AP Chapter 18

Slave children most likely be found working in

"Grass gangs" doing simple, lighter work

The French plantation economies were considered

"More diverse" because they also produced coffee and cacao

Life expectancy for nineteenth-century Brazilian male slaves was

23 years

During the "sugar boom" from 1650 to 1800,

7.5 million slaves were transported

During the first 150 years after the European discovery of the Americas,

800,000 Africans were transported in the Atlantic slave trade

The shift from European indentured servants to enslaved African labor was caused by a number of factors:

A decline in the numbers of Europeans willing to indenture themselves to the West Indies The fact that the life expectancy of a slave after landing was longer than the term of the typical contract of indenture A rise in sugar prices that made planters more able to invest in slaves The expansion of sugar plantations in the West Indies required a sharp increase in the African slave trade

In the eighteenth century, West Indian plantations were controlled by

A plantocracy, a small number of rich men who owned most of the land and slaves

West Indian society consisted of

A wealthy land owning plantocracy, their many slaves, and a few people in between

Mercantilism was a number of state policies that promoted private investment in overseas trade and

Accumulation of capital in the form of precious metals

Factors that fueled the growing dependence of African slaves included:

Africans were relatively cheaper to purchase than Europeans or Asians Mortality rates in the tropics due to diseases - both native and impor African slaves would serve their masters longer than European indentured servants

The following entries you would expect to see in a ship traveling from

Angola and Brazil between 1500 and 1800: 100 slaves

Colonization also pushed the

Arawak and the Carib people to extinction

As the Atlantic system developed, increased demand for sugar in seventeenth and eighteenth century Europe was

Associated with an increase in the flow of slaves from Africa to the New World

France and England expanded their Caribbean holdings by

Attacking older Spanish colonies

The mechanisms of early capitalism included

Banks, joint stock companies, stock exchanges, and insurance

Although tobacco was a New World plant long used by Amerindians, it was Europeans who

Began growing the crop on large plantations

The protection of European merchant companies by their respective governments

Best exemplifies mercantilism as it was practiced in the Atlantic trading system by 1750

Slave owners who fathered children by female slaves often gave

Both mother and child their freedom; over time, this practice ( manumission ) produced a significant free black population

To reduce the risks of overseas trading, companies

Bought insurance

The Atlantic became the major trading area for the

British, French, and the Portuguese in the 18th century

Sugar production damaged the environment by

Causing soil exhaustion and deforestation

After 1600 the French and English developed

Colonies based on tobacco cultivation

West Indian planters were very wealthy and translated their wealth into political power,

Controlling the colonial assemblies and even gaining a number of seats in the British Parliament

European planters sought to prevent rebellions by

Curtailing African cultural traditions, religions, and languages

This accelerated the

Deforestation that had begun under the Spanish

Most slaves died of

Disease, the most common of which was dysentery

The expenses of sugar production led planters to seek

Economies of scale by running large plantations

Tobacco consumption became popular in

England in the early 1600's

The term Atlantic System refers to the

Entire trading network that the Europeans developed in the Atlantic

The Atlantic Circuit was a clockwise network of trade routes going from

Europe to Africa, from Africa to the plantations colonies of the Americas, and then from the colonies to Europe

The Atlantic Circuit was supplemented by a number of other trade routes:

Europe to the Indian Ocean, Europe to the West Indies, New England to the West Indies, and the "Triangular Trade" between New England, Africa, and the West Indies

European colonization led to the introduction of

European and African plants and animals that crowded out indigenous species

The French systems used laws known as

Exclusif

Slaves were rewarded for good work and punished harshly for

Failure to meet their quotas or for any form of resistance

Plantation slaves were motivated to work hard to avoid

Floggings Confinement in irons Mutilation Whippings

Among the planter elite in Saint Domingue,

Free blacks rank third, after free whites in the social hierarchy

In the mid-1600s there was competition

From milder Virginia tobacco

This combined to bring the West Indian economies

From tobacco to sugar production

The Spanish Settlers did not do much else toward the

Further development of the islands

Field labor required the

Greatest number of workers

The Portuguese had introduced sugar-cane cultivation to Brazil,

Had taken control of 1,000 miles of sugar producing Brazilian coast

Then The Dutch West India Company, chartered to bring the Dutch wars against Spain to the New World,

Had taken control of 1,000 miles of sugar producing Brazilian coast

In the seventeenth-century Caribbean, indentured servants cost

Half as much as slaves for cash short tobacco producers

The Dutch were fighting for their

Independence from Spain who controlled them at his time

The growth in the slave trade was accompanied by continued trade in other goods, but

It did not lead to any significant European colonization of Africa

The Dutch West India Company:

It seized sugar producing areas in Brazil It shipped slaves to Brazil It paid stockholders huge dividends

A plantation had to extract as much labor as possible from

It's slaves in order to turn a profit

Disease was the single most important cause of death,

Killing the European crewmen of the slave ships at roughly the same rate as it killed the slaves themselves

Only a very wealthy man could afford the capital to invest in the

Land, machinery, and slaves needed to establish a sugar plantation

Methods used to curtail African cultural traditions by European planters:

Learning colonial languages Converting to Christianity Mixing slaves from different parts of Africa

They had very little rest and relaxation, no education, and

Little time or opportunity for family life

Between 1640 and the 1680s colonies like Guadeloupe, Martinique, and particularly Barbados

Made the transition from a tobacco economy to a sugar economy

New World crops such as

Maize, potatoes, and cassava brought a new source of food to famine stricken areas of Africa

