AHC: slave trade to 1500s Caribbean stumbles economically?

Portugal controlled sugar production since the 15th century which expanded throughout its empire, firstly to Madeira, later to the islands of the Guinea Gulf and finally to Brazil, pretty much creating the concept of triangular trade. However, Portugal was deeply dependent on Flemish/Dutch merchants to distribute their exotic goods in Northern Europe, and, with the union of the Iberian crowns after the sudden death of King Sebastian in Morocco, the Portuguese empire entered the disastrous Dutch Independence War and disrupted their mutually advantageous commercial relationship.

The war was, obviously, disastrous to Portuguese economy, as the Dutch actively tried to conquer Portuguese colonies, Portugal then lost most of their empire in the East and almost lost most of their Atlantic empire when the Dutch invaded Brazil and a good number of West African slave ports. Of course, the conflict made the price of sugar skyrocket and prompted the creation of sugar plantations elsewhere (see that first Caribbean colonies were founded by the 1620s/1630s). The final blow to Brazil'sugar cycle was the restoration of Portuguese rule over Brazil (to be fair, Catholic Luso-Brazilians took back Brazil with little help from Portugal) and the Dutch and the Sephardic Jews took their money and newly acquired know-how to the Guianas and the Caribbean.
First off, thanks for teaching me something new. Stuff like this is why I like AH.com

Second, I think we now have our POD: King of Sebastian does not die. Portugal does not get shotgun married to Spain and does not get as deeply involved in the Dutch conflict. I am not sure they would be utterly left on the sidelines of the Dutch-Spanish conflict, but lets just say it does not go as badly for Portugal and as good for the price of sugar (somewhere Homer Simpson nods along to all of this, for as he knew all long, "first, you get the sugar"). This means the initial economic impetus for the colonization and etc. of the Caribbean is not there. That means, slavery is not economically viable in the Caribbean, or at least not as economically viable as early as it was in OTL, due to there not being much profit in importing slaves to raise a cash crop that is now no longer yields as much revenue. Still, I'd imagine someone will want to take those islands and do something with them, just not something as labor intensive as sugar cultivation, and therefore we downgrade the volume of the flow of slaves into the Caribbean. And now the butterflies are let loose.
 
okay. should have also mentioned slaves alongside the other two. I figured most people would already know they were there too since the demographic data says they were there. And that it also shows the first stage of development (until 1640-1650s, vanishing beyond 1690) was the only time of significant servitude emigration. So I was simply correcting your incorrect statement too (about the 1700s thing). :p

happy?

I'm still trying to figure out why you said "I figured that'd be your response"

Care to explain?
 
First off, thanks for teaching me something new. Stuff like this is why I like AH.com

Second, I think we now have our POD: King of Sebastian does not die. Portugal does not get shotgun married to Spain and does not get as deeply involved in the Dutch conflict. I am not sure they would be utterly left on the sidelines of the Dutch-Spanish conflict, but lets just say it does not go as badly for Portugal and as good for the price of sugar (somewhere Homer Simpson nods along to all of this, for as he knew all long, "first, you get the sugar"). This means the initial economic impetus for the colonization and etc. of the Caribbean is not there. That means, slavery is not economically viable in the Caribbean, or at least not as economically viable as early as it was in OTL, due to there not being much profit in importing slaves to raise a cash crop that is now no longer yields as much revenue. Still, I'd imagine someone will want to take those islands and do something with them, just not something as labor intensive as sugar cultivation, and therefore we downgrade the volume of the flow of slaves into the Caribbean. And now the butterflies are let loose.

Thank you for the kind feedback. IMHO the other European powers would still try to explore some islands based on tobacco cultivation, which is less labor-intensive than sugar, so I expect less slaves and smaller estates. Also, I don't know if this colonization would be feasible so close to the Spanish.

They'll have possibity to capitalize on smuggling goods and slaves to the Spanish Main as well. Thus, I expect that the Europeans will antagonize the Spanish less directly, probably focusing only on the Lesser Antilles, I doubt that they'd try to conquer Haiti and Jamaica in this ATL.

Another possibility for the European powers is to get bolder and focus on capturing Cuba to control the route of the Spanish Galleon and then make it some kind of Haiti on steroids. That would be fun.
 
. . . (they tried everything, first indigo, before landing on sugar, brought over, according to Brandenbaugh, by the Dutch Brazilians). At this time the Barbadian planters had some slaves but still relied largely on a servant labor force. Let us also not forget that the nature of Anglo slavery was still in flux during this period. First Barbadian slave code was in 1661. Up in Virginia, ideas of Whiteness and the boundaries of slavery were not fully codified until 1705 . . .
I'll roll with this uncertainly. And we add a little more about buying/capturing slaves, getting hijacked by an English captain on the make, one season of bad weather, another where the sugar gets some pesky disease, and we might really be onto something.

The idea that 'blackness' is a social construct, I used to find farcical. Of course, these people are objectively black, complete with wondrous curly and kinky hair, and attractive broad noses. But then I got thinking, what about a fair number of people from India whom a painter or photographer would say actually have a darker skin hue than many African-Americans? And we don't consider them black. Interesting, isn't it? :)
 
I'll roll with this uncertainly. And we add a little more about buying/capturing slaves, getting hijacked by an English captain on the make, one season of bad weather, another where the sugar gets some pesky disease, and we might really be onto something.

The idea that 'blackness' is a social construct, I used to find farcical. Of course, these people are objectively black, complete with wondrous curly and kinky hair, and attractive broad noses. But then I got thinking, what about a fair number of people from India whom a painter or photographer would say actually have a darker skin hue than many African-Americans? And we don't consider them black. Interesting, isn't it? :)

Given that the blackness spoken of in the New World derives from European definitions of Africaniety it's not interesting at all.

Blackness itself however has a myriad of definitions throughout the world but given you know European Imperialism and European White Supremacy it's not a surprised their definition exists as it does to this day in the US and Americas.
 

TheShah

Gone Fishin'
I'll roll with this uncertainly. And we add a little more about buying/capturing slaves, getting hijacked by an English captain on the make, one season of bad weather, another where the sugar gets some pesky disease, and we might really be onto something.

The idea that 'blackness' is a social construct, I used to find farcical. Of course, these people are objectively black, complete with wondrous curly and kinky hair, and attractive broad noses. But then I got thinking, what about a fair number of people from India who a painter or photographer would say actually have a darker skin hue than many African-Americans? And we don't consider them black. Interesting, isn't it? :)
don't know if interesting is the right word. a moral abomination from the start. The rich English great planters cultivated a binary racial ideology of white supremacy and whiteness to suppress labor agitation from their own racial class and rationalize how they could butcher hundreds of thousand, if not millions of innocent people in the West Indies to export sugar

the sugar used to flavor the tea grown in India, ruthlessly fueling British industrialization and imperial expansion

not to mention the tobacco in Virginia to sell to the addicted masses and the rice in Carolina to feed the slaves

and everyone slaughtered in West and East Africa to make it so
 
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Deleted member 67076

This did happen in Santo Domingo, due to mercantilist competition from Cuba and Venezuela, and high rates of slave desertion/rebellion/maroon raids.
 
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