Slaves, Crops, and Raw Material
If you look at a map of the world, it looks like Europe, Africa, and North America could fit together like a puzzle.
Well, that’s because millions of years ago they used to be one land mass. Over time, the continents pulled apart, separating these different lands and isolating them from one another.
Starting in the 15th century, these three regions started coming back together. Not geographically but economically and culturally.
The rise of European colonialism and imperialism created a complex trade network between Europe, Africa, and the Americas. Materials and goods moved around the world unlike ever before. Because of the way these goods moved, this network is now called The Atlantic Triangle.
Trade between these three regions dramatically altered all three areas. It gave rise to the United States and many other new nations. But it also placed millions into slavery and forever altered their history.
Europe to Africa to America: Follow the Winds
There were a lot of reasons why connecting these three regions made sense. But Mother Nature certainly helped things along. The wind patterns She created made it easier for ships to sail across the Atlantic in certain directions.
The Portuguese actually led the way when it came to sailing around the world. Early on, they discovered a consistent wind pattern blowing off the coast of West Africa straight across the Atlantic to the Caribbean.
Eventually, these became known as the trade winds.
Later, English and French sailors discovered the “Northeasterlies.” These winds blew steadily from the eastern seaboard of North America towards Western Europe.
This made it so that the best route to travel from Europe to North America was to actually first sail south towards Africa. Then you could sail west. This made the trip to the “New World” much shorter than if you tried to go directly from Europe.
Early settlers didn’t know this or have the navigational skills to pull it off, which is why their journeys often took longer.
Over time, as this route became more popular, trade developed along the way.
A Self Supported Triangle
European ships loaded with finished goods such as textiles, tools, jewelry, metalwork, etc. would travel south to Africa.
There, they would trade some of these goods for actual human beings that had been captured by slave traders. These people were brought to America to be sold as slaves.
These humans, plus the remaining goods on board, would then travel to the Americas to unload. There, they would gather raw materials, such as sugar, indigo, cotton, tobacco, wood, etc. and bring them back to Europe.
Once in Europe, these raw materials were used to make the finished goods that got this whole triangle started.
The triangle was successful not only because of the wind but because each component of it helped boost demand in another area.
The success of cash crop plantations in the Americas made it cheaper and easier to produce finished goods in Europe. This also required more slaves to work the land and produce these raw materials.
European industry succeeded and had more stuff to send around the world, and since African slave traders were getting rich capturing and selling people, demand for European goods increased there.
The entire triangle reinforced itself and gave rise to a massive trade network unlike any other in history.
Rise of Slavery Across the America
In case you missed it, an integral part of the Atlantic Triangle was the movement of human slaves.
Yes, that’s right, slaves.
Slavery has been a part of human history for as long as civilization has existed. During different periods of history, it was more widespread than others. For example, the Romans relied heavily on slave labor. They often forced conquered populations into slavery as a way of building their empire and consolidating power.
The 16th to 19th century was another heyday for slavery, but the motives were almost entirely economic and also racist.
The reason was that in the many European colonies across the Americas, there was an abundance of raw materials. But there was a shortage of labor. And the work that needed to be done was grueling. Working a sugar cane plantation in Haiti or Cuba is the equivalent of doing a hard workout in a small room with the heat turned up to 180 degrees.
As a result, to work this land and make money, wealthy European landowners decided to import slaves.
Africa was used as a source because there were plenty of warlords in the region willing to sell people to Europeans in exchange for goods. Add in the fact that White Europeans considered Black Africans inferior humans who were uncivilized and savage, and you have a perfect recipe for the brutal enslavement of millions of people.
In total, more than 12.5 million slaves were brought from Africa to the Americas during the colonial period.
This devastated entire communities and populations in African and completely reshaped societies in the Americas. For example, in Haiti, there were far more slaves than non-slaves, which led to wide scale revolts and eventually a movement for independence.
Slavery in the Colonies and the United States
In the United States, slavery remained concentrated in the southern colonies where cash crop cultivation was made possible by the warmer climate.
Many northern colonies moved against slavery early on, seeing it as morally wrong but also a threat to White labor. The idea was that if there were slaves working for “free,” Whites who wanted to work would be paid less than they were worth.
The first colony to outright forbid slavery was Rhode Island in 1774. Many of the other Northern states did so shortly after independence.
Even in the South, though, there was conflict. Early abolitionists tried to outlaw slavery in Virginia in 1772. The colonial government rejected this in favor of plantation owners.
Many of the so-called founding fathers, the most famous being George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, held slaves. They expressed moral conflicts with this, but ultimately decided to continue owning other people. Thomas Jeffeson, the primary author of the Declaration of Independence, tried to outlaw slavery while separating from England. This clause was removed by his fellow writers and delegates, leaving slavery intact after independence.
This helped create a tremendous paradox in the United States.
Independence rhetoric was based on the idea that “all men are created equal” and deserve the rights to “life, liberty, and property.” Yet a large portion of the population had no rights and were actually considered the property of other people.
The US’ attempts to reconcile this paradox and come to terms with the history of slavery remain an important cultural challenge today.
The issue of slavery led the north and south to develop very different economies and cultures, which has created tensions throughout the entire history of the United States.
Attempts to Control Trade Fuel the Independence Movement
The movement of goods and people throughout the Atlantic Triangle made a lot of people very rich.
However, there was disagreement about who was allowed to get rich.
England, which had colonies throughout the Americas, followed a mercantilist policy. This meant that its colonies existed to enrich England. They were also supposed to give it a competitive edge over its rivals, mainly Spain and France.
As a result, trade to and from the colonies was severely restricted. Raw materials from the Americas had to be transported on English ships and sold to English merchants. The colonies also had to buy finished goods from England.
For those in England, this worked out great. They got access to cheap raw materials to make their goods more profitable. They also had access to a market with no outside competition.
However, for those in the colonies, this was a raw deal.
Only being able to sell to England restricted the price they could get for their goods. This held back their earnings. And being forced to buy from England also made things more expensive since there was no competition.
For the first 150 years of English colonization in the Americas, these rules were in place but not very well enforced. However, starting in the mid 18th century, the English government tried a lot harder to enforce these rules. Overseas wars left England broke, and they wanted the colonies to help out.
This obviously made people quite angry and sparked separatists sentiment.
Add in some unpopular taxes and an unwillingness from the English crown to acknowledge the colonies’ rights to self-rule, and you have a perfect recipe for a revolution.
Once this recipe was finished, a new nation — the United States of America — was born.
Written by Matthew Jones