Preview

Dbq Slave Labor In The Caribbean

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1046 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Dbq Slave Labor In The Caribbean
The immediate addiction European citizens developed to the new sweetener drove the sugar trade between Europe and the Caribbean. In order to feed this addiction, slave labor in the Caribbean emerged, taking advantage of the islands which proved to be perfect for the growth of Europe’s newest drug. The population of Europe strongly desired sugar for sweetening imports, especially coffee, tea and chocolate. The citizens craved the sweet taste and demanded to be supplied with more of the drug. The price of slaves, the driving force behind the production of sugar, reflected this love of the sweetener, as the demand for sugar rose so did the price of slaves. But, as the price of slaves rose so did the price of owning and maintaining a sugar plantation …show more content…
While these owners may have been in charge of the plantations, they did next to no work in the actual production of sugar, leaving that work for the slaves. Slaves did all of the manual labor producing sugar, which can be seen in Documents 8 and 10. Slaves spent their lives planting and harvesting sugar cane plants as well as curating them and turning them into cane sugar (Doc 8). They were the driving force behind the sugar trade and as the demand for sugar grew so did the demand for slaves because more slaves means more sugar. In fact, from 1703 to 1789 in Jamaica the slave population grew by fivefold and its sugar production increased twelvefold (Doc 10). This clearly shows that the slaves were what lead to the increase in sugar production and the further development of the sugar trade. Slaves did not just help to produce sugar though, they also aided the English economy. English merchants could trade many of their own goods in exchange for the slaves needed to make sugar, so they could help the growth of the sugar trade as well as the growth of the economy (Doc 11). The English economy also flourished due to mercantilism which emerged in 1660 and aided England by making sure that more money and goods were coming into England than were …show more content…
It was much more influential than the climate or the labor because without the proper climate controlled by Europe, Europeans would still have found a way to obtain the sugar they craved. Rulers have always been able to find someone to do the work they need to have done in the past, so it would not have been hard for them to find people to produce sugar for them. Without either of these factors the sugar trade could still have existed, but without the demand for sugar there would be no way for the sugar trade to survive. All of the documents supported this idea, however, there was one voice in particular that was missing and that is the voice of the the common people who craved sugar. There were accounts of people who wanted sugar, but none directly from their point of view. Including their voice would have allowed for a more complete analysis of the entirety of the sugar trade and a further understanding of the exact reasons why sugar was so
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Comparing John Elliott, Marcus Rediker, And Gregory O '
    • 1115 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Comparing John Elliott, Marcus Rediker, And Gregory O '

    Slavery was extremely prominent in the Americas due to several reasons; cash crops required many people to farm them, Africans were more likely to know English, and Africans were seen as non-humans. A large percent of the slaves that worked in North America came from the Caribbean, which also meant they had already been exposed to European diseases. However, England did not focus on the American mainland so much as it did on filling the Caribbean “sugar islands” with able workers. It soon became apparent that direct slave trade did not meet the demands of North America, hence an intercolonial slave trade. Transatlantic slave traders could count on the previously mentioned sugar islands to not only be full of plantation owners rich with expendable income due to the huge profit from sugar, but to also have the largest labor needs.…

    • 1115 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Ap World: Importants Notes on the Early Modern World
    • 956 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Ap World: Importants Notes on the Early Modern World

    During this time period goods such as coffee, tea, sugar, tobacco and cocoa all became incredibly popular and valued by the rich. Sugar especially was a luxury good introduced to western Asia and Europe during the Middle Ages. Sugar plantations were prominently created on the Persian Gulf and islands like Cyprus and Sicily. Sugar became so big due to the fact it grew in warm climates, needed a huge labor force for intensive care and was highly acclaimed and wanted all around the world. It connected every part and social status the world had to offer. For Europe, sugar…

    • 956 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Wh DBQ Essay
    • 491 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Wh DBQ Essay

