“The Atlantic System And Africa, 1550 – 1800”

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Atlantic System

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the slave trade and plantation slavery were crucial pieces of a booming new Atlantic system that moved goods and wealth, as well as people and cultures, around the Atlantic.

The Atlantic system took a terrible toll in African lives both during the Middle Passage and under the harsh conditions of plantation slavery. Many other Africans died while being marched to African coastal ports for sale overseas. The overall effects on Africa of these losses and of other aspects of the slave trade have been the subject of considerable historical debate. It is clear that the trade’s impact depended on the intensity and terms of different African regions’ involvement. Any assessment of the Atlantic system’s effects in Africa must also take into consideration the fact that some Africans profited from the trade by capturing and selling slaves.

The success of the Atlantic economy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries owed much to private enterprise, which made trading venues more efficient and profitable.

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chartered companies

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The essence of early modern capitalism was a system of large financial institutions—banks, stock exchanges, and chartered trading companies—that enabled wealthy investors to reduce risks and increase profits. Chartered companies were one of the first examples of mercantilist capitalism. A charter issued by the government of the Netherlands in 1602 gave the Dutch East India Company a legal monopoly over all Dutch trade in the Indian Ocean. This privilege encouraged private investors to buy shares in the company. Such successes inspired governments to start creating their own chartered companies.

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Dutch West India Company

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A charter issued by the government of the Netherlands in 1602 gave the Dutch East India Company a legal monopoly over all Dutch trade in the Indian Ocean. This privilege encouraged private investors to buy shares in the company. They were amply rewarded when Dutch East India Company captured control of long-distance trade routes in the Indian Ocean from the Portuguese (see Chapter 19). As we have seen, a sister firm, the Dutch West India Company, was chartered in 1621 to engage in the Atlantic trade and to seize sugar-producing areas in Brazil and African slaving ports from the Portuguese.

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plantocracy

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During the eighteenth century West Indian plantation colonies were the world’s most polarized societies. On most islands 90 percent or more of the inhabitants were slaves. Power resided in the hands of a plantocracy, a small number of very rich men who owned most of the slaves and most of the land. The dominance of the plantocracy was even greater in British colonies. Whereas sugar constituted about half of Saint Domingue’s exports, in Jamaica the figure was over 80 percent. Such concentration on sugar cane left much less room for small cultivators, white or black, and confined most landholding to a few larger owners.

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“great gang”

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slave labor was organized by age, sex, and ability. As in other Caribbean colonies, only 2 or 3 percent of the slaves were house servants. About 70 percent of the able-bodied slaves worked in the fields, generally in one of three labor gangs. A “great gang,” made up of the strongest slaves in the prime of life, did the heaviest work, such as breaking up the soil at the beginning of the planting season.

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“grass gang”

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A “grass gang,” composed of children under the supervision of an elderly slave, was responsible for weeding and other simple work, such as collecting grass for the animals.

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head boiler

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The most important artisan slave was the head boiler, who oversaw the delicate process of reducing the cane sap to crystallized sugar and molasses.

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driver

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Skilled slaves received rewards of food and clothing or time off for good work, but the most common reason for working hard was to escape punishment. A slave gang was headed by a privileged male slave, appropriately called the “driver,” whose job was to ensure that the gang completed its work.

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seasoning

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- Slaves newly arrived from Africa went through the period of adjustment to a new environment known as seasoning, during which one-third, on average, died of unfamiliar diseases. Slaves also suffered from diseases brought with them, including malaria.

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grand blancs

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At the top of free society were the wealthy owners of large sugar plantations (the grands blancs, or “great whites”), who dominated the economy and society of the island.

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petits blancs

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Second came less-well-off Europeans (petits blancs˚, or “little whites”). Most of them raised provisions for local consumption and crops such as coffee, indigo, and cotton for export, relying on their own and slave labor.

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free blacks

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Third came the free blacks. Though nearly as numerous as the free whites and engaged in similar occupations, they ranked below whites socially. A few free blacks became wealthy enough to own their own slaves.

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manumission

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A slave owner who fathered a child by a female slave often gave both mother and child their freedom. In some colonies such manumission(a legal grant of freedom to an individual slave) produced a significant free black population. By the late eighteenth century free blacks were more numerous than slaves in most of the Spanish colonies. They made up almost 30 percent of the black population of Brazil, and they existed in significant numbers in the French colonies. Free blacks were far less common in the British colonies and the United States, where manumission was rare.

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maroons

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In the Caribbean runaways were known as maroons. Maroon communities were especially numerous in the mountainous interiors of Jamaica and Hispaniola as well as in the island parts of the Guianas˚. Jamaican maroons, after withstanding several attacks by the colony’s militia, signed a treaty in 1739 that recognized their independence in return for their cooperation in stopping new runaways and suppressing slave revolts.

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capitalism

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One was the ability to manage large financial resources through mechanisms that modern historians have labeled capitalism. The essence of early modern capitalism was a system of large financial institutions—banks, stock exchanges, and chartered trading companies—that enabled wealthy investors to reduce risks and increase profits. Originally developed for business dealings within Europe, the capitalist system expanded overseas in the seventeenth century, when slow economic growth in Europe led many investors to seek greater profits abroad. Banks were a central capitalist institution. By the early seventeenth century Dutch banks had developed such a reputation for security that individuals and governments from all over western Europe entrusted them with large sums of money. To make a profit, the banks invested these funds in real estate, local industries, loans to governments, and overseas trade.

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joint-stock company

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Individuals seeking returns higher than the low rate of interest paid by banks could purchase shares in a joint-stock company, a sixteenth-century forerunner of the modern corporation. Shares were bought and sold in specialized financial markets called stock exchanges. The Amsterdam Exchange, founded in 1530, became the greatest stock market in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. To reduce risks in overseas trading, merchants and trading companies bought insurance on their ships and cargoes from specialized companies that agreed to cover losses.

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stock exchange

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Shares were bought and sold in specialized financial markets called stock exchanges. The Amsterdam Exchange, founded in 1530, became the greatest stock market in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. To reduce risks in overseas trading, merchants and trading companies bought insurance on their ships and cargoes from specialized companies that agreed to cover losses.

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mercantilism

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The capitalism of these centuries was buttressed by mercantilism, policies adopted by European states to promote their citizens’ overseas trade and accumulate capital in the form of precious metals, especially gold and silver. Mercantilist policies strongly discouraged citizens from trading with foreign merchants and used armed force when necessary to secure exclusive relations.

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Royal African Company

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This was not a private venture. The Hannibal had been hired by the Royal African Company(RAC), an association of English investors that in 1672 had received a charter from the English monarchy giving them exclusive rights to trade along the Atlantic coast of Africa. Besides slaves, the RAC purchased ivory and other products. Although preferences for merchandise varied, Africans’ greatest demands were for textiles, hardware, and guns. Of the goods the Royal African Company traded in West Africa in the 1680s, over 60 percent were Indian and European textiles and 30 percent were hardware and weaponry. Beads and other jewelry made up 3 percent. The rest consisted of cowrie shells that were used as money. In the eighteenth century, tobacco and rum from the Americas became welcome imports.

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Atlantic Circuit

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At the heart of this trading system was a clockwise network of sea routes known as the Atlantic Circuit. It began in Europe, ran south to Africa, turned west across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas, and then swept back to Europe. Like Asian sailors in the Indian Ocean, Atlantic mariners depended on the prevailing winds and currents to propel their ships. What drove the ships as much as the winds and currents was the desire for the profits that each leg of the circuit was expected to produce.