Profiting off the slave trade

Type :

Term papers

Pages :

8 pages

Format :

.doc

Published date :

03/17/2009

Category :

History & geography

Sub category :

Modern history

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Summary :

Introduction
World economy during slave trade: A zero-sum fixture
State intervention in slave trade
The prospects of large profits
Shipping expenses: A heavy initial burden on slave merchants
The captain's ability to keep the slaves alive
Varying forms of exchange rates on the African Coast: The profits for slave traders
Rawley and the misrepresentation of profits accumulated by slave voyages
The William thesis: The complexity a trading network and our ability to calculate the exact profits
1. David Richardson: William's failure to specify which profits his theory referred to
2. William Darity's disagreement with Richardson
3. Barbara Solow from Boston University auhtor of the article Caribbean Slavery and British Growth
4. Joseph E. Inkori's article Slave Trade and Capitalism
Conclusion
Bibliography

Abstract

Slavery and the opening up of the New World go hand in hand. Whether it be the mining of the silver and gold caches in the Mexican interior or the farming of sugar cane in the Caribbean islands, the riches appropriated by the Europeans from the new world were made possible on a large scale due to the ever flowing supply of free slave labor. The slave trade was an integral part of this global process where suppliers, producers, inputs and outputs fueled an extensive competitive trading network and what could arguably be the earliest stage of world-wide economic interaction. The complexity of the slave trade system, high initial costs, and the problems that could possibly arise in Europe, the African Coast, and in the New World, fraught merchants with all types of risks and therefore created varying levels of profitability depending on the voyage. After taking into account these various definite and possible expenditures it is realized that the "excepted wisdom" that the slave trade was consistently highly profitable to be untrue. Though the trade was not as profitable as some have made it out to be, it was an essential part of Europe's economic spurt during this time period.