AHC - Minimum New World slavery, post 1500 AD

raharris1973

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This challenge is inspired by a reading of Robin Blackburn book, The Making of New World Slavery: From the Baroque to the Modern, 1492-1800.

Blackburn notes that while the slave system did become widespread, there were objections and debate in every century while it was being developed.


The book begins with a discussion of the decline of slavery in medieval Europe, and moves on to the combination of theological and primarily commercial and policy driven reasons that led to hereditary race-based slavery as the primary plantation labor regime.

List of slavery opponents –
Fernao Oliveira – Portuguese – writing in 1555, Arte da Guerra do Mar (art of war at sea)
Martin de Ledesma – Spanish – writing in 1560, in Secunda Quartae.
(they were succeeded by a minority antislavery tradition amongst Dominicans and Jesuits)

1578-1583 – When the Spanish Philip came to take over Portugal, many slaves were emancipated to fight for independence. In the end, Spanish won, and they increased the slave trade.

Antonio de Montesinos – Friar in Santo Domingo, protested treatment of Indians, in 1511.

Relevant portions of the book are extensively quoted below:

“It might be thought that the harshness of plantation labour, or the difficulty of devising alternatives, rendered outright slavery more or less inevitable in seventeenth-century conditions. This option corresponded well to the outlook of those who ad gained the upper hand in the Atlantic world. But the criticism of Mercado or Vieira, or the early reservations of the Dutch WIC, pointed in another direction. After all, the colonial systems also showed that they could rise to the challenge of staffing even very onerous employments without recourse to slavery when they deemed it necessary. Te work of the seaman could be almost as harsh as the toil of a slave in a sugar plantation, and his living conditions were in some ways even worse. The ruling authorities used some convicts and slaves in their ships, but they never became the principal labour force for the ships-of-the-line or, for that matter, the merchant marine. While galleys in the Mediterranean were staffed mainly by convicts and slaves, this type of labour did not not seem suitable to the ocean-going sailing ships, because of the demands made on te sailors of such a vessel and the opportunities open to them. The English and French navies both resorted to compulsion in manning their ships, but this compulsion stopped way short of enslavement. The press-ganged or conscripted sailor was paid some wages, accorded some rights and dignity, and had some prospect, however uncertain, of regaining his liberty. When slaves were recruited as sailors it was normal for them to be offered similar conditions. While the lash was a constant presence, a real attempt was made to encourage a positive commitment among the crew—a commitment that would be badly needed when supplies ran low, or hostile engagements loomed, or a ship was stranded or becalmed, or tere were good prospects for deserters. Seventeenth-century merchants and sea-captains also had to overcome such problems of motivation and labour control in very demanding conditions.

The fact that it was possible to man the Royal Navy or the marine de guerre without the recourse to outright slvery suggests that a means other than slavery could have been found for producing the plantation crops. Why did those very same merchants and sea captains wo conducted an arduous transatlantic trade without slavery resort to it for the sugar plantations? The navies were constructed by means of an extraordinary effort of the public power. A notably efficient system of inspection was required simply to ensure tat the contractors who supplied provisions to the warships maintained demanding standards of quality and durability. When Louis XIV sought to regulate the plantations, he neglected to stipulate any effective system of inspection and enforcement. The construction of the navies involved conceding some elementary rights to sailors qagainst abuse – concessions of any kind wee not at all welcome to the wealthy or powerful in the seventeenth century.

The captains of merchantmen wielded great power; nevertheless, the seamen held formal and informal rights protective of their interests. Perhaps the most significant rigt was that on an English ship the payment due to the sailors had first claim on the value of the vessel. While sailors had to vow obedience to their captains, they negotiated a contract of engagement in advance, stipulating their monthly wage, the size of te advance they would receive, and their share (if any) of the proceeds of the voyage, provisions for various contingencies and perhaps some basic stipulations as to ‘necessaries of life’, tough some of these were customary. Merchants and captains needed to offer some guarantees simply to man their ships; since shipboard life was known to be unpleasant and dangerous, wages were often a little above those of unskilled workers ashore.

