Slavery: The Triangular Trade

Seventeenth Century slavery was one of the most cruel and sad acts that humanity has imposed on itself. While slaves weren’t seen as humans back then, that doesn’t mean that we should justify it today. However, treating slaves – most specifically slaves in the triangular trade – as property had economic impacts on areas such as Africa, West Europe, and the New World. The Triangular Trade was something that connected the three regions of North America and the Caribbean’s, Africa, and Europe. Today, we have international trade flows, inputs and outputs, and deals. The Triangular Trade was kind of like the 17th Century’s version of today’s trade system and “world order” as some have come to call it. Basically, raw materials such as sugar, cotton,
and tobacco flowed from the Americas to Europe, manufacturing goods flowed from Europe to Africa, and slaves flowed from Africa to the Americas. When you talk about it more specifically, slaves typically were transported from Africa to the Caribbean’s and then transferred to North America. Rum, iron, gunpowder, and cloth flowed to Africa from the manufacturing colonies of the North. The Southern colonies sent raw materials to Britain and then those raw materials trickled down to the rest of Europe. From then on those raw materials transferred to Britain and were made into guns and cloth and manufactured goods. These finished goods were transported to Africa and the Americas. When looking at the slaves, they were transported through a passage called the Middle Passage. On this journey, slaves were cramped into tight spaces and many died or became sick due to a lack of nutrients and bad hygiene due to a lack of toilets. How does this reflect on today’s trade? It was really the first major trade route between continents, and these countries took advantage of their comparative advantage in order to churn out an increase of savings or a trade surplus.