (Johnson) The Atlantic trade was highly depended on by slave owners as the life expectancy of a slave working in the sugar cane plantations was about seven years in the Caribbean. Due to the use of slave labor by the 18th century surplus capital was being invested in European industry.
The transatlantic slave trade, or the triangular slave trade, was a trade route between Europe, Africa, and the Americas. The English desire for raw goods and agricultural materials was a result of their strong economic policy of mercantilism. In 1650, the British pursued the policy of mercantilism in international trade. Mercantilism is the idea, that in order to strengthen economically strength, a nation must export more than import. To achieve this balance, the regulatory laws were passed. The regulatory laws created a system whereby Americans would provide raw materials to Britain, and Britain then produced manufactured goods that were sold in European markets and in the colonies. Between 1651 and 1673, four Navigation Acts were passed. The Navigation Acts stated that only English ships could carry items between imperial ports. Also, goods like rice, furs, and tobacco, could not be shipped to other nations except through Scotland or England. A third rule was that the Americans who produced raw goods would be paid bounties. However, protectionist tariffs were raised on these goods produced in other places. Finally, Americans were not allowed to compete with English manufacturers. Mercantilism was the English
During the development of the colonies and the nation as a whole, slaves were utilized in order to produce the crops and perform laborious tasks that were “below” white people. In the 1660s, there was an increased demand for tobacco products as well as indigo and rice in England (“African American Slavery in the Colonial Era, 1619-1775”). In order to fulfill the demand, there was a spike in interest in purchasing slaves. More and more slaves were needed to produce larger amounts of crops for the plantation owners.
Slavery went through many changes during the course of the Industrial Revolution. At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, slavery on plantations that had developed in the Renaissance continued to grow in the Americas. With the success of the plantations in America, what is known as the triangular trade began to form, and this trade majorly affected the world’s economies and
Labor exploitation was the key for the effectiveness of european expansion in the new world and define slavery as a principal component for global capitalism until it was not longer profitable. The atlantic slave trade influence europe economic growth and market development to rapidly spread through the atlantic trade. It was a intense dependence on the triangular trade that made merchants made big profits at the expense of the exploited labour abroad. Merchants were involved in all three sides of the triangle trade that allowed the transportation of slaves from Europe to Africa where goods were traded for slaves and then those slaves were brought to the Americas for the cultivation food crops and other raw materials; these later were brought back to Europe, Africa and the Americas to be sold. Resistance and revolts against the trade of slave was stronger in African areas where european demographic power was lower but “It was not until 1780s that increasing european along the west of africa coast finally drove up the price of slaves” and the overproduction of sugar in the caribbean and other raw materials lead the fall in the selling price of these products (shillington p181) european nations began to question whether the trade was still profitable or not. Britain was the first to completely abolished slavery in 1834 when manufactures found european labor in factories more efficient and less expensive than plantations. It was follow for the french colonies 1848, Cuba in