AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE.   Term Paper ID:18286 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Motives & circumstances which led to its abolition.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Motives & circumstances which led to its abolition. Paper Introduction: The transatlantic slave trade, in which Africans were bought or kidnapped and carried across the South Atlantic to be sold into slavery in New World colonies from the southern United States down to Brazil,, was one of the most discreditable episodes in the history of Western civilization--matched, perhaps, only by the virtual extermination of many of the native peoples of the Americas during the same centuries. It was also a trade which operated over a very long period. It began in a sense even before the discovery of America: the Portuguese were buying slaves on the coast of West Africa from 1444 on (Reynolds 7). At about the same time, the plantation economy which would be the basis of the slave system was also being developed on the newly discovered Atlantic islands of the Canaries, Cape Verdes, and Azores. After 1492, the same activity Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. Their anti-slavery agitation was often racist incharacter, equally opposed to competition from free blacks. These economic fundamentals interacted, through the 18th century,with the prevailing economic doctrine of mercantilism. Unless compelled into a cash-economy--by either the physical compulsion of slavery or the economiccompulsion of landlessness, unemployment, and hunger--economic independencewas more highly valued than the goods which a worker in the cash economycould potentially buy. or a complex admixture of thetwo? The Search for Speed Under Sail: 17 -1855. As late as 18 , the"plantation sector" was a major and thriving sector of the Britishmercantile economy, perhaps more important than the nascent industrialsector (Eltis 3-8). New York: W. The actual efficacy ofnaval operations off the West African coast in-shutting off the slave tradeis not certain. In practical terms, with wages at subsistencelevels, these goods were not really available to the worker in any case. Works CitedChapelle, Howard I. These questions will be examined below. But, in fact, there is considerable evidencethat leading abolitionists were also interested in working-class causes(Fladeland). Baton Rouge: Louisiana State U P, 1984.Remini, Robert V. New York: Allison and Busby, 1985.----------------------- 6 Constitution from 18 8, and by Great Britain from18 7. Certainly theBritish Navy never succeeded in shutting the slave trade down. The trade operated for four centuries, coming to an end only afterthe American civil war (slavery lasted into the 188 s in Brazil). Other ideological factors, however, acted against slavery.Enlightenment rationalists and Evangelical Christians might agree on littleelse, but both were opposed to slavery on moral grounds (Reynolds 77-78).Economic and moral opposition to slavery tended to work hand-in-hand.Christians and rationalists had for centuries managed to find slaverytolerable, so long as all powerful economic interests supported it. Adam Smith was one of thefirst to realize that while the wages of workers were a cost to theindividual employer, higher wages for labor would increase the overalllevel of economic activity and thus be profitable to businesses in general. The reasonfor this was rooted in preindustrial values and the relationship of landand labor in the New World. Yet another powerful ideological factor was the gradual emergence ofa "left" ideology of support for working-class interests. New York: Oxford U P, 1987.Fladeland, Betty. Moreover, the abundance of available unusedland (once Indians had been driven away or killed by the colonists) meantthat a poor European colonist-could enjoy greater independence, and eatjust as well, by subsistence-farming in the interior rather than by workingin the plantation cash-crop economy. Nevertheless,it gave a mass base of support to the opposition to slavery--one oftenunderestimated by Southern politicians (Remini 98-1 ). Many grew under tropicalconditions in which European workers could not thrive, or often even havemuch prospect of survival. Once the Napoleonic Wars ended, the British Navy took an active handin suppression of the slave trade (Eltis 81-1 1). W. Apart from Spanish gold and silver, the chief trade products to befound in the New World were agricultural goods. Butwhen the efficacy of slavery came to be doubted on economic grounds, thisencouraged intellectuals and-moralists to give it second thoughts. Modern American experience with the drug traffic shows howdifficult interdiction is against determined smugglers. It beganin a sense even before the discovery of America: the Portuguese were buyingslaves on the coast of West Africa from 1444 on (Reynolds 7). Wasit moral revulsion? An 18th-century British writer was to observe that slave labor wasthe "fundamental prop and support" of Britain's overseas colonies, and thesame was true for other European colonial powers Reynolds 1 8). At about thesame time, the plantation economy which would be the basis of the slavesystem was also being developed on the newly discovered Atlantic islands ofthe Canaries, Cape Verdes, and Azores. After 1492, the same activity wassimply extended to the New World, on a much larger scale. By contrast, there was no profit in establishingcolonies of free subsistence farmers, whose cash contributions to themetropolitan power were minimal. The confluence of these factors led to laws against the slave trade,forbidden in the U.S. More generally, the spread of free-market economic theories led to theideological belief that free labor purchased in the market was inherentlymore efficient than slave labor--even when, in fact, this was by no meansnecessarily the case. Economic Growth and the Ending of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Abolitionists and Working-Class Problems in the Age of Industrialization. Moreover, "selfemployment" was afundamental value in societies such as preindustrial England, where"freemen were freeholders" (Eltis 19ff). Only the casheconomy could contribute to the tax base of the State. Economic development? Abolitionism hasoften been castigated as a middleclass ideology which waxed indignant aboutthe cruelties of plantation slavery while ignoring the savage conditions ofthe early-Victorian factory. The Legacy of Andrew Jackson. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State U P, 1988.Reynolds, Edward. The Northern colonies of the futureUnited States were founded largely as religious refuges, were of relativelylittle interest to Britain save as geopolitical tokens in the struggle withFrance, and were generally slower to develop than the Southern colonies. Inturn, the moral arguments they developed against slavery had the powerfulemotional impact on public opinion which economic analysis alone could nothave had. (A less happy resultwas to increase the misery of the slaves, as more were packed into smallships. Policies such asEnclosure at home and the development of slave colonies abroad both tendedto support the development of such a cash economy, and in the contemporaryview thus redounded to the national advantage. Norton, 1967.Eltis, David. It didsucceed in making it more expensive, however, as specialized and very fastships had to be built as slavers (Chapelle 297-312). Particularly in the United States--where slavery was closer-at-handthan in Britain, free workers and farmers began to fear the threat of slave-labor competition. Only whenslavery itself was abolished did the trade which fed it come to a belated,unlamented end. What brought an end to this profitable trade? Theslave trade (and the slave-plantation system it supported) was never moreextensive or profitable than in the decades just before and after 18 .Yet in 18 7 the British outlawed the slave trade, and suppression of thetrade was a major activity of the British Navy in the decades after the endof the Napoleonic Wars. Historically, the "plantation sector" went into along decline after Abolition, indicating that free labor could not"efficiently" be substituted for slave labor in it (Eltis 13-15). The transatlantic slave trade, in which Africans were bought orkidnapped and carried across the South Atlantic to be sold into slavery inNew World colonies from the southern United States down to Brazil,, was oneof the most discreditable episodes in the history of Western civilization--matched, perhaps, only by the virtual extermination of many of the nativepeoples of the Americas during the same centuries. By the late 18th century, however, a number of new social andeconomic factors were beginning--indirectly, at first--to undercut theslave economy and the slave trade that fed it. It was also a trade which operated over a very long period. Mortality rates soared.) Ultimately, however, it was not interdiction of the trade, but theshutting off of the "demand side" that killed the slave trade. Stand the Storm: A History of the Atlantic Slave Trade. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.