Why America?

• More Britons were willing to go to America after the first successful colony was established in 1607 [Jamestown].
• There were plenty of land for new cash crops, such as tobacco and cotton. These were grown on farms known as plantations.
• Crops were exported back to Britain for great profit.
• British investors were keen to develop trade in the Americas because it would help pay for the growth of the British Empire elsewhere.
• Exporting and importing goods within the empire made further profit.
• Some groups [eg. Puritans and Catholics] wanted to escape religious conflict in Britain, so left to find freedom.
• As plantations became more profitable, British monarchs stopped granting privateer permissions.
• By the 1720s, piracy in the Americas was rare.
• There were many problems with plantations for the colonists:

  • bad conditions
  • new diseases
  • hot weather
  • crop failures
  • food shortages
• The British did not want to work on plantations due to the conditions so they began using indentured servants for labour.
• By 1619, plantation owners realised more money could be made through slavery.
• By 1655, Barbados became the largest slave colony in the Americas.
• Barbados was covered in successful sugar plantations by the 1690s and was only seen by the British as a place to make profit.
• In 1619, slaves were introduced to British plantations to make them more profitable.
• Why Britons used slaves:

  • they were a cheap source of labour
  • they could buy them outright instead of hiring indentured servants
  • slaves had no legal rights so no payment was required
  • any children born to slaves became their property, increasing the size of the workforce.
  • up to 800% profit
• The Slave Triangle

  1. Traders left Britain for Africa with ships full of goods.
  2. Traders exchange goods for African prisoners from other tribes. They also kidnap Africans.
  3. Enslaved people are traded to plantation owners and farmers for goods such as sugar, cotton and tobacco.
• Who was involved in the Slave Trade?

  • investors gave money and resources to help with the slave trade [eg. monarchs].
  • shop owners sold sugar and tobacco from plantations.
  • workers turned the cotton grown on plantations into clothes.
  • dockworkers unloaded ships full of cotton that slaves had grown.
  • bankers lent traders money.
  • ship builders and owners allowed their vehicles to be used.
• Charles II was a partner with the Royal African Company, which transported 60,000 slaves between 1680 and 1688.
• Economic Impact of Slavery

  • Britons made extremely high profits.
  • Slave Trade industry made approximately £60 million between 1761 and 1808.
  • Britain became one of the most wealthy countries in the world.
• Social Impact of Slavery

  • Towns & Ports in the west [eg. Liverpool, Glasgow] grew into large cities due to money made.
  • Many of the fine buildings in these places were built from profits of the slave trade.
  • Slavery led to the belief that Europeans were superior to Africans.
• By the late 1700s, a campaign began to abolish the slave trade.
• In 1807, the British parliament abolished the slave trade.
• In 1833, slave ownership was banned throughout the British Empire.
• When slave ownership ended in 1833, the government agreed to pay £20 million in compensation to slave owners for their 'loss of property'.