It may be imagined that planters would have seen little advantage to themselves in offering similar guarantees and contracts to their workforce. Yet had they been wiling to do so, they might have found it much easier to recruit wage labour or indentured labour to the plantations. Of course te planters of Virginia and Maryland did cultivate their estates mainly with free or servant labour for more than half a century by offering freedom dues or the prospect of claiming land. Work on the sugar plantations was harder but instead of, say, doubling the freedom dues or land, planters offered the same or less. They successfully recruited craftsmen and specialist labourers by offering premium salaries, but gradually found it cheaper to substitute slaves for free workers in many posts requiring skill. From the standpoint of the individual planter such a decision made economic sense, but enslavement was costly or fatal to much larger numbers of Africans, and while some of these improved their material position this could have been achieved without the degradation of enslavement; likewise a large number of consumers made immediate, but small, gains, while a little patience could have brought a rounded and humanly sustainable economic pattern, as we will see.

The fact remains that Britain and France probably could not spare the very large numbers of able-bodied workers that would have been needed to produce sugar, tobacco and other plantation products on a contract labour basis: that is one reason why the numbers of indentures dwindled. Yet it would also have been possible for British and French entrepreneurs to have signed up labourers in Africa or Asia, offering them freedom, or return passage, after five years or so. Assuming that coastal contractors received a commission considerably below slave prices, the slave trading and slave-raiding nexus would at least have been discouraged. {the computations the author has in mind are not stated clearly enough for me to understand—RAH}. The sophistication of social relations in West Africa could very possibly have accommodated arrangements for the export of migrant workers, some of whom could then send back remittances, much as happens now at the close of the twentieth century.

While some of the slaves brought to the African coast had been enslaved directly or indirectly because of the vigorous demand created by the Atlantic trade, as I hav argued above, John Thornton has urged that there was in any case a large potential source of slaves in Africa, independent of transatlantic demand, because of suc factors as dynastic or territorial wars, generating captives whom it was convenient to dispose of, and famine, which could spur the afflicted to sell themselves or their children. These slaves could have been bought from the merchant princes of the coast, then given contracts as indentures. The inducement to sign up for three or five years would have remained very great, since the African captive or ‘pawn’ would not have been welcome where they came from, and their only alternative would have been some African variant of slavery.

Of course transport of such workers would have been more expensive, since none could have been enticed voluntarily to put up with the tight packing of the slave sips. HLikewise living and working conditions on the plantations would have had to be improved. By reducing mortality such measures would also have reduced the need for such a large influx of labour as that represented by the Atlantic slave trade. Planters and merchants would have had to pay good money up front to acquire these contract workers. But they would have had the resources to do this because labour productivity in the New World was certainly higher than labour productivity in Africa – partly because of natural endowment, partly because of new crops and partly because of new agricultural techniques. Such a system would probably have not led to the integrated plantation but to a system whereby cane cultivation was separated from processing – as had been the case in Brazil and as happened in parts of the Caribbean in the aftermath of slavery. The success of slave-dominated subsistence cultivation in much of the Caribbean shows the potential for a more decentralized model. Finally, respect for the territorial rights of the Native American peoples could have greatly limited access to land by indentured servants who had served their time, making them more willing to accept waged employment. Las Casas had pointed out that trade was quite highly developed among the Indian nations and could have been extended to promote peaceful agreements on land use.

