Slavery's Role In The Industrial Revolution

Beginning in the fifteenth century, the transatlantic slave trade refers to the process of trading goods for slaves. It was the practice in which African people were captured and exploited in labour, which provided mainly for the increasing consumerism of the developing new world. Africans were imported to America under the terms that they would benefit the uprising of America and the nation’s impression as a new colony in an international setting. However, conditions suffered by Africans through chattel slavery in America were inhumane and brutal, questioning whether the human cost of slavery was just by the means of the economic success of America. This argument will be justified through the study of the slave trade’s conduction, entitlement

and conclusion, the role that slavery played in the industrial revolution, its economic benefit and its cost to humanity.

The transportation of African slaves to, and the labouring of African slaves in America, led to not only the uncompassionate extent of suffering brought on to the slaves but to the death of millions of Africans (USI, Transatlantic Slave Trade,2011, online). Africans lived in assorted lifestyles and were too powerful for America to unpretentiously conquer. Therefore to obtain slaves Americans would trade with African tribes who would capture potentially weaker tribes in exchange for goods. The enslaved Africans would be marched to coastal holding prisons (known as factories) confined by shackles and deprived of food (Meyer & Green, Atlantic Slave Trade, 2012, video). Furthermore, slaves were consigned aboard ships with a holding capacity of 400 people yet around 700 slaves were crammed into the ships restricting slaves’ living space to four square feet each (Appendix 1 & 2). The almost non-existing living space slaves had to inhabit for up to three months during the journey to the new world triggered the spread of diseases that Africans had never been exposed to before such as smallpox and yellow fever. Some slaves made it to America alive and the death rate of African slaves from entrapment to their arrival in America was almost 50% (History.com, Slavery, 2009, online). After landing, slaves were auctioned to the highest bidder and each slave sold at a unique price (Appendix 3 & 4). Newly owned slaves were now treated as property with their new lives dominated by work and terror. Slaves laboured from sunrise to sunset in varying occupations such as domestic work to skilled craftsmanship but most slaves were employed in plantation and agriculture working as field hands. Slavery was bordered to acts of dehumanization such as whipping, branding and rape, all of which were believed to be necessary by slaveholders as a means for slavery to properly function. This enabled slaveholders to rationalize the pain inflicted upon slaves through chattel slavery and focus on gaining profit (Meyer & Green, US Slavery, 2013, video).

Slavery had a significant involvement in the industrial revolution with its termination stifling the prior succession of America, especially its South.

The basis of industrialisation was dependent upon consumer goods, such as tobacco, sugar, rice and cotton, goods which were produced by slave labour. For an example the invention of the cotton gin demanded for the production of more cotton, which soon became the nation’s most valuable commercial crop (Dodson, 2003, online). Slavery enabled the input of sufficient hours of labour that provided for the availability of sources such as cotton (Appendix 5). Hence, the abolition of slavery led to the economic decimation of America’s south. Without the free labour to cultivate the fields, the former antebellum South fell into complete ruin (Smith, 2011, online). This was most likely why the abolition of slavery was so problematic, dividing America and launching the civil war. Although slaves themselves always protested against slavery, American supporters for the cause continued to grow. In 1860, Abraham Lincoln, the first republican president, pledged to halt the expansion of slavery, this led to the seceding of seven slave states in the south from the United States of America. Named the confederate states of America this new nation forced the rest of America into war. The civil war was ultimately won by the north bringing slavery to an end and handing slaves the freedom they sought (Meyer & Green, US Slavery, 2013, video).

However, as aforementioned, the south failed to return to its prime economical position without slavery, highlighting the influence of slavery’s economic benefits to America.

Even though slavery contributed to improve the economic status of individual Americans as well as that of the nation as a whole this was essentially at the risk of the quality of life of those engaged in slavery.

Slaveholders reaped the benefits of free slave labour which was very cost-effective due to the maintenance cost of slaves not reaching half of the revenue they produced. During the nineteenth century slaves became a good investment as the prices for cash crops grew and the cost of maintaining slaves remained low (Digital History, Slave Trade’s Significance, 2016, online). Slavery in almost every aspect was profitable (CliffsNotes, Slavery, the Economy & Society, n.d., online). It should also be noted that slaves were responsible for producing much of the goods which made America a well-known nation in the industrial revolution. Opposingly, for the Africans involved in slavery, life was constant, extensive suffering. Slavery was coerced labour enforced through intimidation, brutality and dehumanization. Slaves were seen as property when in fact they were just people (Meyer & Green, US Slavery, 2013, video). Although slavery’s abolition saw freedom for slaves they still lived in poverty and relatively poor living conditions. The after effect of slavery resulted in racism, discrimination and segregation of African Americans. White Americans made conscious decisions to exclude African Americans from their everyday lives (English online, African Americans, n.d., online).

The colour of these people’s skin became an inequality demoting them to the lowest of social classes (Grant, 2002, p 54). The impact that slavery had on African Americans haunts the American society even today in an era where colour is supposed to be irrelevant.

Under the discussed circumstances, the cost endured by humanity and African American slaves in particular were unjustifiable merely due to the effortless succession of America’s economy. It was of foremost injustice to ultimately exploit kidnapped African citizens, who were also human beings, of their lives and treat them as property only to further rid them of humanity after they couldn’t be used anymore. Slavery was a major contributor to America’s economy yet its long-lasting impact on mankind and African Americans still holds, proving that selling and treating humans as property was a wrongdoing. The immortal consequences of slavery still pose an immense challenge to a nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are equal.