    In 1493, Christopher Columbus introduced cane sugar to the islands of the Caribbean. At that time, sugar was practically unknown to most people in Europe. However, it became so popular later in Europe. There are 3 factors that drove the sugar trade; the demand of sugar, the plantations, and the mercantilism…

    • 491 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Sugar Interest Causes
    • 595 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Sugar Interest Causes

    The Sugar Interest had seen how the tobacco market had been affected by the influx of American tobacco. They had seen how the market had crashed and tobacco had become unprofitable due to the amount produced in the Americas. They also saw how raising of tobacco ruined the soil nutrient balance. The Caribbean…

    • 595 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Black People In A White People's Country Summary
    • 484 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Black People In A White People's Country Summary

    The economic influences that forced the hand of slavery were over goods. The goods that were in high demand were sugar and tobacco. It has been argued that if it wasn’t for the high demand of these products especially more than anything else sugar the slave trade might not have been as astronomical as it was.…

    • 484 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Sugar Dbq
    • 577 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Sugar Dbq

    Since the sugar was a a new product it got the attention of everyone. In documant seven it gives an example that "when it was first produced in the West Indies it won the attention and intrests of the englishmen." To add on it was known in England…

    • 577 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Socio Economic Changes From 1492 To 1750
    • 484 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Socio Economic Changes From 1492 To 1750

    Over the centuries, slave labor was the ever-present, favorite form of labor. Of course, those who were enslaved did not favor it, but the slave owners prefered it because they did not have to pay for the labor. The men who ran the encomiendas in South America were particularly in favor of it because the process that was required to harvest sugarcane was so strenuous that the workers often died within only a couple years of starting their work. The means by which the slaves were acquired and the areas they were taken from changed rapidly over the years, but slavery was always present and it always served as a major factor in the economy of the atlantic world. Throughout this time period, another constant occurrence was exploration and colonization by the europeans. England, Spain, and France were the major culprits. They often sent conquistadors and explorers to find and claim new land. By 1750, they had colonized or claimed most of the new Atlantic world (the Americas and surrounding…

    • 484 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Slavery During The Columbian Exchange
    • 1523 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Slavery During The Columbian Exchange

    The West Indies, especially Saint Domingue, became the Atlantic’s largest sugar producer. 3. Slaves typically lived for about 7 years on the plantations. On most islands, 90 percent of the population were slaves, and a plantocracy, a small number of very rich men who owned most of the slaves and most of the land, controlled them. . Every slave worked, regardless of their gender or strength.…

    • 1523 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Change over Time
    • 527 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Change over Time

    By 1492, Europe was on the verge of an economic explosion and Africa and America were relatively quiet in the global economy. Long before European contact in Africa slaves and trans-Saharan slave trade were in existence. Portuguese explorers came upon Africa to find this institution. An institution once belonging to Africa would become globalized. Europeans soon began to export slaves to their countries and eventually to the American economies. The slave trade put Africa on the map as a contending economic power. The slave workers fueled the American economies soon thereafter. The Europeans had difficulty finding and maintaining native-American labor. Slaves filtered into the Caribbean, Brazil, and the southern U.S to serve on plantations. The sugar industry was growing in Europe and the slaves satisfied the Portuguese sweet-tooth on the “engenhos” and in other lands. By creating the triangular slave trade, the Americas entered the global economy and Europe morphed into a more powerful one. …

    • 527 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Occupied America chapter 2 notes
    • 954 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Occupied America chapter 2 notes

    in 1493, Colon introduced Sugar cane plants to the Carribeans. Cristobal Colon knew that sugar and slave were inseperable and that would bring tremendous profit (wealth) from sugar.…

    • 954 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Slave Based Societies in the Caribbean
    • 352 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Slave Based Societies in the Caribbean

