A brief introduction to how the slave trade changed Britain, we now know today. How growth and expansion came about to Britain's economy and cities.
The Slave Trade
The slave trade was the fuel that developed and secured the foundation of the British Empire. A major contribution to the growth of its commercial consumption, during the 18th century was the triangular trade. A system which was formed to allow Britain to export and import goods to and from West Indies.
The triangular trade consisted of a voyage which started from Europe to Africa then to America and back to Europe (picture below). Eric Williams author of Capitalism and Slavery (1944) believed this process had given “a triple stimulus to the British industry”. Not only was this process profitable in terms of buying slaves cheaply and exploiting their labour to their full economic potential, allowed England to expand dramatically with the increase of shipping and shipbuilding.
For instance the plantation inputs (iron manufacturers, shipping) and outputs (cotton, sugar, tobacco) enriched and equipped Britain. Williams believed that “… the most advanced areas of the economy” of this process, helped generate and increase the wealth, it also became the major source of working capital for an extended period.
One source which had a pivotal impact was sugar. There was one island in particular that English merchants had labelled as a great source of wealth and prosperity, Barbados. Eric Williams notes the importance of the island to British merchants the “estimate[d] population of Barbados rose from about 10,000 mostly white inhabitants in 1640 to a total of about 40,000 in 1660 half of whom were slaves”.
The discovery of sugar in Barbados was quickly embraced by the merchants, who within 20 years had changed the region. The slave trade was proving successful as the imports were generating both growth and wealth. The results were astounding, in 20 years, the amount of people had doubled with merchant bring in slaves to help produce the sugar.
The Transformation of Britain’s Cities
London was the dominant port before the mid- seventeenth century and remained the financial centre of the trade. But that all changed in the mid eighteenth century, once cities like Bristol, Liverpool and Glasgow, too used their ports to their advantage.
Hugh Thomas author of The Slave Trade: The History of the Atlantic Slave Trade (1997) acknowledges how the slave trade was central to a pre-capitalist Britain, through the triangular trade. In the 1730s Thomas estimates British ships carried 170,000 slaves to the Americas, overtaking the Portuguese. He notes how London then Bristol and, by the end of the eighteenth century, Liverpool are boosted, if not transformed, by the success of slaving.
Thomas admits “the rise of Liverpool is a remarkable history, in which the slave trade played an important, perhaps even a decisive part” . This crucial sentence reflects Williams’ argument, slavery is the catalyst in which Britain used to expand and spread its wealth which helped form the Industrial Revolution that had lead to the capitalist society our - modern Britain.
Work Cited
Thomas, H. (1997) The Slave Trade, Picador.
Williams, E. (1964) Capitalism and Slaver, Andre Deutsch.
