I. Introduction A. English ship Hannibal = West African port of Whydah to purchase slaves; gave presents to get trade/slaves 1.

Ships doctor inspected health of slaves; purchased slaves branded w/h; shackles on men a) Hannibal bought 692 slaves (1/3 were women/girls) 2. Hannibal = hired by Royal African Company (English investors) a) RAC = got charter from England to have exclusive trade rights; bought slaves, ivory & other goods b) RAC would pay Hannibal per each live slave brought to Barbados 3. Thus, wanted to keep slaves healthy a) Fed twice a day; pint of water with meals; jumping/exercise to keep fit b) Deaths were still very common; Hannibal lost 320 slaves and 14 crew on a trip to Barbados a. Slaves got smallpox; Captain Phillips wrote of the slaves as nasty creatures c) Han. high losses no profits; B. Atlantic slave trade = devastating loss of African lives and far from sure-fire money maker for Eur. investors 1. Slave trade and plantation slavery = vital part of new Atlantic system; A. system moved ppl, goods, culture and wealth around Atlantic II. Plantations in the West Indies A. Intro 1. West Indies = first place reached by Columbus and first place where native pop. collapsed a) Took long time to repopulate from abroad and forge economic links b) After 1650: sugar plantations, African slaves and Eur. capital made these islands a major center of the Atlantic economy B. Colonization Before 1650 1. Spanish introduced sugar-cane cultivation to West Indies shortly after 1500; colonies fell into neglect as attention shifted to American mainland; revived after 1600 a) Revival due to focus on colonization (N. Eur. interest in growing tobacco and other crops) b) 1620/30=English/French founded small island colonies; English prospered first b/c of govt. support and growing tobacco as an export 2. New World Leaf (tobacco) was finding new market in Eur.; used by natives for recreation and medicine; even though ppl (King James) said it was bad, the habit spread

a) Tobacco was being sold in 7,000 shops around London and investors were dreaming of tobacco trade as valuable as Spains silver fleets a. This dream was not easy; disease, hurricane, Carib & Spanish attack scourged colonists b. Shortage of supplies and labor; two changes helped colonists 3. Chartered Companies formed; to promote national claims w/o govt. expense Fr./Eng. gave private investors trade monopolies with W. Indies colonies for annual fees a) Other change = companies provided for poor = transport of indentured servants b) Under this system, Fr./Eng. pop. on tobacco islands grew rapidly; crisis = comp. from Virginia tobacco a. Cultivation of Dutch introduced sugar-cane provided way out of crisis; in this process, labor = Eur. African b. Port. also introduced sugar cult. into Brazil + enslaved African labor i. By 1600, Brazil = greatest sugar producer; 4. Dutch West India Company = comp. that Dutch govt. chartered to bring conflict to Spains overseas possessions a) Some Dutch invested in Brazilian sugar; 1st half of 17th cent. Dutch were fighting for independence from Spain (held Brazil and Port.) b) DWIC was a private trade company; after the capture of a Spanish treasure fleet, DWIC payed investors and funded attack on Brazils sugar producing areas a. Took control of over 1,000 miles of Brazilian coast; new Dutch owners improved efficiency of industry b. Company prospered by supplying African slaves and Eur. goods while taking sugar to Eur. c) DWIC entry into Atlantic slave trade = econ./polit. motives; seized Elmina from Port. and took Luanda a. From here, Dutch shipped slaves to Brazil/W. Indies b. Port. able to push Dutch out of Angola (Luanda) but not Elmina 5. Once free from Spanish rule, Port. wanted to retake Brazil; pushed Dutch out of Brazil a) Some of the planters took their knowledge/sugar production to Caribb. Colonies (which D. had founded earlier) and to Eng./Fr. Colonies this was historic turning point C. Sugar and Slaves 1. Dutch expertise + money revived French colonies but English Barbados shows huge effect of sugar on Caribbean a) First, relied on tobacco; then, shifted to sugar and Af. Slaves x3 of Eur.s

b) 15, 000 tons of sugar a year; wealthiest and most populous Eng. Amer. Colonies; by 1700, W. Indies passed Brazil in sugar 2. Expansion of sugar plantations in W. Indies required more slave trade for Africa; volume of trade grew exponentially a) First half of cent. = slaves to Brazil/Spanish colonies; next, Eng./Fr./W. Indies colonies b) African slaves not favored because of suitability or survival rates; favoring African had many factors a. Williams said slaves were cheaper; this is not true; indentured servant cost half as much as slaves b. Land price became very high in W. In. indentured servants went to mainland colonies; Caribb. Sugar planters switched to slaves c) Planters could afford slaves and slaves were better investments (longer terms) a. Relied on Dutch and other traders for slaves; slave prices went up steadilyfavoring large plantations III. Plantation Life in the Eighteenth Century A. Intro 1. To find more land for sugar plantations, Fr./Eng. founded new Caribb. Colonies a) English got Jamaica from Spanish and Fr. got western half of Hispaniola (Saint Domingue) became greatest sugar producer in the Atlantic b) Jamaica surpassed Barbados as Englands most important sugar colony B. Technology and Environment 1. Growing sugar cane was relatively simple, complex b/c it had to be a factory and a farm each farm had expensive processing equipment a) Mill = sugar cane crushed; small mills used animal/human power, large used wind (Eng) and water (French) b) Lead lined wooden troughs carried cane juice to copper kettles which boiled water out; sugar packed in barrels for shipment a. Excess molasses made into rum or exported 2. To make operation more profitable, investors made plantation sixe x2; some were very large a) Jamaica did so much sugar production that they had to import food; Saint Domingue had higher productivity a. SD = sugar mainly but also crops such as coffee and cacao for export 3. Repeated cultivation removed nutrients from land; planters cleared new land; planters sometimes moved to new islands a) English on Jamaica were from Barbados and SD pioneers came from older colonies

