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Slavery in the British and French Caribbean refers to slavery in the parts of the Caribbean dominated by France or the British Empire.
In the Caribbean, England colonised the islands of St. Kitts and Barbados in 1623 and 1627 respectively, and later, Jamaica in 1655. In these islands and England's other Caribbean colonies, white colonists would gradually introduce a system of slave-based labor to underpin a new economy based on cash crop production. [1]
In the mid-16th century, slaves were trafficked from Africa to the Caribbean by Europeans. Originally, white European indentured servants worked alongside enslaved Africans in the Americas. [2] Francois Bernier, who is considered to have presented the first modern concept of race, published his work “A New Division of the Earth according to the Different Species or Races of Men Who Inhabit It” in 1684, over 100 years after slaves were brought to the "New World" (the Americas). [3]
As of 1778, French slave trade transported approximately 13,000 Africans as slaves to the French West Indies each year. [4] Slavery had been active in French colonies since the early 16th century; it was first abolished by the French government in 1794, whereupon it was replaced by forced labour before being reinstated by Napoleon in 1802. [5] The French slave trade ran along a triangular route, wherein ships would travel from France to colonized African countries, and then to the Caribbean colonies. [6] The triangular setup was intentional, as France aimed to bring the African laborers to the New World, where their labor was of higher value because of the natural and cheap resources cultivated from the land, and then bring the product back to France. [6] In French, the commerce triangulaire referred to this Atlantic economy based on the trafficking of slaves from Africa. [7]
In France, the slaving interest was based in Nantes, La Rochelle, Bordeaux, and Le Havre during the years 1763 to 1792. The men involved defended their business against the abolition movement of 1789. They were merchants who specialized in funding and directing cargoes of stolen Black captives to the Caribbean colonies, which had high death rates. Caribbean plantations relied on a continuous supply of newly trafficked slaves. Slaveholding plantation owners were strongly opposed to the application of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen to Black people. While they ridiculed the slaves as "dirty" and "savage", they often took a Black mistress (an enslaved woman forced into sexual services). The French government paid a bounty on each captive sold to the colonies, which made the business profitable and patriotic. [8]
Slaves, wealth and goods were moved in an insular, unidirectional fashion to the exclusive benefit of Europe. In fact, the French had a policy called “the Exclusif” (exclusive in English), requiring French colonies to only sell exports to France and purchase imported goods from France. [9] This promoted the concept of “centripetal trade” in which all profit and capital spread amongst the American colonies eventually circulated back into the hands of European powers. [2] The trafficking of slaves was just one fraction of the mercantilist economy. In addition, Europeans brought “pacotille” or “cheaply made European goods” to trade with Africans. This often took the form of colonial products such as sugar, rum, tobacco, coffee, or indigo. [5] Thus African leaders, who themselves were in control of selling African captives with Europeans, did not retain the wealth they acquired in the trafficking of slaves. Rather they were the targeted customers of poorly-made pacotille. [5] Their profits from the trafficking in slaves then circled back to manufacturers in Europe, just as the Exclusif had intended.
The French trans-Atlantic trafficking of slaves has qualities of both an economy of trade and traite. Many historians consider the trafficking in slaves to be “an economy of trade according to “rational” sets of prices, and not as a pure extraction of theft of Africans from Africa by Europeans.” Indeed, the victims of chattel slavery became commodities, given a “rational” price tag. At the time the Dictionnaire universel was written the cost of a slave in a French colony was £19. [10] While this is a somewhat arbitrary number, from an economic standpoint, this is an example of trade in the sense that goods of “similar” value were exchanged. However, the Europeans purchasing slaves directly from Africa bought them for about half the price of slaves in the "New World" with the thought that slaves in Africa did not have environmental factors or technology to be as efficient as slaves in the colonies. Examples of slave prices in Africa include 172 cowries, 1/25 of a horse, and 9000 pounds of sugar. The relativity of the price of a slave contributed to the centripetal force of triangular trade. It drew profits for merchants who bought the same slaves in Africa from Africans for a low cost and then upticked the price for Europeans in the American colonies. While the exchange itself might be considered trade, the power of Europeans to monopolize the trading and trafficking in slaves and control the market poses a strong confounder to the situation, pointing the trans-Atlantic trafficking of slaves from Africa to also be an economy of traite. [2]
The Lesser Antilles islands of Barbados, St. Kitts, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Antigua, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Saint Lucia and Dominica were the first important slave societies of the Caribbean, switching to the institution of slavery by the end of the 17th century as their economies converted from tobacco to sugar production, and as mercantilism became the dominant economic system in Europe. The mercantilism model limited imports and highly valued exports, which largely drove imperial efforts across Europe by utilizing slave labor in order to produce cheap goods to be sold at higher market prices upon their return to Europe. By the middle of the 18th century, British Jamaica and French Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) had become the largest slave societies of the region, rivaling Brazil as a destination for enslaved Africans.
