Maritime Empires: Trade and Labor

A world map showing trade routes in the Atlantic Ocean — Manufactured goods from Europe (marked in green), e.g., textiles and spirits, went to Africa (marked in red); Slaves from Africa went to the Americas (marked in blue); Sugar, tobacco, and cotton from the Americas went to Europe.

In the previous time period, you learned about networks of exchange, such as the Silk Roads, the Indian Ocean, and the Trans-Saharan routes. In this lesson, we will turn our attention to new ways that goods were moved around.

New Trade Routes

Between 1450 and 1750, an entirely new trade route emerged and became the world's dominant network of exchange. The Atlantic System connected the Old and New Worlds in a triangular pattern across the ocean. A truly global system of trade was established.

In an effort to make trade as efficient as possible, ships in this triangular pattern never sailed empty. From Africa, they sailed across the Atlantic to the New World with slaves. After selling the slaves, they sailed to Europe with sugar, tobacco, and rum. After loading their ships with alcohol, metal items, and guns, they sailed to Africa's west coast to trade these things for slaves and begin the circuit all over again.

Empires and Labor

The Portuguese colony of Brazil was the first to implement the plantation system in the New World. A plantation is a large commercial farm used to grow a single cash crop for export. First tobacco, and then sugar, became the most lucrative crops in this system. But indigenous labor did not work well, as many Native Americans succumbed to diseases carried by the European plantation managers. Europeans looked to Africa. With the growth of the plantation system, the demand for African slaves increased. Over 10 million enslaved Africans were transported across the Middle Passage of the Atlantic System.

Many Europeans came to the New World to make a fortune. Without labor, the land they gained had no value in accomplishing this goal. Economic success depended on the ability to mobilize a large labor force in the service of the European colonizers. Consequently, they established a wide range of coerced labor systems in the Americas:

The Encomienda

This system was modeled after the reconquest of Iberia. In Spain, the conquistadors were granted access to Muslim labor in the areas they retook for the monarch (recall that much of Spain was under Muslim control for centuries). After its success in Europe, the Spanish attempted the same practice in the Americas. Land grants, called encomiendas, were given to Spanish conquistadors and soldiers, and they were free to exploit the labor of the people inhabiting the land entrusted to them. Under Philip II of Spain, the encomienda system was instituted in the Spanish Philippines as well. In the Americas, the system went into decline as many Natives died of diseases in close contact with Europeans.

The Mita System

As disease rendered the encomienda system unworkable, the Spanish and Portuguese adopted a labor system from the Indigenous peoples themselves. The mita system developed in the Inca Empire as a method of rotating groups of workers in the service of the state. When they were not working on their family farms, men between the ages of 15 and 50 would provide their labor to the empire as a form of tax payment, or corvée system. The Spanish adopted this system of labor and applied it to several contexts, especially their silver mining projects. Villages controlled by Spain had to provide a set number of people to the Spanish for labor in the mines.

The Hacienda

Like the encomienda and the mita system, the haciendas generally exploited local indigenous labor. However, the hacienda was a private estate, often the result of a land grant given to an individual by the monarch. Another difference is that the hacienda produced food and goods primarily for local consumption. They tended to be self-sufficient estates, although many of them were economically connected to nearby encomiendas with which they traded food items and hand-produced goods.

Chattel slavery

Chattel slavery is what most people think of when they hear the word slavery. It is the form of labor in which the laborer is most dehumanized, as he or she is considered solely as private property of the owner. Chattel slaves can be bought and sold at the owner’s discretion, are uncompensated, and have little chance of gaining freedom. As mentioned above, Africa provided the chattel slaves to the Americas predominantly after sugar plantations began by the Portuguese, spread across South America and the Caribbean.

Practice Activity: Labor Systems Review

Select the system that best matches the provided definition.

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