A triangular trade pattern….

At the root of this relationship was the economic imperative, and at its root was the trade in human cargo. This trade, and the system of slavery it established around the world, held the globe together like glue.

 

The need for labor in these new lands in the Americas was overwhelming.  The patterns that resulted from this need changed the existing patterns of interaction among the various peoples.  Initially, the indigenous populations were forced into service to provide the labor.  They resisted, and coupled with their susceptibility to new diseases, their numbers dwindled, almost wiped out.  After a failed attempt to use imported labor from Europe—convicts, hired help—for indentured servitude, the experiment failed as a result of low numbers.  

 

The attention was then turned on the continent of Africa, where, for at least fifty years prior, the Portuguese and the Spanish had established themselves in trade with Africans.  The relationship among the principals for most of this time was mainly in trade and other exchanges in gold and other precious metals; salt, ivory, pepper; and other commodities.  Occasionally, the Europeans got involved in local rivalries.  This led to periodic warfare.

 

Prior to 1492, therefore, we do not witness the wholesale buying and selling of humans in Africa, at least on the west coast.  In the east however, and indeed in other parts, Islam’s spread had contributed to a mass of different African peoples who had been taken north-eastwards to what is the present Middle East. 

 

By the beginning of the sixteenth century, the demand for labor from the Americas had changed this relationship.  By 1510, Africans were being sold into slavery in large numbers; humans gradually became the item of choice. Indeed, it is important to note that this trade in humans was the major economic enterprise between 1500 and 1850s. Slavers were European, and later American, merchants.  European home governments chartered companies to trade:  the Royal African Company, the Dutch East Indian Company, and the French West Indian Company, among others.

The destination was the so-called new world, and the profits built Europe.  Major seaports flourished all over Europe:  Birmingham, Bristol, Bordeaux, Nantes, and Seville. There grew ancillary business that accompanied the trade in humans:  shipbuilding, insurance and banking, for instance. 

 

 The processes that led to this take-off in industrial development in Europe were also the same that led to a veritable decline in the fortunes of Africa and the rest of the world.  They are two sides of the same coin.  There was, for instance, an enormous transfer of wealth from Africa to Europe, a transfer that was made possible after this truly international venture.  Europe’s monopoly in the trade, enhanced by military means, and technology—ships, guns—in effect seized control and used the global waterways to take over vast landholdings across the world.  This accumulation of wealth allowed Europe later to expand its cultural and political imperatives:  colonies, empires, and the spread of perhaps the most fundamental cultural marker, language.  Thus, it makes sense that, globally, the “major” languages of culture and commerce are European languages.  As Basil Davidson wrote,

 

 

“Through these four centuries, the balance of gain was all
one way. In any effective sense there was…no sharing
of wealth and achievement. To Europe the trade with Africa
was always an enrichment; and this enrichment could and did
help Europe into new and more productive forms of society and
government…

— (Davidson, 1980, 284)