The high mortality rate added to the volume of the Atlantic slave trade and meant that the

Majority of slaves on West Indian plantations were born in Africa

If all went well, a ship would

Make a profit on each leg of the circuit

Sometimes they would refuse the

Merchandise that did not meet their needs

Disease, maltreatment, abuse, execution suicide, and psychological depression all contributed to the average death rate of

One out of every six slaves shipped on the Middle Passage

The slave trade was a highly specialized business in which chartered companies (in the seventeenth century) and then private traders (in the eighteenth century) purchased slaves in Africa,

Packed them into specially designed or modified ships, and delivered them for sale to the plantation colonies

"Drivers" were typically

Privileged male slaves

Mercantilism is a government policy that

Protects trade in return for the accumulation of gold and silver

The system of royal monopoly control of colonies and their trade as practiced by Spain and Portugal in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries

Proved to be inefficient and expensive

Early Portuguese activities in exploring Africa's Atlantic coast included all of the following:

Purchasing slaves Spreading Christianity Acquiring gold

A historian looking for sources most useful for determining patterns in the points of origin, the destinations, and the numbers of slaves involved in the trade might look for

Records of the cargoes of Spanish and British ships in the trans - Atlantic trade European slaves traders account books

The technology for growing and harvesting cane was simple, but the machinery

Required for processing ( rollers, copper kettles, and so on ) was more complicated and expensive

The maroon community that first signed treaties recognizing their independent status as

Runaway slaves was Jamaican

Another source of free black population was

Runaway slaves, known in the Caribbean as maroons

In addition to being half as expensive as slaves, indentured servants only

Served three to four years while slaves after their arrival lived an average of 7 years

In the process of doing so, their demand for labor caused a

Sharp and significant increase in the volume of the Atlantic slave trade

Disease, harsh working conditions, and dangerous mill machinery all contributed to the

Short life expectancy of slaves in the Caribbean

Over a fifteen-year period the Dutch improved the efficiency of the Brazilian sugar industry and brought

Slaves from Elmina, Luanda, and Portugal to Brazil and the West Indies

Manumission permitted

Slaves to purchase or receive their freedom from slavery

Repeated cultivation of sugar cane exhausted the

Soil of plantations and led the planters to open new fields

A key difference between the British and French colonial settlements in the West Indies and those of the Spanish and Portuguese elsewhere in the Americas was

Spanish and Portuguese settlements developed a more complex social structure than that of the British and French settlements in West Indies

Slaves frequently ran away and occasionally staged violent rebellions

Such as that led by a slave named Tacky in Jamaica in 1760

Barbados best illustrates the dramatic transformation that

Sugar brought to the 17th century Caribbean

Spanish settlers introduced

Sugar cane cultivation into the West Indies shortly after 1500

Sugar plantations both grew sugar cane and processed the cane into

Sugar crystals, molasses, and run

Then there was the expulsion of experienced Dutch

Sugar producers from Brazil

The instruments of mercantilism included chartered companies, such as

The Dutch West India company and the French Royal African company, and the use of military force to pursue commercial dominance

When Portugal reconquered Brazil in 1654, the Dutch sugar planters brought the Brazilian system to

The French and English Caribbean Islands

The impact of the rivalry among European powers in

The West African trade in the period 1450 - 1750 was the price demanded for African slaves rose sharply

Tobacco production in the West Indies was stimulated by two new developments:

The formation of charted companies The availability of cheap labor in the form of European indentured servants

On most islands, the percentage of slaves in

The population was 90 percent

In Saint Domingue there were three groups of free people:

The wealthy "great whites" The less well off "little whites" The free blacks

On Sundays, slaves cultivated

Their own food crops and did other chores

In the British colonies, where sugar almost completely dominated the economy,

There were very few free small landholders, white or black

Slaves were organized into "gangs" for fieldwork, while

Those male slaves not doing fieldwork were engaged in specialized tasks

Sugar plantations in the Caribbean caused environmental damage

Through introduction of non native plants and animals

Africans who provided slaves

To Europeans received textiles

European trade with Africa grew tremendously after 1650 as merchants sought

To purchase slaves and other goods

Chartered companies were private investors with

Trade monopolies who paid annual fees to France and England in colonies

The English Navigation Acts in the 1660s were meant to confine

Trade within its colonies to English ships and cargoes

Men outnumbered women on Caribbean plantations because

Twice as many men were imported

The French and the English then revoked the monopoly privileges of their chartered companies, but continued to

Use high tariffs to prevent foreigners from gaining access to trade with their colonies

The second leg of the Atlantic Circuit, transporting slaves across the Atlantic to plantation colonies,

Was known as the Middle Passsage

The French and English eliminated Dutch competition from the Americas by

defeating the Dutch in a series of wars between 1652 and 1678

The Atlantic became the major trading area

for the British, the French, and the Portuguese in the eighteenth century

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the two new institutions of capitalism and mercantilism established the

framework within which government-protected private enterprise participated in the Atlantic economy

Columbian Exchange affect

on Africa during this period

The sharp increase in African slaves shipped to the Americas between 1600 and 1750 was due to:

outbreaks of smallpox and other diseases among Amerindians the high cost of land in the West Indies mercantilist policies designed to maximize European profits in the American colonies

African merchants were discriminating about the

types and the amounts of merchandise that they demanded in return for slaves and other goods, and they raised the price of slaves in response to increased demand

African governments on the Gold and Slave Coasts were strong enough to make Europeans observe African trading customs,

while the Europeans, competing with each other for African trade, were unable to present a strong, united bargaining position