Economic Timeline
Introduction
The question that we were approaching in our project was: “What were the economic reasons for the abolition of the slave trade?” Originally, we thought that the question would be easy to answer. Of course, there had to be basic economic benefits for Britain for them to abolish the trade. Of course, every scholar would be able to delineate the reasons in a basic form and help us create a timeline. Apparently, we were wrong. What we learned was that a lot of the scholars had differing opinions and approaches to their studies of the slave trade, and furthermore, most denied the connection of economics to the abolition of the slave trade. Indeed, in interview after interview, scholars approached the subject of abolition from political, diplomatic, and moral standpoints, often emphasizing the how erroneous our thesis was.
So we began to question ourselves, and them. Were we wrong? Did Britain, Portugal, France, and the U.S. not reap financial gains at all from the abolition? Was there no rational reason why they would end the slave trade that also made financial sense? Neither of us could accept that there were none. What we realized was that no, economic interest was not the only factor in the decision for abolition, but that it definitely coincided with the political and moral obligations of the slaveholding societies.
First, we learned from the scholars that the industrial revolution played a large role in the abolition. With the onset of machinery that required fewer laborers, the rise of capitalism, and the ascension of a new middle class, the slaveholding communities benefited less from unpaid labor. The moral argument began to make more sense. Abolitionists had been arguing against slavery and the slave trade for years and when the superpowers began to profit less from the slave trade, they were more willing to concede to the abolitionists’ demands.
At the same time, the politics of abolition definitely intersected with the economics of abolition for the U.S. and all the European powers. For Britain, the benefit came from not only from their being prepared for the end of the slave trade as the initiators of the global movement towards abolition but also from their policing other countries. Warren Whatley says,
I would think that if you had the
strongest navy in the world, and you had the Industrial Revolution
behind you, where you would want to market all these cheap products
around the world? Then, to give your navy the pretext, the pretext to
go out secure various parts of the world in your interest, legal or
illegal, they had to set up treaties and all to do it legally. But
to give them the moral high-ground pretext to be aggressive in the
world may have been an opportunity they felt difficult to refuse
(Interview with Professor Warren Whatley).
The Industrial Revolution reduced the necessity of the slave trade in Britain. However, its success was incumbent on Europe’s participation and use of the commodities Britain produced, and on Britain's ability to stand on their ethical platform to police and pirate the ships of their political and economic rivals.
Meanwhile, these rivals fell in line with Britain’s plan in an effort to both avoid conflict with Britain and to protect their capital investments. In the U.S., the self-reproducing slave population eliminated the need for the slave trade, which enabled the U.S. to end their role in the slave trade only a year later. Portugal approached the matter from a different perspective. Having a higher interest in the continuation of the trade, the Portuguese wanted to maintain their piece of the trans-Atlantic slave system.
In terms of diplomacy, what led
Portugal to try to end the slave trade was the fear that the British
would try to drive them out of Angola, so that was a very important
factor playing into the process of ending the Angolan slave trade
from the Portuguese point of view. So there was always this fear
that at any point Britain would try to kick the Portuguese out of
Angola and then turn Angola into a British colony. (Interview with
Professor Roquinaldo Ferreira)
That led us to our final thought. With the abolition of the slave trade, many European powers turned to the African continent to continue the slave system, but without trading and by calling it another name. Colonization maintained many of the benefits of slavery, but did not require the middle man. Indeed, according to some scholars, colonization might have been more economically sound.
[S]ome theorists like Adam Smith and others were arguing that economically, if you’re holding slaves, it means you have to kind of service the slave--provide for the slave when the slave was ill, provide food, providing clothing and other human needs. On the other hand, if you paid the person a low wage, you could get the person to work for you and the person would have to fend for himself or herself. So, using such arguments, slavery was considered no longer a viable venture. (Interview with Professor Wilhemina Donko)
While many people want to emphasize the moral workings of the British and the abolitionists, it is difficult to deny their financial rewards for their actions. The abolition of the slave trade by the British and the other future colonial powers were acts inspired by gains in wealth and securitization of financial assets.
Part II: The Industrial Revolution and the Formation of a New Class