Coursework 3

Abstract

This aim of this piece of study is to talk about the Atlantic Slave Trade. The motive here is to discuss the long term impacts that Atlantic Slave Trade has on the economic development of capitalism. In order to examine the connections between Atlantic trade, slavery, and the British economy during the periods of 1660s to 1800s, the starting point lies in the extensive reasons for colonial settlement by the English during the seventeenth century, and the evolution of slavery as the primary form of large scale labour organization in the Atlantic colonies. Moreover, in the sixteenth century, curiosity of the English about the New World inspired voyages of exploration. In addition to this, numerous other historical events and causes resulted in the plantation of slavery during the mid seventeenth century. Furthermore, there are a number of historians who have analyzed the impacts of Atlantic slave trade on the development of industrial capitalism in North America and Western Europe. Thus, this piece of study highlights the long term impacts of Atlantic slave trade on capitalism.

Introduction

A number of historians of the twentieth century such as Walter Rodney, Eric Williams, W.E.B. DuBois and Kwame Nkrumah have discussed the major impacts of the colonialism and Atlantic slave trade on the development of industrial capitalism in Western Europe and North America. In his book “Capitalism and Slavery”, Eric Williams indicated that there were a number of banks in the 18th century that were well-known in Manchester and Liverpool, the cotton capital and the slaving metropolis respectively, and they were directly associated with the triangular trade. The reason for this was that large sums were required for the canals and cotton factories and this ultimately resulted in improving the modes of communication between the two towns (Morgan, 2000, pp. 49-53).

However, in order to make arguments regarding the benefits that the Africans got from the continent's dependence, any observer must be requiring evidences in this regard. Walter Rodney, a leading Marxist historian belonging from Africa, reflects his thoughts in his book “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa”. Rodney states that certainly, with few omissions like Hawkins, African captives were bought by the European buyers on the shore of Africa and the transactions between Africans and Europeans were a main form of trade. He further continued that it is also a fact that most often a slave was numerous times as he made his way to the port of embarkation from the interior, and that was also a common form of trade. However, the author identified that the process of slave trade as a whole was not a trade at all; rather this process of obtaining captives on African soil was done through trickery, warfare, kidnapping, and banditry. Thus, when anyone is trying to realize and measure the effects that slave trade has on the African continent, he or she should keep in mind the fact he would be measuring the effects of social violence, not trade, in any ordinary logic of the word (Morgan, 2000, ...