Impact Of The Transatlantic Slave Trade

Slavery played a huge role in the colonies in developing the economy. Colonies depended on slaves for the economy as well as for the society and even their own personal needs. Southern colonies economic development was based on agriculture and the manufacturing of profitable goods such as tobacco, cotton, and sugarcane. In American colonies, the people who were successful often made their profits from the hard work of numerous enslaved Africans. Tobacco plantations used the largest percentage of African slaves imported into the United States. When the cotton gin was invented, it gave a rise to slavery

The slave ship sailed from the home country with a cargo of manufactured goods. These were exchanged at a profit on the coast of Africa for Negroes, who were traded on the plantations, at another profit, in exchange for a cargo of colonial produce to be taken back to the home country. As the volume of trade increased, the triangular trade was supplemented, but never supplanted, by a direct trade between home country and the West Indies, exchanging home manufactures directly for colonial produce.

Another major question to be dealt with in dealing with the importance of the slave trade to the development of plantation economies is how strong was the like between the slave trade and the development of plantation economies, Eric Williams in his book Capitalism and Slavery argues that in the production of crops such as sugar and cocoa with the use of slave labour, when producing in large units such as a plantation the cost of production goes down. So by this argument slavery is a necessity for the maximization of profits in the plantation system and as has been previously shown Indian slavery ended in failure and whites could not be enslaved so therefore that left only Africa with its large population and close proximity so the slave trade became a necessity to bring African slaves without which maximum profit could not be achieved Williams quotes Merivale as writing "slavery was an economic institution of the first importance." An example of this what ids

Slavery was a driving force of the sugar trade because the profits from selling slaves had driven sellers to sell more. Also, the The increase of sold slaves produced more sugar, thus expanding the sugar trade. Documents 9 and 11 deal with the market of slaves, while Document 10 compares slave population to sugar production. According to David Richardson, after purchasing slaves off the West African coast, selling them to British Caribbean would give sellers very high profit. In fact, in 1748, a seller’s profit would be about £18 per slave sold. In 1768, however, both purchase price and selling price of a slave had increased; yet remarkably a seller’s profit reached £25 per slave sold (Doc. 9). Sellers such as grocers and tailors and other commoners were able to take part in this trade by buying a share of a venture (Doc. 9). Craftsmen involved in the trade did not use money to trade slaves. African slaves were traded with material goods such as bullets, tobacco-pipes, brass pans, and copper bars (Doc. 11). The economic growth from the slave trade had produced both money and slaves, which increased sugar production. The massive amounts of slaves working had produced tons of sugar from a plantation. Although working in deplorable conditions, the “free” labor from the slaves had produced extremely high yields (Doc. 8). For

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.

Free and slave labor is different each other based on their characteristic of profitability in many different places. Slave labor gains more revenue from tasks that require less basic skill and flexibility in the production process. For example, if the landlord use slave labor to cultivate fresh land, it is more profitable instead of using free labour to cultivate desolated land. Moreover, the use of slave labor is based on a strict economic situation. Slavery made supplies free labors were not achieved, and the cultivation of crops such as cotton, sugar, and tobacco was possible to achieve by slave labour in the New World because the European population of the 19th century was limited. Free labor has not achieved the supply needed for large farms in the new land and they suited better for small-scale production of crops requiring professional skills which is an absolute fact that using slave labors are more advantageous to do the mass production. Therefore, slave labor was much better to stable because it was easier to control over ensuring proper production of crops (Eltis, 2000).

Without slavery, globalization wouldn't have such a start within the new world. As these people who were enslaved were the ones creating the products that were to be traded for other items. The cheap labour the colonies have created from these

We first look at the advent of slavery and the main propulsion of it. As the trade routes opened, new types of items were found and shared in new countries. Two of the most wanted and profitable crops were sugar and tobacco. In order to grow the large amounts of these crops many people were needed and in order to secure a profit, instead of paying people to work,

None of these industries was very successful however until tobacco was introduced as a cash crop in 1613. John Rolfe learned to plant the tobacco, but also harvest it and cure it so that when it was transported to England it wouldn’t spoil. As the time went by the colonist perfected the growing of tobacco and were exporting the product to England. The demand for it was very high that this product revolutionized the colony’s economy. There was a lot of work required for this task, so when many Africans arrived in 1619 they were traded for supplies and became slaves of the colonists. The men and women were required to work very hard planting and harvesting the plants, but they also had to serve their owners and obey them or they would be

New inventions and innovations such as Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin (1793), which increased cotton production or James Watt’s Steam Engine (1769), which increased transportation methods and trans-communication, which then soon paved a way towards greater interconnected world and economy. But the Industrial Revolutions are by no means a replacement of slavery; it has, in fact, increased slavery, because slave-owners demanded increased production for greater export and trade; the purpose of this increase is profit. While slavery did not validly create a major contribution towards the share that financed and administered the Industrial Revolution of Europe’s, slave labor did produce some major consumer goods such as coffee, cotton, sugar, and tobacco, during the 17th - 19th centuries.* Another major result of the Industrial Revolutions (specifically the American Industrial Revolution) and the increase of slavery is migration and immigration. As a result of slavery during the American industrialization, production, goods, and the population skyrocketed, which will have soon boosted up the American economy, and so on would make America one of the most economic powerhouses in the world. What would America’s economy stand if slavery did not

[x] France for example has created New France in Canada and also down into Florida and Spain had a large portion of Mexico and Southern America. [xi] These new colonizes helped create trade between the New and Old World. Government ventures lended money for explorers to set forth and trade in the West and elsewhere.[xii] This also led to the role of mercantilism in the Atlantic as well. They helped promote overseas trade between a country and its own colonizes.[xiii] As they controlled more trade, different trading companies began to emerge in response to mercantilism. The Dutch West Indian Company and the royal African Company chartered by their motherlands all participated in a system which included other non- European countries as well. This system was known as the Atlantic Circuit which was a clockwise network of trading links that moved goods, wealth and people around the Atlantic system.[xiv] This helped make the slave trade more efficient because now a vast amount of slaves could be transported to their specific destinations as requested by a country. As document 8 shows, the slaves which came from Africa each followed a specific route in the Atlantic Circuit. [xv] tying in with document 4 the work that had to be done on the plantation was a lot and that is why with the help of city ports in Africa they were able to get a large number of slaves to help in the Americas. An example of the type of work they did can be

The slave trade was very important to the British economy. Without the slave trade, the triangular trade would not have taken place. This is because there would have been no reason to trade slaves from Africa for goods in the West Indies and the USA. Because there were so many slaves being traded, there was plenty of sugar being exported from the sugar plantations to Britain (3,750 tons in 1951 to 9,525 tons in 1669) due to the increase in labour. This trade of sugar had a big impact on the British economy. Because of the large quantities of sugar being produced by African slaves, sugar was able to become a staple food in Britain. “The poorest English farm labourer’s wife took sugar in her tea” which suggests that even the poorest of

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

In today’s world it is widely know and accepted that money makes the world go round but, unfortunately that is not the question. The question is: what made the world go round in the early 1600’s? Surprisingly, just like the world today money made the world go around back then also. One major difference is that in today’s world machines do all of our dirty work, back then it was all up to the slaves. Finding the perfect slave was a challenge to the colonists. First, there was the indentured servants, second, came the Indians. However because Indians and indentured servants could escape to freedom with ease, they were not the ideal slaves. The colonists’ third attempt proved to be a gold mine. The unfortunate people who were forced in to