WI: Americas Without Slavery

Indentured servitude is never good, but the system is much better than slavery. And if you think about it, it was a combination of both push and pull that caused people to become indentured. But I agree free labor is the best.
It's not the servitude per se, the problem is the journey and living in those new areas. A lot of people from Europe need quite good reasons to emigrate, what could those be in Africa?
 

Lusitania

Donor
It's not the servitude per se, the problem is the journey and living in those new areas. A lot of people from Europe need quite good reasons to emigrate, what could those be in Africa?

Actually there were none, only way to bring African's to the America's and not implement slavery would still require Europeans to buy them from African coastal tribes and when they arrived in Americas be freed but required to pay for their purchase and transportation in form of specific (lets ay 10 years) servitude labor after which they would be free. This would in practice lower the demand for Africans and lower the value of them in African coast so that lower demand would translate into less slave raids into the interior.
 
Yes! In Trinidad, Barbados, and Jamaica, as well as several more islands.

Enough that 1/3rd of Suriname can trace family back to West Bengal and eastern UP. Indo-Caribbeans form the largest demographic in Suriname, Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago.

Awesome, thanks for the information.

However, you still run into the problem of what to do with those large masses of unemployed people once their contract is up (if they survive). The greatest advantage of slavery is that it is permanent and breeds social cohesion, rather than tension, since it allows for a racialization of social relations that eliminates most of class combat by creating a polite state mentality which unites all the colonizers against a common enemy, no matter their social standing.
 

Lusitania

Donor
Awesome, thanks for the information.

However, you still run into the problem of what to do with those large masses of unemployed people once their contract is up (if they survive). The greatest advantage of slavery is that it is permanent and breeds social cohesion, rather than tension, since it allows for a racialization of social relations that eliminates most of class combat by creating a polite state mentality which unites all the colonizers against a common enemy, no matter their social standing.

Workers need to continue being employed, most in same type of work except they now need to be paid.
 
Actually there were none, only way to bring African's to the America's and not implement slavery would still require Europeans to buy them from African coastal tribes and when they arrived in Americas be freed but required to pay for their purchase and transportation in form of specific (lets ay 10 years) servitude labor after which they would be free. This would in practice lower the demand for Africans and lower the value of them in African coast so that lower demand would translate into less slave raids into the interior.

"Saint Peter don't you call me because I can't go, I owe my soul to the company store". Love this song.

I think you're being generous with the European rulers in not thinking the thousands of opportunities of making servitude for life a thing, as late as the early 20th century wage slavery, truck system, and other horrific things were a reality even in North America and Europe. I mean, this African servitude will certainly be just slavery by another name.
 

Lusitania

Donor
"Saint Peter don't you call me because I can't go, I owe my soul to the company store". Love this song.

I think you're being generous with the European rulers in not thinking the thousands of opportunities of making servitude for life a thing, as late as the early 20th century wage slavery, truck system, and other horrific things were a reality even in North America and Europe. I mean, this African servitude will certainly be just slavery by another name.

I know just wanted to give 21st century folk with weak dispositions a “nice number”. What it would mean is that their children would be free. But taxes and other ways that land owners and governments would create to keep them under perpetual servitude would exist. Heck by time kid is old enough to work their debt for room and board could mean they be indentured servants already. M

So i would not see any difference in slavery or indentured servitude. Since people would not be tempted to go to the Carribean on their own to work the nice plantations. No indentured servants and slaves only way to produce the crops. Profits in sugar guaranteed its cultivation.
 

Lusitania

Donor
Yes but that didn't happen in OTL. How could it be different?
The islands or colonies could not sustain huge free populations that are unemployed and starving due to social collapse. So governments would be forced to deal with the people. If there are jobs they can move to or land they can be given as free people then new indentured servants brought in otherwise either they emigrate either back home or elsewhere.

At some point the colony /island can’t take in new people if they have excess of people there already. Wages would probably be very low too
 
Awesome, thanks for the information.

However, you still run into the problem of what to do with those large masses of unemployed people once their contract is up (if they survive). The greatest advantage of slavery is that it is permanent and breeds social cohesion, rather than tension, since it allows for a racialization of social relations that eliminates most of class combat by creating a polite state mentality which unites all the colonizers against a common enemy, no matter their social standing.
Again we look to example indentured servitude, where post labor many either continue to work on the land they had or try and become a landowner of their own. I don’t think much tension will come post servitude, especially with how integrated a system where you can one day be free can be achieved.
 
I know just wanted to give 21st century folk with weak dispositions a “nice number”. What it would mean is that their children would be free. But taxes and other ways that land owners and governments would create to keep them under perpetual servitude would exist. Heck by time kid is old enough to work their debt for room and board could mean they be indentured servants already. M

So i would not see any difference in slavery or indentured servitude. Since people would not be tempted to go to the Carribean on their own to work the nice plantations. No indentured servants and slaves only way to produce the crops. Profits in sugar guaranteed its cultivation.
Um again you can look to Indo-Carribeans and early European colonists. There is a big difference between the two, and yes shockingly some people would sign up for it.
 
Again we look to example indentured servitude, where post labor many either continue to work on the land they had or try and become a landowner of their own. I don’t think much tension will come post servitude, especially with how integrated a system where you can one day be free can be achieved.
It happened in OTL. I’m describing the arguments put forward by Robin Blackburn and Edmund Morgan. For the latter I recommend having a look at Slavery and Freedom: the American Paradox (available in JSTOR), and for the former his book The Making of New World Slavery: from the Baroque to the Modern, 1492-1800.
 
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