The Importance Of The British Industrial Revolution

By Definition, a rapid major change in an economy (as in England in the late 18th century) marked by the general introduction of power-driven machinery, or by an important change in the prevailing types and methods of use of such machines.- Merriam- Webster This definition over simplifies the industrial revolution. In reality the Industrial Revolution was much more complex and encompasses many different aspects. With that said the events that led to the Industrial Revolution were even more complicated. How and why Great Britain was the first to lead the Revolution was multifaceted and involves many aspects of economic and social developments. The predisposition of easily acquired recourse and healthy state politics allowed Great Britain to prosper. A core piece of the Industrial revolution was the advent of new technology. This technology would increase the production and efficiency of all factories. As more and more people flooded the cities and towns the demand for more goods skyrocketed pushing civilization into a new age. The Industrial Revolution was a cycle that feed itself, with need came technology and with technology came need and through this process arose new society. What led Great Britain to become the first country to star in the Industrial Revolution, comes down to a complex system of factors. Each aspect holds a major role in the contribution in the growth of the Industrial Revolution and of Great Britain.

Slaves and slave trade has been a paramount part of history for a very long time. In the years of the British thirteen colonies in North America, slaves and slave trade was a very consequential part of its development. It even carried on to virtually 200 years of Coalesced States history. The slave trade of the thirteen colonies was a paramount part of the colonies as well as Europe and Africa. In order to supply the thirteen colonies efficiently through trade, Europe developed the method of triangular trade. It is referred to as triangular trade because it consists of trade with Africa, the thirteen colonies, and England.

Smith’s written experience of the New World is often viewed as propaganda due to his account only listing positive aspects of living in America. But, his strategy proved successful as more hard-working Englishmen began to travel to America to colonize as a result of John Smith’s account. In his writing, initially he talks about the “great abundance” of fruits and livestock available to show potential colonists that hunger would never be an issue in the New World. Also, his general satisfaction with the land’s fertility and the convenience of nearby bodies of water is explained throughout the work. These are important factors for a British society to have since, around this time, long distance trading became a new way to conduct business. Smith even goes further and states that there is no need for trading outside of the colonies as America has everything one would ever desire within 100

So it was the plentiful supply of enslaved African labour provided by the salve trade that allowed for the development of the plantation economy. Of this process of the plantation economies turning to the slave trade for the supply of African labour Eric Williams writes in Capitalism and Slavery "Slavery in the Caribbean has been too narrowly identified with the Negro. A racial twist has thereby been given to what is basically an economic phenomenon."

Slavery played a crucial role in financing the Industrial Revolution in Britain. The plantation owners and the merchants linked with the slave trade and slavery and used it to amass vast fortunes that later grew to reach capitalism globally. In 1944, Eric Williams came up with great ideas on capitalism and slavery. According to Eric Williams, the decline of the British West Indies occasioned the

We will start with how the Atlantic slave trade and labor had an impact in the beginning of the 18th century. One of the factors that funded the industrial revolution came out of the slave trade that was dominated by English traders at the peak of slave trade and the money that came out of producing tobacco and sugar in America by of course slave labor. “The profits from Atlantic slave trade, together with those from the sugar and tobacco produced in the Americas by slave labor, were invested in England and helped fund the Industrial Revolution during the eighteenth century” (Middle passage). We can conclude that slavery was the backbone of the economy, which helped in making the industrial revolution. By having huge amount of slaves work their butts off in plantations without paying them back made landowners make a lot of profit. “The aim was to carry as many Africans in healthy condition to the Americas as possible in order to make the large profits that justified such expenditures” (middle passage). That was the

It is considered common knowledge that when slavery is mentioned that cotton was the primary cash crop however, it is uncommonly known how vital it was to the world’s economy and resources. Settlers in North America produced this cash crop on large scale by turning to African slaves. The reason slaves were used was because the slaves were much cheaper as a means of labor as well as other functions too. Many business men use the desirability of slaves and grew rich in the slave trade. Some big portions of the economy were directly influenced by slaves, which made them more than just a source of cheaper labor compared to indentured servants.

