Triangular trade
Triangular trade was a trans-Atlantic trade route used by European powers that had three parts or "sides" to the "triangle": From Europe to Africa to transport finished goods for trade, from Africa to the Americas to transport slaves - known as the Middle Passage, and lastly the Americas to Europe to transport raw materials. The most common destination for slave traffic were islands in the Caribbean and Portuguese Brazil, and for several hundred years slavery financed in part the growth of European empires.
Background
The use of maritime winds in a sweeping pattern was first developed by the Portuguese in the 16th century, which they called volta do mar, the use of African slave labor was also established by the Crown of Portugal.
It is believed that the trip from Africa to the Caribbean took between 6 and 12 weeks. Along the way, horrible conditions were present on-board slave-trading vessels, leaving more than 1 in 10 captives dead before they arrived at their plantation destinations.[1]
Statistics
According to research provided by Emory University,[2] an estimated 12.5 million slaves were transported from Africa to colonies in North and South America. The top five kingdoms for trafficking in slaves from Africa were Portugal, Great Britain, France, Spain, and the Netherlands.
| Spain | Portugal | Great Britain | Netherlands | U.S.A. | France | Denmark |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1,061,524 | 5,848,266 | 3,259,441 | 554,336 | 305,326 | 1,381,404 | 111,040 |
Controversy
It is disputed whether traders from New England really engaged in a "triangle", and there are good reasons to be skeptical. Historian Clifford Shipton noted that unlike British ships, "no New England traders are known to have completed a single circuit of that triangle."[3]
Additionally, there was no significant market in Africa for finished goods. The term "triangular trade" itself was not used contemporaneously with the trade.[4] The first usage of the term "triangle trade" has been traced back to George H. Moore in 1866, in his Notes on the history of slavery in Massachusetts.[5][6]
Another point of controversy is the excessively-sized portrayal for which the United States has been placed throughout historical texts compared to its actual role in the trade. Independence was not even declared until 1776, yet somehow slave trading that began in the 15th century[7] is routinely aimed solely at the United States instead of the kings who demanded the initiation and continuance of the practice.[8]
See also
References
- ↑ Haiti
- ↑ Slave Voyages, Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade - Estimates
- ↑ And a Bottle of Rum: A History of the New World in Ten Cocktails
- ↑ The Making of the Triangular Trade Myth, by Gilman M Ostrander - JSTOR
- ↑ The Slave Trade & Migration
- ↑ Notes on the history of slavery in Massachusetts
- ↑ Africa and the Transatlantic Slave Trade
- ↑ The Atlantic Slave Trade in Two Minutes, "Relative to the entire slave trade, North America was a bit player. ... Of the more than 10 million enslaved Africans to eventually reach the Western Hemisphere, just 388,747 - less than 4 percent of the total - came to North America."
External links
- Slave Voyages, documents
