The Atlantic System and Africa: 1500-1800

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Chapter 18The Atlantic System and Africa,1500
- 1800
AP World History
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I. Plantations in the West Indies

• A. Colonization Before 1650
• Spanish introduced sugar cane to the West Indies.
• Tobacco production became popular because of
  chartered companies and the availability of
  indentured servants.
• Dutch planters were expelled from Brazil by the
  Portuguese and brought the Brazilian system of
  sugar plantations to the West Indies.

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Spanish settlers introduced sugar cane
cultivation into the West Indies, but it fell
into neglect as attention shifted to colonizing
the American mainland.
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In order to promote national claims without
government expense, charted companies gave groups
of private investors, like The Dutch West India
Company, monopolies over trade in West Indies
colonies in exchange for payment.
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In the West Indies, English colonies prospered
first, largely by growing tobacco for export. By
1614 tobacco was reportedly being sold in seven
thousand shops in and around London.
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• B. Sugar and Slaves
• The switch from a tobacco economy to a sugar
  economy caused a sharp and significant increase
  in the volume of the Atlantic Slave Trade.
• There were three reasons for the shift from
  indentured servitude to slavery
• A decline in number of Europeans willing to be
  indentured.
• Life expectancy of the slave was longer.
• A rise in sugar prices enabled planters to invest
  in slaves.

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During the first half of the 17th century about
10,000 slaves a year arrived from Africa. The
expansion of sugar plantations in the West
Indies in the second half of the 17th century
cause the slave trade to average 20,000 slaves
per year.
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The decline of Europeans willing to be
indentured, longer periods of servitude for
slaves, and a rise in plantation owners wealth
made owning African slaves more attractive and a
better investment than indentured servants.
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II. Plantation Life in the 18th century

• A. Technology and Environment
• Machinery (rollers, copper kettles) that
  processed sugar into crystals, molasses, and rum
  was very expensive.
• Sugar production caused soil exhaustion and
  deforestation.
• European colonization led to the introduction of
  European and African plants and animals that
  crowded out indigenous species.
• The Arawak and Carib people were pushed to
  extinction.

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A sugar plantation was a complex investment
because it had to be a factory as well as a farm.
Freshly cut cane needed to be crushed within a
few hours to extract the sugary sap.
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Combined with soil exhaustion and deforestation,
the ecological balance of the West Indies was
altered by the introduction of cattle, pigs,
horses, bananas, okra, yams, millet and sorghum.
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The Arawak (Taino) peoples of the large islands
were wiped out by disease and abuse within fifty
years of Columbuss first voyage.
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• B. Slaves Lives
• Society consisted of wealthy land owning
  plantocracy and slaves.
• Plantations had to extract as much labor as
  possible from its slaves.
• Slaves were both rewarded and punished for their
  work or lack of. Slaves cultivated their own
  crops on Sundays and had very little rest or
  relaxation, no education, and little family life.
• Disease, harsh working conditions, and dangerous
  mill machinery all contributed slaves short life
  expectancy.
• Occasional rebellions and frequently ran away.
  (Tacky in Jamaica)
• Planters sought to prevent rebellions by
  curtailing African cultural traditions,
  religions, and languages.

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A plantocracy consisted of a small number of very
rich men who owned most of the slaves and most
of the land.
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A privileged male slave, a Driver, ensured that
the gang work was completed. The great gang
comprised the strongest slaves, the second gang
comprised less fit slaves, and the grass gang
was comprised of children and the elderly.
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With 18 hour days, there was little time for
recreation and relaxation, so slaves might sing
in the fields to distract themselves from the
fatigue and the monotony of the work.
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Dysentery
Harsh working conditions
Yaws
Dangerous mill machinery
During a period of seasoning, 1/3 of imported
slaves died from unfamiliar diseases. If they
initially survived, the harsh working
conditions, poor nutrition and dangerous mill
machinery contributed to a life expectancy of 23
for males and 25.5 for females.
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• C. Free Whites and Free Blacks
• In Saint Dominique, there were three groups of
  free people wealthy whites, less well off
  whites, and free blacks.
• Only a very wealthy man could afford the capital
  to invest in the land, machinery, and slaves
  needed to establish a sugar plantation. (Used
  wealth to establish political power).
• Slave owners who fathered children by female
  slaves often gave both mother and child freedom
  (Manumission).
• The largest group of freed slaves in the French,
  Spanish, and Portuguese colonies came from self
  purchase.
• Runaway slaves known as maroons were also free.

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In the Caribbean runaways were known as maroons
and were especially numerous in the mountainous
interiors of Jamaica.
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Manumission was a legal grant of freedom by a
slave owner. It was not uncommon for a slave
owner who fathered a child by a female slave to
give both mother and child their freedom.
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III. Creating the Atlantic Economy

• A. Capitalism and Mercantilism
• Capitalism and mercantilism established the
  framework within which government protected
  private enterprise.
• Early mechanisms of capitalism were banks, joint
  stock companies, stock exchanges, and insurance.
• Mercantilism was a number of state policies that
  promoted private investment in overseas trade and
  accumulation of capital in the form of precious
  metals.
• The instruments of mercantilism included
  chartered companies and the use of military force
  to pursue commercial dominance.
• The French and English eliminated the Dutch in a
  series of war and then used high tariffs to
  prevent foreigners from gaining access to trade
  with their colonies.