a. In second half of 18th cent. Jamaica fell behind SD in sugar production b) Sugar = not stable form of agriculture; laid waste to lots of land 4. Deforestation continued; Spanish cut forests for cattle grazing; also b/c of sugar farming; coastal forest disappeared, only dense inland forest remained a) Soil exhaustion + deforestation = altered ecology balance of West Indies a. Nearly all domestic plants and animals were from Europe; so many cattle, horses etc. that no more import i. New crops: bananas, plantain; sugar and rice became basis of agriculture w/ native tobacco ii. African foods came with slaves b) Crowded out native animals/plants; some New World foods went to Africa as well 5. Most dramatic change = human pop.; Arawak wiped out by disease/abuse; as plantations spread, Carib were pushed to extinction a) West Indies were repopulated by ppl from across Atlantic; first Europe then Africa C. Slaves Lives 1. W Ind. Planation colonies were worlds most polarized societies; 90% or more were slaves a) Plantocracy had power; elite group of rich men who owned slaves a. Only few between masters and slaves; ex) govt. officials, managers, in Fr. islands = small farmers b) Large group of slaves, small group of elite owners 2. Wanted to extract max. work from slaves; used force to get the job done; everyone expect disabled had jobs a) Labor organized by sex, age and ability; very small % were house servants; labor gangs a. great gang = strongest slaves, did hardest work b. next gang did lighter work (elders/youth) c. grass gang = children under an elder slave, did simple work b) women formed the majority of field workers; nursing mothers took babies to field; elder slaves took care of toddlers 3. Men outnumbered women on Caribb. plantations; most males did non-gang work (livestock, tradesmen, skilled workers) a) Most important artisan slave = head boiler; made cane sap sugar 4. Skilled slaves received rewards of food clothing and time off; most important reason to work hard was avoiding punishment a) Slave gang headed by privileged male slave (driver); made sure gang completed its work

b) Worked all day; those who fell behind were whipped; openly rebellious slaves were flogged, confined, or mutilated c) Sunday: farm their own grounds, maintain dwellings, and do other chores; Sunday markets where slaves sold things were common in British W. Indies d) Little time for relaxation; sang in the fields; no time for education/school 5. Family life was bad; poor nutrition/overwork lowered fertility + disease & accidents = more deaths than births; diseases = greatest killer (malaria, dysentery, yaws) a) Cheaper to import new slave than raise one = callous opinion held by slave owners; low life expectancies (disease) b) Seasoning=period of harsh adjustment to environment for new slaves; c) Only slave pop. in temperate zones of N. America had natural increase; Brazil/Caribb. had neg. growth rate 6. High death rate more slave trade for replacements; West Indian slaves were mostly African born so African culture diffused into W. In. life 7. Slaves sought freedom; individual slaves hoped to elude the dogs and men who would track them; groups also rebelled a) Jamaica rebellion lead by Tacky; armed themselves and joined with others and attacked several plantations a. Tacky and others died brutally for a warning to other slaves b) To stop rebellions, Eur. owners sought to curtail African traditions; made slaves learn colony lang. and stopped use of local lang. a. Fr./Port. slaves encouraged to become Catholic (African customs still survived) b. In British W. Indies where only Quakers encouraged conversion to Christianity i. African traditions and beliefs of witchcraft and herbal medicine remained strong D. Free Whites and Free Blacks 1. Free people fell into 3 groups: wealthy Eur. owners great whites, less-well-off Eur. little whites small farmers who grew local provisions and free blacks (lowest rank) some had slaves 2. Plantocracy had lots of power in British W. Indies; mostly sugar production in Jamaica few large owners a) Had to invest $100,000 just for a medium plantation in Jamaicamost cost = slaves b) W. Indian planters put farms under managers and lived in England in rural estates a. Became part of British Parliament & got political power; planters in W. Indies also had political power

3. Most ppl in colonies were single males slave mistresses; owner who fathered child often gave mom/child manumission large free black pop. a) In Spanish colonies, free blacks were more in # than slaves; 30% of black pop. in Brazil and significant pop. in fr. colonies b) Not common in British US colonies b/c manumission was rare 4. Escaped slaves were another part of the free black pop.; in Caribbean, runaways called maroons a) Maroon communities common in interior regions of Jamaica/Hispaniola and island Guinas a. Jamaican maroons signed treaty with colonys militia getting indep. for cooperation in stopping slave revolts b. Similar treaty signed by large maroon pop. of Dutch Surinam recognizing their land possession