The possibilities canvassed above may seem far-fetched. But wat would have happened if, for some reason, slaves ad not been available from Africa? If Islam had established effective control of the African coasts, there might have been a ban motiva- did, in the coted by a desire to weaken Christendom as well as religious scruple. Or if a major European power had also found some mixture of religious and geopolitical motives for bringing the Atlantic traffic to a halt and attacking any slave colony, it might have been very difficult for others to embark on constructing slave systems. The Papacy’s short-lived ban on the Atlantic slave trade of 1686, and the reservations of some Puritans and Quakers, show that the seventeenth century did produce impulses of this sort. In such a case I believe the merchantsm colonists and planters would have been driven to find alternative sources of labour that would have fallen far short of outright slavery, and would even have been obliged to improve rather than degrade the status of indentured servants. An effective ban on the Atlantic slave strade would have probably required a concert of the major powers, and redefinition of European identity, of the sort canvassed by William Penn in The Peace of Europe (1693) and by the Abbe Saint Pierre after the Treaty of Utrecht. Had such a concert been brought into existence some of the resources and manpower devoted to the military could have been devoted to organizing alternative ways of securing a supply of exotic products. If the heavy duties payable on sugar had been reduced then higher production costs need not have pushed up consumer prices much, if at all.
If this line of thought is valid – and reasons for it will be given below – then an interesting conclusion follows. From traditional accounts it could be inferred that the role of economic forces was to create a large number of very onerous productive roles, fit only for slaves; and the role of racial ideology was to reserve those roles for Africans. But if a ban on the purchase of slaves would eventually have prompted the emergence of a differently shaped productive apparatus then ideology – respect for private property, concern to extend national wealth, patriarchal notions as well as stereotypes of Africans as beasts of burden - did, in the context of an emergent capitalism, make a contribution to the selection of the slave plantation system as well as to the allocation of roles within it. Max Weber’s claim for the role of ideas as ‘switchmen’, selecting different paths of historical development, or Antonio Gramsci’s argument that ideas have the capacity to become a material force, could help to explain how acceptance of slavery allowed colonial development to be driven by the slave plantation. I have assumed, however, that enslavement of Europeans would not have ensued if slaves had not been available on the African coast.
Edmund Morgan presents an account of the formation of English-American slavery which is broadly congruent with the picture painted by Dunn but which also stresses the role of class ideology in the development of slave systems. He points out that the English ruling class of the period often pronounced I favor of the most rigorous systems of subordination, inspired by disdain for the lower orders. They believed that the English poor were ‘vicious, idle, dissolute’, and addicted to ‘Laziness, Drunkennes, Debauches and almost every kind of Vice’, including ‘mutinous and indecent Discourses’. It was therefore best to oblige them to work, whether through incarceration in a domestic ‘workhouse’, or transportation to the plantations, or the press gang. Bishop Berkeley was to recommend making ‘sturdy beggars…slaves of the public for a term of years’, echoing Protector Somerset and John Locke’s proposal of 1696-97 mentioned in Chapter VI.
French aristocrats and bourgeoius shared many of the sentiments of the English gentlemen on the points. As we have seen, the period of the Regency and of Law’s colonial projects witnessed unsuccessful attempts to round up beggars for the plantations. While African slaves were too expensive to be purchased by metropolitan proprietors, even some remaining enclaves of medieval serfdom belonged to the most stagnant sector of French agriculture. The metropolitan authorities and possessing classes were sometimes ready to envisage forced labour or transportation for undesirables; but this was a reflex of social revanchism rather than a considered contribution to colonial development. Planters did not want troublemakers or the halt, the lame, the criminal and the mentally unstable. They wanted strong young men and women capable of following orders and meeting their own elementary needs. Legislation which really pinpointed such people would have been – as was indicated above – prejudicial to the interests of metropolitan employers. Either it would directly take away some of their own apprentices or farm labourers, or it would push up their wages by creating a labour shortage. Moreover, beyond a certain point, forcible labour conscription provoked too much popular resistance, or accumulated too much combustible social material in the colonies. Even those who were unlikely to become its victims themselves recoiled from constructing an apparatus of enslavement in the metropolis.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
crud, I see I put itn in wrong forum, could admin please move it?

thanks. sorry about the mix up
 
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