Question

1. How did the development of the Triangular Trade and the Middle Passage have a profound affect on the global economy? How did it have a profound affect on the cultures of people on multiple continents?

Answer 1

Answer :

Triangular trade increased the demand for both land and slave labor.

Explanation:

Triangular Trade refers to the trade between Europe, Africa, and North America over the Atlantic Ocean. Each continent had a different good that they typically supplied:

American Colonies: The English colonies supplied lots of natural resources, such as tobacco, lumber, sugar, etc. They bought lots of slave labor.

Europe: The European countries bought the natural resources from North America to manufacture goods (guns, clothes, furniture, etc). They supplied most of the manufactured goods.

Africa: West African leaders would trade slaves from inland to traders in exchange for European goods.

A trader could start in North America, picking up lumber, tobacco, and other natural resources and sell them to Europe while picking up manufactured goods. Then, they would sail down to Africa, trade the goods for slaves. Finally, they would return to North America to trade the slaves for more natural resources.

Because currents and trade winds made this route quick and efficient, this became the most profitable pattern for traders. As more traders began using "triangular trade," demand for colonial resources rose, which caused two tragic changes in the economy:

1. More and more land was required for the collection of natural resources, resulting in the continuing theft of land from Native Americans.

2. More and more labor was required to work the land, resulting in a tremendous growth in slavery in the middle and southern colonies.

The Mercantilist nature of the Triangular Trade also had a major impact on the function of the slave trade, in Africa, the New World, and in between. From their small enclaves in Africa, colonial powers worked hard to maintain a favorable balance of trade with the local African elites as with their European neighbors. As mentioned before, the usual items traded for slaves were finished products, to avoid spending as much gold or silver as possible. These could include the same luxury items consumed by European elites, but also products like rum, paper and cotton cloth worked just as well, as demonstrated by Ayuba’s testimony. European weapons and munitions, too, were highly prized by the local kings and other rulers hoping to gain a military and political advantage over their rivals, as well as take new slaves as a result of the fighting.

Middle Passage, the forced voyage of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to the New World. It was one leg of the triangular trade route that took goods (such as knives, guns, ammunition, cotton cloth, tools, and brass dishes) from Europe to Africa, Africans to work as slaves in the Americas and West Indies, and items, mostly raw materials, produced on the plantations (sugar, rice, tobacco, indigo, rum, and cotton) back to Europe. From about 1518 to the mid-19th century, millions of African men, women, and children made the 21-to-90-day voyage aboard grossly overcrowded sailing ships manned by crews mostly from Great Britain, the Netherlands, Portugal, and France.

Slaver captains anchored chiefly off the Guinea Coast (also called the Slave Coast) for a month to a year to trade for their cargoes of 150 to 600 persons, most of whom had been kidnapped and forced to march to the coast under wretched conditions. While at anchor and after the departure from Africa, those aboard ship were exposed to almost continuous dangers, including raids at port by hostile tribes, epidemics, attack by pirates or enemy ships, and bad weather. Although these events affected the ships’ crews as well as the enslaved, they were more devastating to the latter group, who had also to cope with physical, sexual, and psychological abuse at the hands of their captors. Despite—or perhaps in part because of—the conditions aboard ship, some Africans who survived the initial horrors of captivity revolted; male slaves were kept constantly shackled to each other or to the deck to prevent mutiny, of which 55 detailed accounts were recorded between 1699 and 1845.

So that the largest possible cargo might be carried, the captives were wedged belowdecks, chained to low-lying platforms stacked in tiers, with an average individual space allotment that was 6 feet long, 16 inches wide, and perhaps 3 feet high (183 by 41 by 91 cm). Unable to stand erect or turn over, many slaves died in this position. If bad weather or equatorial calms prolonged the journey, the twice-daily ration of water plus either boiled rice, millet, cornmeal, or stewed yams was greatly reduced, resulting in near starvation and attendant illnesses.