Lecture 7: Slavery and Plantations

how did the Columbian Exchange create a problem that was filled by slavery?

~90% of Native populations were decimated by European diseases which created a labor shortage and slavery was a way to forcible create a labor force

what percentage of enslaved Africans were sent to the United States?

~5%

when did Britain abolish the slave trade?

1807

what was the estimated number of persons taken from Africa to the Americans during 1701-1810 (the peak of slavery)?

over 6,000,000

true or false: prior to the transatlantic slave trade, slavery had existed for thousands of years

true

what about slavery in the transatlantic slave trade was new?

this was the first time slavery was racialized

the slave trade followed, and built upon,

trade in goods (gold, spices, ivory)

what did slavery depend on?

African social systems, there was a reliance on Africans to bring slaves to the coast where Europeans were

mercantilism

belief in the profitability of trading, a focus on exports through trade

mercantilism led a great amount of wealth to be amassed in

Europe

17th-18th centuries: _________ interests undertook large scale production of raw materials in colonies based on slavery and plantation

mercantile

slavery was extremely _________ as a form of trade on its own

profitable

what contributed to industrial development in Europe?

the wealth produced and the relations of production developed on plantations became the money used in industrial development

it was a source of wealth for future capital

mercantilism

Triangular Trade

industrial goods in Europe were used to purchase slaves which were brought to the Americas, the slaves worked on the plantations to grow/produce the raw materials that were sent back to Europe to utilize in industrial goods

what is a common (dangerous) narrative placed upon the slave trade by Europeans? why is this not true?

narrative: all enslaved persons were from a single race and culture

truth: there was an enormous diversity of cultures, languages, religions, and ethnicities among enslaved people

how did plantation owners use the diversity of enslaved Africans to their advantage?

they could intentionally mix and scatter enslaved Africans from different cultures and who spoke different languages so that they could not organize or revolt

how did enslaved Africans interact with other enslaved people of different cultures, languages, religions, etc?

they formed new cultures together in the New World (not a function of race)

what was a product of slavery?

racial hierarchies and racism

racial hierarchies were a form of ______ ______ in multi-ethnic settings

labor control

what were the effects of the idea of “biological race” that emerged later?

social Darwinism, anti-semitism, eugenics, Nazism

what was the main Portuguese crop in Brazil that required large amounts of labor?

sugar

sugar plantations employed who?

both enslaved persons and wage laborers

the sugar plantations and export of sugar turned sugar from a ______ good in the 15th century to a more ______ good

luxury, common

what role did sugar play in the industrial revolution?

workers in factories were consumers at the end of the plantation chain for sugar

those who were poor consumed more sugar than the wealthier class (could evidently be seen in different in height)

what argument did Mintz make regarding sugar?

it was a necessary component of the industrial revolution, fueled the working class

sugar became a ______ _____ by 1850 in Great Britian

dietary staple

what were the origins of a world food economy according to Mintz?

sugar and New World plantations became Europe’s first significant source of food from somewhere else- they were the start of the world food economy and globalization

what became the “caffeine-bearing drugs that would sustain the world’s emerging industrial proletariats?”

coffee, chocolate, and tea

they were a cheap way to keep people alive

what did Mintz regard as the first global division of labor?

New World sugar plantations

began a basic provisioning of the White world by people who were nearly all nonwhite

open resources

easily accessible resources

closed resources

difficult to access resources

what kind of resources were available to enslaved people and other workers in plantations? what did plantation owners do?

open resources that were easily accessible for their use; this was a threat to plantation owners so they employed brutality and violence

what was utilized to override the predicament of open resource access to slaves?

violence and brutality became necessities to prevent enslaved people from running away and taking advantage of the open resources

what tactics are utilized to retain a working class with closed resources?

waged labor

hiring and firing of workers

with open resources

one employer chases too few laborers

with closed resources

many laborers chase one employer

what does Carney observe in her book?

detailed the critical role of Africans and their descendants in making rice production possible under conditions of slavery- they knew how to grow, cook, and process rice

what was the conventional knowledge surrounding rice? what is the truth?

plantation owners hold the knowledge and enslave people just do the labor

truth: rice production and knowledge was made possible by Africans (knowledge about rice came largely from women from West Africa)

the gender relations of production reveal that most of the rice processing was done by ________ in Africa, leading to a preference for them

women

the general thought by botanists is that the origin of domesticated rice is in _________, but a second origin is _____ _____

China, West Africa

slave owners preference was for ________ from the Rice Coast region

women

enslaved Africans brought the __________ of rice with them

knowledge

estuary system

tidal influence of ocean raises and lowers water levels

when rice was commodified it became _______ ______

market driven

since rice is labor intensive, when it was commodified, what happened to labor productivity?

increased labor productivity through irrigation and mechanized milling

since rice is labor intensive, what happened to labor treatment when it was commodified?

treatment of humans as if they were machines

erosion of the traditional division of labor among men and women

extended hours of daily toil to keep up with market demand

once rice was commodified due to increased market demand in Europe, what happened to the production season of rice?

extension of the production season and homogenization of time

people were compelled to work all day and all year long to process the rice

it changed how rice was made- it was original for subsistence, now it was produced for a foreign market