Profitability of Slavery

For over 2,000 years, slavery has been conducted in various parts of the world. From year 1500 to year 1900, Europeans stole individuals from West Africa, West Central Africa, and Southeast Africa and shipped them to the different parts of the Atlantic. This process dehumanized them of their identity. Europeans stole husbands, wives, merchants, blacksmiths, farmers, and even children. They removed them from their homelands and gave them new names: slaves. European slaveholders never thought to take ownership of their actions by killing humans with brutality and degradation. Slave trade was considered popular in England and soon after more countries began the process of taking slaves to newly claimed territories. These countries include

The introduction of Africans to America in 1619 set off an irreversible chain of events that effected the economy of the southern colonies. With a switch from the expensive system of indentured servitude, slavery emerged and grew rapidly for various reasons, consisting of economic, geographic, and social factors. The expansion of slavery in the southern colonies, from the founding of Jamestown in 1607 to just before America gained its independence in 1775, had a lasting impact on the development of our nation’s economy, due to the fact that slaves were easy to obtain, provided a life-long workforce, and were a different race than the colonists, making it easier to justify the immoral act.

Slaves in Spain were mostly Native Americans. New Spain valued Native Americans because they knew the land. The Native Americans knew the land so well that farming was easy for them. Not only did the Spanish enslave Native Americans but they also used some Africans for slave labor. The Spanish colonies eventually used African slaves only because the Natives often died from diseases. The same diseases the Europeans had brought over from England. Spain also had indentured servant who would work for a couple of years. In exchange for their work they would get food, clothing and a way to the new world. New France used Africans for slaves because they could get them in large amount. The French had many plantations that requires a lot of labor and because African slaves were cheap they had lots of them.

Treated like items rather than people with families, the African slave trade tore people from their native land and caused mass controversy throughout the world. While some viewed it as a prosperous business that allowed for free labor, others saw the emotional and physical injustices caused by this movement. The ethical debate this “new business” sparked, created arguments both for and against the abolition of slave trade. Three prominent men who had key opinions on this topic were Malachy Postlethwayt, John Wesley, and John Newton. While Postlethwayt defended slavery and the benefits it created for the New World, Wesley and Newton, while not completely denouncing slavery, questioned its ethics and realized the dark villainy of the business. These figures sparked debate amongst men and helped create arguments both for and against the Slave Trade.

Capitalism was the sole purpose for being the cause of an exponential use of slaves in all aspects of production. Notably, it involved an economic system whose basis originates from private ownership of all the means of production as well as the production of goods and services majorly meant for profit. With characteristics such as accumulation of capital, labor, private property ownership, and competitive market. Therefore, there was a great need for means of production hence slavery. However, there is a close relationship between free and slave labor as used in production. The paper uses “Capitalism and Slavery” (William, 1961) as a primary source material to compare the profitability of free labor and slave labor through an in-depth discussion of the role the African slavery played in the development of capitalism in the New World. Free labor and slave labor both have profits in the production process and would be applied differently at various places. For instance, slave labor was profitable in activities in which little skills and versatility in production process were required. It is worth noting that, the use of slave labor to cultivate a fresh soil is more profitable than the use of free men in the cultivation of an exhausted land. However, the use of slave labor was the option at the earlier stages of development of colonies, although slaved labor was unskillful, given reluctantly, and lacks versatility (Eltis, 2000). Moreover, use of slave labor were not moral but

Was slavery an economic engine for the Southern economy before the Civil War? Men like Senator and businessman James Henry Hammond would say yes immediately without a second thought. People like Hammond believed that slavery in these times were critical to the growth of the southern economy. They made points such as that agricultural sales were a main percentage of business in the south and with the large area of fertile land that slave ownership was a necessary evil. Along with those, the decades preceding the civil war, the north began to industrialize, which in turn created a large demand for cotton, which was heavily supported by slavery. Not only was slavery a supporting crutch for the immense cotton market, but also slave trade proved to be a highly profitable market of his own. Finally, from the perspective of a plantation owner as a business enterprise, owning slaves proved to be most effective by implementing business strategies, much like Henry James Hammond’s. Without slavery, small planters would have been unable to make a steadfast profit, leaving the cotton industry to rely on large plantation owners who would mainly invest their fortune in British luxurious imports, instead of diversifying and reinvesting in schooling or infrastructure. I personally believe that James Henry Hammond and others were correct, with exception to my ethical beliefs, that slavery was a key factor in the growth and preservation of