    Slave based societies in the Caribbean developed according to selections from “The Caribbean: The Genesis of a Fragmented Nationalism” slowly as a result of the equal participation of both the masters and the slaves. Usually the color of one’s skin quickly determined which social group and what your occupation would be with of course the darker you are the lower your status and the lighter the higher. Eventually the Africans and whites started to mix and so did the color of the children which made them “not-so-good” field workers. The slaves of mixed race usually were craftier with the domestic, skilled, and artisanal trades. The Caribbean tended to be pretty urban throughout.…

    • 352 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Population and Economy of Jamaica
    • 780 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Population and Economy of Jamaica

    There is no doubting the dominance of sugar. What is required is a measure of theextent of that dominance. Here an attempt will be made to provide such a measure forthe period immediately before emancipation.2 Since the concern of this analysis is with the links between the structure of the economy and the slave population, emphasis will be placed on the distribution of the slaves between the different forms of economicactivity. This is not the same as assessing the contribution of sugar to the wealth ofJamaica or the export sector, or tracing the dependence of other activities on the sugar plantation system. But it has often been assumed that because sugar was the principal export crop it also determined the distribution of the slave labour force. Hence adescription of the pattern of activities and institutions on the sugar estate is sometimesthought to suffice as the basis for an analysis of Jamaican slave society.3 It is necessaryto test the adequacy of this assumption. For outside the sugar estates there was a varied set of occupations and activities, in a varied set of environmental situations (bothphysical and social), in which the slaves could be involved. If it is agreed that these various forms of economic activity may have had different effects on the growth and structure of the slave population, and vice versa, the importance of the exercise will be even more apparent…

    • 780 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Slavery in the Caribbean
    • 781 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Slavery in the Caribbean

    Europeans came into contact with the Caribbean after Columbus's momentous journeys in 1492, 1496 and 1498. The desire for expansion and trade led to the settlement of the colonies. The indigenous peoples, according to our sources mostly peaceful Tainos and warlike Caribs, proved to be unsuitable for slave labour in the newly formed plantations, and they were quickly and brutally decimated. The descendants of this once thriving community can now only be found in Guiana and Trinidad.…

    • 781 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    How Did The Sugar Change In The Growth Of Sugar
    • 1143 Words
    • 5 Pages

    How Did The Sugar Change In The Growth Of Sugar

    For centuries, sugar was a rare luxury that was only consumed by the royal and elite of society and became a decorative item of their wealth and power. However, in the eighteenth century, there was an increase in the production of sugar that led to a decrease in the price of the commodity across the nation. The reputation held by this good inspired the middle class to use it to emulate the status of the wealthy. Thus, the crop that was once confined to the upper classes of society transformed from a luxury product to an article of mass consumption. This growing hunger that swept the British nation was fed through the expansion of sugar plantations and consequently the slave trade. The plantation owners exploited this opportunity to maximize their profits by increasing their production output and decreasing their cost of labour through the recruitment of slaves. By 1771-1775, Jamaican exports of sugar amounted to £2 400 000, which was nearly four times greater than the 1740 levels. Accordingly, the island bound its economic well-being to sugar and benefited from this rising demand for its prime agricultural product. The planters leveraged this desire for the good to construct an argument that advocated for the perpetuation of slavery in the sugar industry. The renowned planter, William Beckford, even claimed in his novel that, “If abolition, unconditional, unqualified abolition shall take place, … the price of sugar, which is now become a necessary article of life, must be immediately enhanced; discontentment and dissatisfaction may dismember the [sugar] empire.” His argument accentuated the importance of slavery to the preservation of sugar and that only slavery could satisfy the consumers’ demand for this status symbol. This justification was endorsed by many planters on the island and ultimately created the attitudes that…

    • 1143 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Slavery in the Caribbean
    • 2893 Words
    • 83 Pages

    Slavery in the Caribbean

    “What evidence is there to prove that the Africans, who arrived in the British West Indies, were ill-treated?”This project seeks to examine the nature of slavery in the British West Indies and to prove that the slaves endured harsh, inhumane conditions.…

    • 2893 Words
    • 83 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More

Related Topics