TRADE COMPLETE

• What did government debt rise to after the Seven Years War?


  157% of GDP in 1763, then 260% of GDP in 1821 due to the War of Independence, French Revolutionary Wars, and Napoleonic Wars
• What is protectionism?


  taxes and prohibitions on imports and exports designed to protect domestic producers, though this can lead to high prices
• What is mercantilism?


  a policy of government intervention to ensure that the value of exports is more than the value of imports, known as a positive balance of trade - to acquire gold of silver bullion
• What is free trade?


  an alternative system whereby import and export taxes are minimised to allow merchants to compete across borders, favours those who can produce the cheapest goods
• What did English slavers trade at West African ports?


  textiles, alcohol, and firearms
• What was the journey from West Africa to the colonies called?

  the Middle Passage
• What exchange happened at the caribbean?


  slavers gave the slaves to be resold and sent to the West Indies, Spanish America, or New England, and took on cargo like sugar and cotton
• What was this trade route called?


  the slave trade/the triangular trade
• What did Thomas Leyland do?


  he used his ship the Lottery to double his money by selling slaves at £50 a head in 1798
• What were the main slaving ports?

  Bristol, Liverpool, and Glasgow
• What were middlemen?


  merchants who bought and sold ships, trade goods for Africa, and supplies for the plantations
• By the 1790s, how many slave ships sailed from Liverpool per year?


  120-130
• How did the government benefit from the slave trade?

  taxes and tariffs, which they used to finance the Royal Navy and fight European wars
• How did the Royal Navy benefit from the slave trade?


  it provided skilled sailors who could be recruited during its frequent manpower shortages
• Why was there never a shortage in demand for new slaves?


  African men and women were frequently worked to death before they could reproduce
• How were the British gentry benefitting from the slave trade?


  lodging money in banks that provided capital to slave traders to purchase ships
• What did this lead to?

  a vested interest in slavery
• How many members of parliament did The Gentleman's Magazine claim were either planters or had business interests in plantations in 1766?


  40
• Who was William Beckford?


  twice lord mayor of London who owned thousands to acres in Jamaica and one of the wealthiest men in Britain
• How was the Church of England involved in the slave trade?


  it owned the Codrington plantations in Barbados, with 400 slaves
• When was the first abolitionist movement in Britain, and who organised it?

  1783, by the Quakers
• What major breakthrough was made in 1787?


  the Quakers joined forces with other non-conformist groups and William Wilberforce was persuaded to lead a parliamentary campaign for abolition
• How did abolitionists spread awareness?


  gathering the horrors of slavery and exposing them in pamphlets, posters, debates, and books
• When did Wilberforce launch the Parliamentary campaign?


  1789
• When did France declare itself a republic?


  1792
• What was the effect of the French Revolution?


  renewed hostility with Britain
• When was the Haitian rebellion?


  1791
• What was the significance of the Haitian revolution?


  the French responded by emancipating the slaves, meaning abolition was now a pro-French position, so parliament repeatedly voted against Wilberforce's bills
• When did Britain begin war with France?


  1793
• What happened in 1802?


  Britain's hopes of seizing Haiti had receded, Napoleon had seized power in France and sent an expedition to restore slavery in Haiti
• What was the significance of this?

  Britain found themselves supporting the ex-slaves resisting Napoleon, and now the abolitionists were aligned against the French
• What happened in 1804?


  Wilberforce successfully passed a bill abolishing the slave trade through the House of Commons
• What was introduced by the abolitionists in 1806?


  the Foreign Slave Trade Bill, prohibiting any British subjects from supplying slaves to French colonies (they had been doing so under the American flag)
• What did this do for the abolitionist cause?


  it had widespread support and passed quickly, they carried this momentum to the 1806 general election where more abolitionists were elected
• What happened in 1807?


  opposition of abolition collapsed and both Houses of Parliament passed the Slave Trade by large majorities in 1807
• What was the greatest impetus for ending the slave trade?


  changing economic fortunes in the 19th century, upholding the slave trade was weakening
• What percent of Bristol's income came from the slave trade in the 1780s?


  40%
• What created financial uncertainty for slavers?


  losses to foreign privateers in Britain's wars, diseases on tropical voyages, slave rebellions
• How many ships in the 18th century lost its owner profit?


  1 in 10
• In 1778 how much money did merchants in Liverpool lose?


  £700,000