Europeans first began growing tobacco on large plantations

Chartered companies were private investors with trade monopolies in colonies

Dutch West India Company – private trading › Seized sugar-producing areas in Brazil

› Shipped slaves to Brazil

› Paid stockholders huge dividends

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AP World History Ch 18 Lecture Notes The Atlantic System

Expansion of sugar plantations = sharp increase in the African slave trade

Barbados best illustrates the dramatic transformation of the sugar plantations

Indentured servants cost ½ as much as slaves

The cultivation and production of sugar required farming AND factory production

France and England expanded Caribbean holdings by attacking older Spanish colonies

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Sugar plantations caused environmental damage - soil exhaustion & deforestation

“grass gangs” slave children doing simple, lighter work

90% of population was slaves on islands

“Plant-o-cracy” = a small # of rich men who owned the land and slaves

Men outnumbered women – twice as many men were imported

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“Drivers” were male slaves over other slaves

Slaves worked to escape punishment

Manumission – slaves purchase or receive freedom

Life expectancy of Brazilian male slaves =23 yr

Most slaves died of disease

Slaves lost their African culture traditions by › learning colonial languages

› Converting to Christianity

› Mixing slaves from different parts of Africa

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Jamaican maroons– first to sign treaties recognizing their independent status

Companies bought insurance to reduce the risks of overseas trading

Mercantilism = a government policy that protects trade and demands gold & silver

English Navigation Acts = confine trade to English ships and cargo

Atlantic Circuit= clockwise network of sea/ trade routes

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Second leg – Middle Passage = transporting slaves across the Atlantic to plantations

Principal cause of mortality on ships = disease Africans trades slaves to Europeans for guns

hardware and textiles Greatest source of slaves for the Atlantic trade

was from Angola Bight of Biafra – slaves were kidnapped form

interior Atlantic African slave trade was a partnership

between European and African elites

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Most slaves in the Islamic world were soldiers and servants

Islamic law prohibited the enslavement of Muslims

Women for concubines and servants – majority of African slaves in the Islamic world

Islamic trade was MUCH smaller

Europeans gained far more wealth from the Atlantic slave trade than Africans

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Population loss in Africa as a results › Areas near the Slave Coast lost most

› Even at peak, the population of Africa remained large

› New foods from the Americas helped offset population losses due to the slave trade

› Loss was reduced by the fact that more men were traded into slavery

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