In Italy, during the 1300’s, merchants acquired the first slaves. They were not from Africa though; instead they were from southeast Europe. Eventually though, the European slaves were replaced by African slaves, because Africans were considered to be the most inferior race. African slaves worked so well for the Europeans that they decided to bring them over to the New World and force them to work the rugged land for them. Spain and Portugal were the first European countries to bring slaves to the New World. The French, English, and Dutch were soon to follow. Unfortunately, the slaves were usually required to work from sun up to

Eugene D. Genovese’s book, The Political Economy of Slavery: Studies in the Economy and Society of the Slave South, challenges the accustomed belief which concluded the immorality of Slavery was the underlying main factor of conflict between the North and the South, partnered with materialistic interests. Instead, he presents the idea which observes the social system and civilization as a whole, identifying its distinct structure and their reasoning behind their disagreeing actions. Drawing upon information from four categories which highlight the main arguments, Genovese is able to convey that the power Slavery gave to holders, dissimilated the appeal of a North bourgeois and industrialist structure and Slavery itself overall, being ineffective

Contrary to what we learned in school, the transatlantic slave trade actually began in the 1450s when the first Africans arrived in Europe. You see, slavery existed in some capacity since the beginning of human interaction. As early as 2,000 years ago, the Romans enslaved people of color as servants. Around 600 AD the Arab Muslims started enslaving Africans. However, slavery was not based on race until Europeans began slave trading with Africans. It is also worth mentioning that Africa had a slavery system that existed within the country long before the Europeans arrived. The African slavery system was based on tribal ethnicities and economic status as thousands of Africans were captured during various wars between African nations and sold into slavery. In 1440, Spanish and Portuguese explorers sailed

In 1808 Congress outlawed American involvement with the African slave trade, which increase the value of the slave already in the country. The dramatic rise in the monetary value of enslaved workers brought better treatment for many. One planter remarked “The time has been that the farmer would killed up and wear out one Negro to buy another, but it is not so now.” One ex-slave recalled that he was treated just as well as you would a good mule. So even though American did not end slavery, many farmers treated their slave’s way better than they ever had before.

Slavery became an established activity in America by 1600’s. The slaves were mostly to provide free and cheap labor. Apart from America, slavery was practiced in other parts of the world throughout history, and in fact it can be traced back to the time of the ancient civilization. With industrial revolution especially with the rise of sugar plantations, the slaves were used to grow sugar in the periods from 1100. This intensified between 1400 and 1500 when Portugal and Spain ventured into sugar growing in the eastern Atlantic regions. The growth of the plantations required labor, hence African slaves were bought from Africa, to provide labor.

was missing key data to support his claims of slavery being unprofitable. Phillips completely left out the overall productivity of a slave, which was the ultimate difference in the revision of 1958. A major factor Conrad and Meyer took into consideration concerning production was the reproduction rates for females. Their researched showed that “prime hand wenches produced anywhere between 5-10 kids, and was one-half to two-thirds productive as prime field hands” (C.M. 106-107). However, an average 3 months time is lost due to pregnancy. After calculating return rates they found that women bearing 10 children would have an 8.1 percent rate of return and a women with 5 children will have a 7.1 percent rate of return. Furthermore, the rate of return per slave averaged out to 10 percent (Weiher).

Per CBS news’s timeline for the slave trade, 1502 was the first year that African slaves were reported in the new world. The reasons for this was a need of a labor force that would be very economically substantial but very effective and Africans who, at the time, were thought of as less-than people, not smart, but strong enough to help work for their captors, were the perfect fit for the roll. This wasn’t just in the British colonies and north America. The Atlantic slave trade had massive amounts of Human labor being shipped all over the Americas. The

Like many others demoralized cultures during the Atlantic Slave trade period, Africans fell victim to the sixteenth century discovery of Columbus' so called "New World." Europeans used the Atlantic Slave Trade to capitalize on Columbus' so called "Discovery." For more than three centuries, the regions of Africa were in a state of destabilization. More than thirty million Africans were taken out of Africa and put in the Americas and surrounding countries.

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