Being forced to work on plantations, these plantations essentially made the need to invest in a large market that flourished in the economy. (Downs, 2008) The usefulness to slavery was the economic stimulations from a variety of markets, increasing trade and contributing to the demand of jobs. The amount in financial gains from the slave trade were enough to rid the negative aspects of slavery and continue the slave trade. It became an economic opportunity so enlarged, the market was expected to last for many years. (Perez, 1988) The European colonies thus became centers of wealth and focused on its slave trade in efforts of growing the English

Landes states that “At the simplest level, some have argued—most prominently Eric Williams—that slave trade profits and the exploitation of slave labor watered the garden of a nascent capitalism, or, to use an­ other metaphor, ‘fertilized the entire productive system of the country.’ On a more complex level, the reasoning is Adam Smithian: ‘The slave-based Atlantic system provided England with opportunities for the division of labor and for the transformation of economic and social structures. ...’” (pg. 119). Landes means here that sugar’s role allowed for a division of European and slave labor to increase the profits and help the economy

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

The author and publisher of this primary source in Chapter 15 is Adam Smith, a Scottish philosopher. In this primary source, the content was about Smith feeling that limitations on trade prevented people from achieving their full prospective and so impoverished nations. Smith had warned the British authorities that mercantilist controls on their colonies are not only unjust but counterproductive. At the same time as this was going on, the American colonies also wanted independence from Britain.

Williams’s thesis has gained some critics over the years. David Richardson said that the thesis is presented broadly and in sweeping terms . He continues by demonstrating that Williams failed to justify profits being made came from the sugar trade only or it was a combination of the triangular trade and bilateral colonial traders . Two historians McCloskey and Thomas conclude that the probability of trade being the horse power of growth before is in the eighteenth century is low. He also says that the profit levels given by authors such as William Darity are unrealistic and that the return from the slaves was less than 10 percent. Another author, Stanley Engerman look at Williams thesis in both historic and economic principals and he also proposes that William did does not explain wether the industrial revolution was financed solely by the slave trade or it was rather generated by the entire plantation of the economic system . He then says that there may be a possibility that only a small portion of the slave trader’s profits was derived from the slave trade. Stanley explains that there might

Eric Williams opened up a brand-new point of view to the world through his book Capitalism & Slavery. It has been one of the most influential, and effective books of history ever written because, it has shaped the foundations of imperialism studies, and the studies of economic development. It is apparent the Atlantic Slaved Trade had a global impact, and helped the development of the European economy. It helped the world flourish in ways it probably never would have. Through this inhumane movement in our worlds history, it led to the funding of the Industrial Revolution, the accumulation of fortunes that led to the development of banks, and the expansion of capitalism worldwide. Williams with his cynical view, discredits traditional claims of economic progress, and shows through his studies that slavery was the start of all that was to come.

There is no doubt that the Industrial Revolution plays a central role in the modern British history. The structure of British society has forever changed by the impact and consequences of Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution is often stated as the increase of the number of factories, the exercise of steam power in a wide range of area and the mass-production produced by new technology in the course of 1750 to 1850 (Lane, 1978: 72). Engles (1986: 37) argued that the Industrial Revolution’s mainly development were the invention of the steam engine and the cotton industry. As the improvement of technology, the steam engine could produce more power with less

The slave trade was the largest contributor to the British economy during the 18th century. Tomas Butler stated “The profits from the slave trade were part of the bedrock of our country's industrial development. Many people and institutions in every part of the country were complicit in the trans-Atlantic slave trade.” In the early Americas, Britain supplied a vast majority of the slaves to the new world to be sold to the highest bidder. During the slave trade British ships made over ten thousand voyages and enslaved approximately 3.4 billion Africans. Some of these ships would make a profit of twenty to fifty percent. Back in England the king and the ship owners were not the only people benefiting from the slave trade. Everyone from the factory owners to the factory workers were benefited as an effect of the slave trade. The upper-class citizens were definitely making the big dollars. These people included the owners of the slave ships, the factory owners, who were able to produce and sell the products that the Africans and Americans needed and wanted, bankers who made money from the interest they earned on loans from people who borrowed money for the long voyage, and