The death rates for Black slaves in these islands were higher than birth rates. The decrease averaged about 3 percent per year in Jamaica and 4 percent a year in the smaller islands. The diary of slaveowner Thomas Thistlewood of Jamaica details violence against enslaved people, and constitutes important historical documentation of the conditions for enslaved people from the Caribbean.
For centuries the institution of slavery made sugarcane production economical. The low level of technology made production difficult and labor-intensive. At the same time, the demand for sugar was rising, particularly in Great Britain. The French colony of Saint-Domingue quickly began to out-produce all of the British islands combined. Though sugar was driven by slavery, rising costs for the British made it easier for the British abolitionists to be heard. Sugar thus became inherently linked to the institution of slavery, and the link was publicized specifically in abolition and anti-sugar movements, but was understood by many French citizens. [11] Voltaire, for example, wrote of a sighting of a maimed slave in Candide , writing: "C'est à ce prix que vous mangez du sucre en Europe" ("this is what it costs for you to eat your sugar in Europe"). [12]
In addition to sugar, France additionally capitalized on "pacotille," or cheap goods such as rum, tobacco, coffee and indigo. [5] These cheap products were brought from Europe and traded to African elites in exchange for enslaved people. Profiting from "pacotille" was another method of perpetuating the mercantilism economic model.
The system of African slavery that developed in the Lesser Antilles was an outgrowth of the demand for sugar and other crops. As part of Oliver Cromwell's Western Design, the English captured several Spanish colonial possessions in the West Indies, most prominently Jamaica, which was invaded and occupied in 1655. Colonists soon transformed Jamaica into a center of the Atlantic slave trade. [13]
In 1640 the English began sugar production with the help of the Dutch. This started the Anglo-American plantation societies which would later be led by Jamaica after it was fully developed. At its peak production between 1740 and 1807 Jamaica received 33% of the total slaves who were trafficked in order to keep up its production. Other crops besides sugar were also cultivated on the plantations. Tobacco, coffee, and livestock were all produced as well using slave labor. Sugar, however, stands out most prominently due to its exorbitant popularity during the time period and the dangers of its production, which claimed the lives of many slaves. [14]
England had multiple sugar colonies in the Caribbean, especially Jamaica, Barbados, Nevis, and Antigua, which provided a steady flow of sugar to Europe and North America; indentured and slave labor produced the sugar. [15] English involvement in slavery increased as a result of the Treaty of Utrecht, which was signed in 1713. [16] During the negotiations of the treaty, of special importance was the successful secret negotiation with France to obtain a 30-year monopoly on selling African slaves in the Spanish Empire, known as the Asiento de Negros. Queen Anne of Great Britain also allowed her North American colonies like Virginia to make laws that promoted the institution of slavery. Anne had secretly negotiated with the French government to get its approval regarding the asiento, since it had previously been awarded to France to the benefit of French merchants. [17] The British government gave the asiento to the newly-formed South Sea Company. [18] Most of the trafficking of slaves by the South Sea Company involved sales to Spanish colonies in the Caribbean, and to Mexico, as well as sales to British colonies in the Caribbean and in North America. [19] Historian Vinita Ricks says the agreement allotted Queen Anne "22.5% (and King Philip V, of Spain 28%) of all profits [from the asiento] collected for her personal fortune." Ricks concludes that the Queen's "connection to slave trade revenue meant that she was no longer a neutral observer. She had a vested interest in what happened on slave ships." [20] [21]
Slaves incoming to the Anglo-American colonies were at high risk both mentally and physically. The Middle Passage alone accounted for roughly 10% of all deaths of trafficked African people. Some experts believe that one out of every three slaves died before ever reaching their African port of departure. The majority of slaves in English and later British colonies originated from Western Central Africa. The conditions suffered by slaves during the voyages were extraordinarily harsh. Slaves were placed in close quarters, fed barely enough to keep them alive, and oftentimes they fell victim to diseases contracted prior to the voyage. The slaves would not see sunlight during this period. They were prone to both weight loss and scurvy. [22]
The living and working conditions in the Lesser Antilles were excruciating for the slaved who were brought in to work the sugar plantations. The average lifespan of a slave after "adjusting" to the climate and environmental conditions of Jamaica was expected to be less than two decades. This was due to their limited familiarity and immune defense against the diseases and illnesses present in Jamaica. Disease decimated incoming slave populations. Attempts were made to help curtail the problem, but ultimately were fruitless. [23]
To help protect their investments, most slave owners would not immediately give the hardest tasks to the newest slaves. Slave owners would also set up a walled area away from the veteran slaves in order to stymie the spread of disease. These areas would contain 100–200 slaves at any time. Later, after new slaves had been purchased, they would be placed into the care of older and more experienced slaves who were already accustomed to the plantations in hopes of increasing their chances for survival. Examples of tasks assigned to new slaves include planting and constructing buildings.[ citation needed ]
Sugar production in the Lesser Antilles was a very grisly business. On Jamaica from 1829 to 1832 the average mortality rate for slaves on sugar plantations was 35.1 deaths per 1000 enslaved people. The most dangerous part of the sugar plantation was the cane planting. Cane planting during this era consisted of clearing land, digging the holes for the plants, and more. Overseers used the whip in an attempt to both motivate and punish slaves. The slaves themselves were also working and living with barely adequate nourishment and in times of hard work would often be starved. This contributed to low birth rates and the extremely high mortality rates for the slaves. Some experts believe that the average infant mortality at plantations to be 50% or even higher. This extremely high rate of infant mortality meant that the slave population that existed in the Lesser Antilles was not self-sustaining, thus requiring a constant importation of new slaves. Living and working conditions on non-sugar plantations was considered to be better, however, only marginally. [24]
The institution of Black slavery was first abolished by the French Republic in 1794, but Napoleon revoked that decree in 1802. [25] On March 29, 1815, Napoleon abolished the slave trade but the decree did not come into effect until 1826. [26] [27] France re-abolished the institution of slavery in its colonies in 1848 with a general and unconditional emancipation. [28] [29]
William Wilberforce's Slave Trade Act 1807 abolished the trafficking of slaves in the British Empire. It was not until the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 that the institution was finally abolished, but on a gradual basis. [30] Since slave owners in the various colonies (not only the Caribbean) were losing their unpaid labourers, the government set aside £20 million for compensation but it did not offer the former slaves any reparations. [31] [32]
The colony of Trinidad was left with a shortage of labour. This shortage became worse after the abolition of the institution of slavery in 1833. To deal with this, plantation owners on Trinidad transported indentured servants from the 1810s until 1917. Initially Chinese people, free West African people, and Portuguese people from the island of Madeira were imported, but they were soon supplanted by Indian people who started arriving from 1845. Indentured Indians would prove to be an adequate alternative for the plantations that formerly relied upon slave labour. In addition, numerous former slaves migrated from the Lesser Antilles to Trinidad to work.
In 1811 on the island of Tortola in the British Virgin Islands, Arthur William Hodge, a wealthy slaveholder, plantation owner and Council member, became the first person to be hanged for the murder of an enslaved person.
In 1833, the British Parliament passed the Slavery Abolition Act, permanently abolishing the instutiton of slavery in Britain's overseas colonies. The Act also stipulated that all formerly enslaved people would undergo a system of apprenticeship whereby they would work for their former owners for a period of time; how long this would last would be up to the government authorities in each British colony. On 1 August 1834 in Trinidad, an unarmed group of mainly elderly Black people being addressed by the Governor at Government House about the new apprenticeship laws, began chanting: "Pas de six ans. Point de six ans" ("Not six years. No six years"), drowning out the voice of the Governor. Peaceful protests continued until a resolution to abolish "apprenticeship" was passed and de facto freedom was achieved. This made Trinidad the first British colony with a slave population to completely abolish the institution of slavery. [30] The successful resistance of the implementation of the full six-year term of the Apprenticeship system and Abolition of Slavery in Trinidad was marked by ex-slaves and free people of colour joining in celebrations through the streets in what became known as their annual Canboulay celebrations. This event in Trinidad influenced full emancipation in the other British colonies which was legally granted two years ahead of schedule on 1 August 1838.
After Great Britain abolished the institution of slavery, it began to pressure other nations to do the same. France abolished the institution of slavery in 1848, in its colonies of Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guiana and Réunion.
Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery and liberate slaves around the world.
Barbados is an island country in the southeastern Caribbean Sea, situated about 100 miles (160 km) east of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Roughly triangular in shape, the island measures some 21 miles (34 km) from northwest to southeast and about 14 miles (23 km) from east to west at its widest point. The capital and largest town is Bridgetown, which is also the main seaport.
The Danish West Indies or Danish Virgin Islands or Danish Antilles were a Danish colony in the Caribbean, consisting of the islands of Saint Thomas with 32 square miles (83 km2); Saint John with 19 square miles (49 km2); and Saint Croix with 84 square miles (220 km2). The islands have belonged to the United States as the Virgin Islands since they were purchased in 1917. Water Island was part of the Danish West Indies until 1905, when the Danish state sold it to the East Asiatic Company, a private shipping company.
The history of the Caribbean reveals the region's significant role in the colonial struggles of the European powers since the 15th century. In the modern era, it remains strategically and economically important. In 1492, Christopher Columbus landed in the Caribbean and claimed the region for Spain. The following year, the first Spanish settlements were established in the Caribbean. Although the Spanish conquests of the Aztec empire and the Inca empire in the early sixteenth century made Mexico and Peru more desirable places for Spanish exploration and settlement, the Caribbean remained strategically important.
Triangular trade or triangle trade is trade between three ports or regions. Triangular trade usually evolves when a region has export commodities that are not required in the region from which its major imports come. It has been used to offset trade imbalances between different regions.
The slave codes were laws relating to slavery and enslaved people, specifically regarding the Atlantic slave trade and chattel slavery in the Americas.
Sugar plantations in the Caribbean were a major part of the economy of the islands in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. Most Caribbean islands were covered with sugar cane fields and mills for refining the crop. The main source of labor, until the abolition of chattel slavery, was enslaved Africans. After the abolition of slavery, indentured laborers from India, China, Portugal and other places were brought to the Caribbean to work in the sugar industry. These plantations produced 80 to 90 percent of the sugar consumed in Western Europe, later supplanted by European-grown sugar beet.
The emancipation of the British West Indies refers to the abolition of slavery in Britain's colonies in the West Indies during the 1830s. The British government passed the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833, which emancipated all slaves in the British West Indies. After emancipation, a system of apprenticeship was established, where emancipated slaves were required by the various colonial assemblies to continue working for their former masters for a period of four to six years in exchange for provisions. The system of apprenticeship was abolished by the various colonial assemblies in 1838, after pressure from the British public, completing the process of emancipation. These were the steps taken by British West Indian planters to solve the labour problems created by the emancipation of the enslaved Africans in 1838.
Afro-Trinidadians and Tobagonians are people from Trinidad and Tobago who are of Sub-Saharan African descent, mostly from West Africa. Social interpretations of race in Trinidad and Tobago are often used to dictate who is of West African descent. Mulatto-Creole, Dougla, Blasian, Zambo, Maroon, Pardo, Quadroon, Octoroon or Hexadecaroon (Quintroon) were all racial terms used to measure the amount of West African ancestry someone possessed in Trinidad and Tobago and throughout North American, Latin American and Caribbean history.
Afro-Caribbean people or African Caribbean are Caribbean people who trace their full or partial ancestry to Africa. The majority of the modern Afro-Caribbean people descend from the Africans taken as slaves to colonial Caribbean via the trans-Atlantic slave trade between the 15th and 19th centuries to work primarily on various sugar plantations and in domestic households. Other names for the ethnic group include Black Caribbean, Afro or Black West Indian, or Afro or Black Antillean. The term Afro-Caribbean was not coined by Caribbean people themselves but was first used by European Americans in the late 1960s.
Slavery in the Spanish American viceroyalties was an economic and social institution which existed throughout the Spanish Empire including Spain itself. Enslaved Africans were brought over to the continent for their labour, indigenous people were enslaved until the 1543 laws that prohibited it.
Bussa's rebellion was the largest slave revolt in Barbadian history. The rebellion takes its name from the African-born slave, Bussa, who led the rebellion. The rebellion, which was eventually defeated by the colonial militia, was the first of three mass slave rebellions in the British West Indies that shook public faith in slavery in the years leading up to the abolition of slavery in the British Empire and emancipation of former slaves. It was followed by the Demerara rebellion of 1823 and by the Baptist War in Jamaica in 1831–1832; these are often referred to as the "late slave rebellions".
The history of slavery spans many cultures, nationalities, and religions from ancient times to the present day. Likewise, its victims have come from many different ethnicities and religious groups. The social, economic, and legal positions of slaves have differed vastly in different systems of slavery in different times and places.
This article describes the history of West Indies cricket to 1918.
The Caribbean is a subregion of the Americas that includes the Caribbean Sea and its islands, some of which are surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some of which border both the Caribbean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean; the nearby coastal areas on the mainland are sometimes also included in the region. The region is south-east of the Gulf of Mexico and Northern America, east of Central America, and north of South America.
The Crown Colony of Jamaica and Dependencies was a British colony from 1655, when it was captured by the English Protectorate from the Spanish Empire. Jamaica became a British colony from 1707 and a Crown colony in 1866. The Colony was primarily used for sugarcane production, and experienced many slave rebellions over the course of British rule. Jamaica was granted independence in 1962.
Black Barbadians or Afro-Barbadians are Barbadians of entirely or predominantly African descent.
The planter class, also referred to as the planter aristocracy, was a racial and socioeconomic caste which emerged in the Americas during European colonization in the early modern period. Members of the caste, most of whom were settlers of European descent, consisted of individuals who owned or were financially connected to plantations, large-scale farms devoted to the production of cash crops in high demand across Euro-American markets. These plantations were operated by the forced labour of slaves and indentured servants and typically existed in subtropical, tropical, and somewhat more temperate climates, where the soil was fertile enough to handle the intensity of plantation agriculture. Cash crops produced on plantations owned by the planter class included tobacco, sugarcane, cotton, indigo, coffee, tea, cocoa, sisal, oil seeds, oil palms, hemp, rubber trees, and fruits. In North America, the planter class formed part of the American gentry.
The history of slavery in the Netherlands dates back to the period of classical antiquity. During the early modern period, Dutch slave traders bought and sold over 1.6 million enslaved people. The Netherlands abolished Dutch involvement the Atlantic slave trade in 1814 under diplomatic pressure from the United Kingdom, but slavery would continue to exist in the Dutch colonial empire until 1863.
Slavery in the British American colonies was an institution that was brought into existence by traders and operated from the cities of Bristol and Liverpool and was conducted within locations on the northern part of South America through the West Indies and on the North American mainland. Many colonies saw slavery from the colony of British Guiana, Barbados, Jamaica, the Thirteen Colonies, and also Canada. Slavery across every part of colonial America under British control was abolished in 1833.
the first abolition ... revoked in 1802. The second, and final, abolition will be passed in 1848.
Enter Victor Schoelcher. After returning from Senegal in early March of 1848, the prominent abolitionist persuaded Arago to place him in charge of a commission to end the institution of slavery. On April 27, the commission drafted a decree of general and unconditional emancipation in the colonies.
the new legislation called for the gradual abolition of the institution of slavery. Everyone over the age of six on August 1, 1834, when the law went into effect, was required to serve an "apprenticeship" of four years in the case of domestics and six years in the case of field hands
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