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