REN - The Slave Trade and Commercial Revolution (Lesson)
The Slave Trade and Commercial Revolution
The Slave Trade
Following the Age of Exploration, European powers, especially England, began to see potential in the newly discovered lands. The vastness of the Americas did not yield the hoped-for discovery of precious metals, such as gold and silver, however, the Americas had another sought-after treasure…. fertile soil.
The southern colonies were found to have rich, fertile soil that would sustain the growth of cash crops, the most important of which was tobacco. Because of this, the southern colonies established a plantation economy or an economy that was based on agriculture. The term plantation means a commercial farm and, while many were large operations, most were smaller with fewer resources. This development of a plantation economy also led to a planter society, a society with a caste-like social structure with the planters on the top, much like nobility, merchants, poor farmers, and finally slaves. The culture of the planter society was based on chivalry and hospitality.
While tobacco was in high demand and was lucrative to sell, it was also very labor-intensive meaning it took quite a few people to keep large tobacco farms producing at the necessary rate. As agriculture spread throughout the southern colonies with the addition of cotton, rice, and indigo crops, more labor was needed than was available. Agriculture also took place in the middle colonies, although to a lesser degree due to the colder climate. Agriculture was also a part of the economy of the islands in the Caribbean. The main crop, sugar cane, was used to produce rum but was also very labor intensive.
The Americas did not hold an abundance of workers to meet the needs of a plantation economy. While some Native Americans were kept as slaves or indentured servants, there were not enough to meet the needs of the planters. The diseases brought by immigrants, including measles, smallpox, and typhus, caused a large number of deaths among the indigenous population, thereby creating a need for a labor source. This labor source was going to come out of West Africa.
African slaves were plentiful in the 17th and 18th centuries. Slave traders used manufactured goods created in Europe to trade for slaves in West Africa. These slaves were then transported to the Americas via slave ships through the Middle Passage which was the leg of the Triangular Trade route from Africa to the Americas. These ships were small, and slaves were packed in. Approximately 1 in 4 slaves never made it to the Americas due to the poor conditions including disease and malnutrition. Once here, slaves were sold at auction with families being separated for life. These slaves served as the labor for the plantation economy until the mid-19th century.
The Commercial Revolution
While the new non-European lands were providing much needed capital for the Europeans, this influx of money was also increasing the need for new practices in banking and finance. Double entry was instituted which meant that when one item was sold for gold, there were two entries in the ledger, one for the gold obtained and one for the item sold. The Bank of Amsterdam was originally opened to exchange monies but later because a deposit bank for commercial and personal accounts. This worked well as the Dutch East India Company, the largest commercial joint-stock company in the world at the time was headquartered in the Netherlands and dominated in trade with Asia. Its rival, but significantly smaller counterpart, the British East India Company, also traded extensively in Asia and almost single-handedly reversed the flow of gold bullion from the East to the West.
The Growth of Commercial Agriculture
From 1450 - 1648, the vast majority of Europeans still earned a living from agriculture. In order to be successful, they had to understand weather patterns and planting practices. Prior to the Renaissance, the feudal system had the serfs, or workers, growing crops on the estate of their lord, some for themselves but mostly for their lords. Farmers practiced subsistence farming and had to understand how to produce at a high rate. In Northern England, farmers used a three-crop field rotation system which meant that one field was planted with crop A, another with crop B, and the third was allowed to rest, or fallow. The next year, everything rotated one field. In the south, this same process occurred but with two fields instead of three.
As agriculture became more commercialized, the farmers accumulated more capital and adopted other practices that benefited large landowners. For example, during the medieval period, there had been a plot of land, usually located in the village area, which was used by all citizens for farming, grazing, etc. This area was known as the village common. With the advent of commercial farming, the use of that land was restricted and was eventually enclosed during the enclosure movement. There was no more free use of land as the economic elite took control. Land was considered wealth and this new group of people who gained money through the acquisition of land grew in economic, political, and social power. These groups included the Italians such as Cosimo di Medici and the Nobles of the Robe in France. The new economic elite gained control over different geographic areas. Serfdom, which had essentially died out in Western Europe was now codified or put into writing in Eastern Europe where the landed elite still controlled economic activities through the holdings of large estates. Some landlords attempted to take rights away from the peasants which only led to revolt.
As more and more people were pushed out of agriculture due to their inability to obtain land, they became migrants who moved to urban areas. However, as more and more people moved to the urban areas and the population rebounded the urban leaders faced more severe problems brought about by the overpopulation. For example, sanitation problems rose in cities because there were too many people for the sanitation systems to sustain. Those systems were rudimentary in many places and the lack of proper sanitation led to disease and death. The migrants who moved to the cities did not necessarily have employable skills and jobs were difficult to find. This led to a life of poverty and an increase in crime.
Socially, people chose to marry later and delay childbearing due to environmental concerns such as the Little Ice Age. The scarcity of food and other resources caused people to not reproduce which meant that the population growth decreased. Without so many mouths to feed, families improved their own economic conditions by making these decisions.
In your notes, respond to the following question.
- How did exploration fuel the Commercial Revolution?
[CC BY 4.0] UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED | IMAGES: LICENSED AND USED ACCORDING TO TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION