October 12, 2023
Troy D. Smith
“How Slavery Differed in the New World”
This week we are going to see just how the Trans-Atlantic
Slave Trade was different from the various forms of slavery that existed for
thousands of years before, and even from the Arab Slave Trade that was taking
Africans away from their home continent at the same time.
The Spanish “discovered” the New World in 1492, and Columbus
immediately began enslaving the Native Americans he encountered, paving the way
for Spain to start their own sugar plantations in the Caribbean islands. Just
two years later, in 1494, the pope divided all undiscovered lands between Spain
and Portugal, with Portugal getting Brazil and many territories in Asia, while
Spain got to keep the Philippines and the rest of North and South America (a
pretty good deal for them, as it turned out).
Within a few decades, a movement arose in Spain protesting
the harsh treatment of indigenous people, and especially their enslavement. The
principal figure in this movement was Bartolomè de las Casas, who as a young
man had served as a soldier under Columbus and was repulsed by what he witnessed,
and who later entered the priesthood and spent his life fighting for the rights
of the people Columbus had called “los Indios.” This led to a ban on enslaving
Natives (though they were still terribly mistreated) in Spanish territories.
Unfortunately, that led to an increased reliance on the African slave trade,
which the Portuguese had already been using heavily.
Spain and Portugal wanted all the African slaves money could
buy (and they were making plenty of money from their new possessions to do so).
The demand escalated -there were a LOT of Spanish settlements established in
the New World. In particular, though, slave labor was used in the Spanish
holdings in the Caribbean (Cuba, Puerto Rico, etc.) and the Portuguese colony
of Brazil -places where the incredibly lucrative sugar was grown on
plantations. There was a high labor turnover rate -a polite way to say death
rate -because the growing season was year-round, meaning that -unlike in places
like the English colony of Virginia, which had tobacco plantations -there was
no winter lull during which slaves could have lighter duties and recover their
strength. Spanish and Portuguese planters -and later English and French ones
when those countries took over some Caribbean islands -figured out that it was
cheaper to work your slaves to death and then buy more than to invest the money
it would take in clothing, food, and healthcare to keep them alive.
The result was that, of the 13 million Africans sold from
their homes in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, 11 million were sent to the New
World (the rest mostly to Europe to be house servants). Of those 11 million,
about 500,000 (or around 5%) were sent to the English colonies on the North
American mainland. Almost all the rest were sent to South America (mostly
Brazil) or the Caribbean, where they would lead short, difficult lives.
Meanwhile, the demand for new slaves went through the roof, leading African
tribes and kingdoms to engage in perpetual, large scale warfare with one
another. Whereas captives had once been a by-product of occasional war, they
now became the primary purpose of constant war. This was ultimately due to the
demand created by a global capitalist economy (a brand-new thing) and the
colonial/imperial forces making it turn. It was like slavery as it existed
before had been give a massive dose of steroids and plunged into overdrive.
Slaves were no longer just house servants or public labor for the government or
limited businesses like shipyards or mines. They were cogs in a massive, global
agricultural economy that gobbled up exponentially more and more human chattel.
Nor should we delude ourselves that their forced labor was NECESSARY; it was
only necessary insofar as being cheaper and producing more profit for owners
and investors.
There had never been anything like it.
--Troy D.
Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at
Tennessee Tech. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.
Buy the book A Liberal Dose: Communiques from the Holler by Troy D. Smith HERE
You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE
A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE
Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com
The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE
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