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Dutch banks
Amsterdam Exchange
The essence of early modern capitalism was the
expansion of credit and the development of large
financial institutions banks, stock exchanges,
and chartered trading companies.
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Dutch East India Company
Dutch West India Company
Mercantilism is defined by government policies,
like the English Navigation Acts, that promote
overseas trade between a country and its colonies
to accumulate precious metals by requiring
colonies to trade only with the mother country.
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• B. The Atlantic Circuit
• The Atlantic Circuit was a network of trade
  routes going from Europe, to Africa, from Africa
  to the plantation colonies of the Americas and
  then from colonies to Europe.
• The Slave Trade was a highly specialized business
  in which chartered companies and then private
  traders who purchased them for sale, packed them
  into specially designed ships, and then delivered
  them for sale.
• Disease, maltreatment, suicide, and psychological
  depression all contributed to the average death
  rate of 1 out of 6 slaves on the Middle Passage.

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The heart of The Atlantic Circuit was a clockwise
network of sea routes that used prevailing winds
and currents to propel their ships.
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The increased demand for sugar led to an increase
in the flow of slaves from Africa to the New
World via the Middle Passage.
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For the 6 to 10 week voyage, slaves were
transported in modified ships that had
additional platforms on which the human cargo
was packed as tightly as possible.
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Aboard slave ships there was a 11 - 12
mortality rate for slaves and crew. Some deaths
resulted from jumping overboard, depression,
dysentery, smallpox and malaria.
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IV. Africa, the Atlantic, and Islam

• A. The Gold Coast and the Slave Coast
• European trade with Africa grew tremendously as a
  result of the slave trade.
• African merchants raised the price of slaves to
  meet the increasing demand.
• Exchange of slaves for firearms led to the
  dominance of the kingdoms of Dahomey, Oyo, and
  Asante.
• Slaves were usually prisoners of wars.

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Iron and copper bars were in demand in 17th
century Africa, but textiles (60) and guns
(30) had greatest demand.
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As the demand for African slaves rose, so too did
their price. Throughout the 18th century, the
goods needed to purchase a slave on the Gold
Coast doubled and in some places quadrupled.
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Most of the slaves offered to European slave
traders were prisoners of war, which were sold by
the victors as their booty.
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• B. The Bight of Biafra and Angola
• In Angola Afro-Portuguese merchants brought trade
  goods to the interior and exchanged them for
  slaves, who were then transported to Portuguese
  middlemen who then sold the slaves to slave
  dealers so the slaves would be shipped to Brazil.
• In Angola, enslavement has been liked to
  environmental crises, like drought, and these
  refugees were traded by kings to slave dealers in
  exchange for Indian textiles and European goods
  that the kings used to cement old alliances,
  attract new followers and build a stronger state.

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The Bight of Biafra had no large-scale wars and
consequently few prisoners of war. Instead,
kidnapping was the major source of slaves.
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Afro-Portuguese traders guided large caravans of
trade goods 600 to 800 miles inland in exchange
for slaves at special markets.
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Portuguese King
African King
The Atlantic slave trade was based on a
partnership between European and African elites
that was mutually beneficial.
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• C. Africas European and Islamic Contacts
• Europeans built a growing trade with Africa, but
  did not acquire very much African territory.
• Islam and Arabic spread much faster than
  Christianity and English south of the Sahara.
• The volume of trade goods imported into
  sub-Saharan Africa was not large enough to have
  any significant effect on the livelihood of
  traditional African artisans.

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The Ottoman Empire controlled all of North Africa
except for Morocco. Muslims had no objection to
owning or trading slaves, but it was forbidden to
enslave fellow Muslims. However, Muslim states
south of the Sahara did enslave African Muslims.
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The trans-Saharan slave trade was smaller in
volume than the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
Approximately, 850,000 slaves trudged across the
deserts various routes.
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Africans sold fewer women than men into the
Atlantic slave trade which reduced the long-term
effects and did not significantly affect on the
overall population of the African continent.
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V. Comparative Perspectives

• A. Economic and Cultural Comparisons
• European powers colonized the Caribbean islands,
  which were transformed under capitalism.
• The British switched from indentured servitude to
  slavery very quickly in the Caribbean because of
  their capitalistic ventures.
• France was also able to profit quickly through
  state monopolies and state-sanctioned companies.
• The Dutch were more successful at transporting
  slaves and sugar technology than colonization.

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• Spains introduction of slaves and sugar to the
  Caribbean did not translate into the most success
  among European powers, except for their island of
  Cuba.
• All West Indian plantation societies were
  affected by the introduction of European and
  African plants and people and participation in a
  world market.
• Though Africas participation in the Atlantic
  trade system was as important as sugar
  production in the West Indies, Africans
  maintained control of their own religion.