The Atlantic Trade

• EUROPE:

  • The main ports were London, Bristol and Liverpool
  • Manufactured goods were sent to Africa
• AFRICA:

  • Enslaved people captured and sent to the Americas to be sold
• AMERICA:

  • Plantation crops sent to Europe
  • Products included cotton, sugar and rice
• Monopoly - The exclusive right to trade and profit from an area of business
• Chattel enslavement - Form of slavery where the person is bought and becomes movable "property", no longer seen as human
• Asiento - Permission by the Spanish government given to other countries to sell slaves to Spanish colonies
• RAC - The Royal African Company
• The RAC was a business created by the Stuart royal family and given a monopoly over English trade with Africa
• The RAC monopoly ended after the Glorious Revolution and allowed other merdchants to join the Atlantic trade
• After the RAC monopoly ended, demand for enslaved people was high

  While this was good for British business, it was catastrophic for Africans
• Ways that the trade strengthened Britain:

  • Created millions of new job opportunities
  • Profit from British merchants involved in the trade was reinvested into the British economy
• Ways that the trade weakened Africa:

  • Millions of Africans enslaved
  • Influx of guns from Europe increased wars between different African states
• The Treaty of Ulrecht 1713

  • Spain and Portugal had been at war
  • The peace treaty meant that Spain was not allowed to build forts or buy labour from West Africa
  • Spain had to look to other trading partners to continue to buy slaves
  • These agreements were called asiento
• Plantations - Large estaets in America producing crops such as tobacco, cotton and sugar
• Indentured labourers - Workers in forced employment, unable to leave until their period of indenture was over
• Plantation owners in the 1650s preferred indentured labourers because:

  • They spoke the same language
  • They were cheaper - half the price of enslaved Africans
  • Their hopes for a future after release made them positive and hardworking
• Plantation owners began to prefer enslaved Africans because:

  • Prices were reducing afrer the end of the RAC monopoly
  • They could be sold on
  • They were cheaper to clothe and maintain
• Plantocracy - A society governed and controlled by plantation owners, backed by military force and the law
• The cycle of demand, supply and profit:

  • In Britain, demand increased for sugar - profit for MERCHANTS
  • To meet their needs, the planters ordered more enslaved Africans - profit for SLAVE TRADERS
  • In the Caribbean, more and more sugar was produced on plantations - profit for PLANTATION OWNERS
  • Across the Atlantic, sugar shipments to Britain increased - profit for SUGAR COMPANIES
  • In Britain, those who had profited had more SPENDING POWER - money to spend on luxuries
• Reasons that plantocracies were succesful:

  • They were efficient, effective, modern businesses
  • Over their lifetimes, enslaved workers produced far more profit than the cost of buying them
  • Planters with enslaved workers made far more profit than planters with free workers
• Reasons that plantocracies were unsuccesful:

  • The planters could not hire and fire their employees
  • Enslaved Africans regularly rebelled, ran away or sabotaged the business
  • The system was difficult to manage, workers were hard to control and profits were not huge
  • Being unpaid, enslaved Africans were not motivated to work hard
• Emancipation - Freedom
• Resistance in Africa:

  • Some captive slaves succesfully escaped
  • Some African rulers opposed the slave trade, such as Agaja, King of Dahomey, who attacked English forts
• Uprisings on slave ships:

  There were 500 rebellions on slave ships.

  
  

  For example:

  • 1729 - On the ship Clare, slaces forced the crew off the ship and reached land
  • 1730 - Captives on the ship Little George took control of the ship and escaped
• Piracy:

  • There was an increase in piracy after the war of the Spanish Succession
  • Less sailors were needed, which led to wages decreasing
  • These men became part of multi-national piracy crews until the 1722 Act for the Suppression of Piracy