The importation of slaves from Africa to Jamaica was the largest and most complex international business of the eighteenth century. This controversial exchange of enslaved persons provided economic stability within the Americas. Upon their arrival to Jamaica, the process of dehumanization initiated. Supporters of slavery proposed the institution served a two-fold purpose: one, in order to achieve complete dominance the institution a legacy of subjugation and legislation hampered rights to any slaves. Slaves were merely property of their Masters hegemonic influence. Yet, by defacto, records suggest that the slave-master relationship fostered some rights in which the master was constrained to respect. There was an incessant struggle between the slaves and the lack of public rights. In the start of the eighteenth century, Jamaica was abounded with sugar plantations. 40,000 slaves dwarfed in numbers the seven thousand British inhabitants of Jamaica (Higman p 35). The sugar production became more abundant from the start of the eighteenth century to the end of the century. Seventy sugar plantations grew to 680 from 1672 to 1780. The amount of British Jamaican inhabitants tripled to 21,000 and the amount of slaves reached heights of up to 600,000 in the eighteenth century (Brathwaite, p121). An annual amount of 10,000 slaves imported into Jamaica kept the sugar production stable (Nytimes.com). Sugar was the main igniter for the Jamaican culture and the way of life. For hundreds of years sugar was considered the most valuable crop to Jamaica. Britain made a fortune off the backs of slaves in Jamaica during their reign. Jamaica leads the world as the number one sugar producer of the time. The production of sugar was interlocked with... ... middle of paper ... ...ids, killing white British military stationed on the island, and rescuing of slaves (Hughes p 133). In conclusion, the dehumanization of the plantation slaves in Jamaica took many forms including punishment, mutilation, rape and death. Some planters and white overseers were sadists, but did not want to errantly damage their investments. African slaves who endeared the harsh joinery through the middle passage faced discrimination and physical torture at the hands of British plantation owners. The Lamacian plantation owners saw the African slaves not as women and men but beasts, beasts to be flogged, humiliated, tortured and emotionally and physically abused. The African slaves were chattel in the eyes of the British lords and the stigma of participating in these unjust and immoral acts will forever tarnish Britain’s name in the eyes of the international community.
Sugar plantations have a field where sugar cane stalks are cut and grown and then there are boiling house where sugar cane stalks are crushed and boiled which is all runned by slave labor. Because slaves planted the cane stalks, harvested sugar stalks, crushed them, and boiled the sugar stalks sugar was made(8). According to David richardson the slave Trade, Sugar, and British Economic growth, “An Average purchase price of adult male slave on west African coast in 1748 was 14£ and in 1768 was 16£”(9a).Because slaves were so cheap slave traders may profit by, selling adult male slaves to sugar plantation owners for twice as much as they bought them in Africa. John Campbell Candid and Impartial Considerations on the Nature of the Sugar Trade describes the slaves as “so necessary Negro slaves purchased in Africa by English merchants”(11). Because africa trade slaves to English merchants Africans got things they did not
Slave labor is the final factor that drove the sugar trade and made it so successful. Slaves were the manual laborers on the plantations, doing the actual harvesting and boiling because the owner wasn’t there to do so (Document 8). Without the slaves working the farm, everything was pretty much useless. There is also a direct correlation between the number of slaves and the tons of sugar produced. This is shown in Document 9, where the island of Jamaica starts out with 45,000 slaves, and produces 4,782 tons of sugar. When the number of slaves increases by less than half to 74,500, the amount of sugar produced is more than tripled at 15, 972 tons. This clearly exhibits how slaves were essential to sugar
One of the major questions asked about the slave trade is ‘how could so Europeans enslave so many millions of Africans?” Many documents exist and show historians what the slave trade was like. We use these stories to piece together what it must have been to be a slave or a slaver. John Barbot told the story of the slave trade from the perspective of a slaver in his “A Description of the Coasts of North and South Guinea.” Barbot describes the life of African slaves before they entered the slave trade.
“evil” shows how unfairly these black Africans were treated (93). The author further justifies the
The origin tale of the African American population in the American soil reveals a narrative of a diasporic faction that endeavored brutal sufferings to attain fundamental human rights. Captured and forcefully transported in unbearable conditions over the Atlantic Ocean to the New World, a staggering number of Africans were destined to barbaric slavery as a result of the increasing demand of labor in Brazil and the Caribbean. African slaves endured abominable conditions, merged various cultures to construct a blended society that pillared them through the physical and psychological hardships, and hungered for their freedom and recognition.
As eighteenth century progressed, the british colonists treated bonded men and women with ever greater severity. They also corralled the Africans behavior and past from them every conceivable advantage of labor and creativity, often through unimaginable mental and physical cruelty. Slaveholding attracted the European colonists but...
To understand the desperation of wanting to obtain freedom at any cost, it is necessary to take a look into what the conditions and lives were like of slaves. It is no secret that African-American slaves received cruel and inhumane treatment. Although she wrote of the horrific afflictions experienced by slaves, Linda Brent said, “No pen can give adequate description of the all-pervading corruption produced by slavery." The life of a slave was never a satisfactory one, but it all depended on the plantation that one lived on and the mast...
Boxer, C.R. : The Dutch Seaborne Empire (London, 1965). Canny, Nicholas: The Oxford History of the British Empire, Vol I, The Origins of the Empire (New York 1998). Curtin, Philip D: The rise and fall of the plantation complex: Essays in Atlantic history (Cambridge, 1990). Dunn, Richard S.: Sugar and Slaves (North Carolina,1973).
In document 9, it shows Jamaica's (British colony)time span of the years 1703-1789 and how the slave population was at 45,000 at 1703 and now it's at 250,000 at 1789. Threw all of these slaves the amount of sugar produced was at 4,782 tons in the year of 1703 and now that it is 1789, 250,000 slaves produced 59,400 tons
Laurent Dubois and John D. Garrigus. "Slave Revolution in the Caribbean 1789-1804: A Brief History of Documents.” Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2006.
Jamaica’s history is one of war and slavery. Due to these things, it made it harder for the Jamaican people to prosper. Arawaks from South America were the first to settle in Jamaica. In 1517, the Spanish brought the first African slaves to Jamaica. When the Spanish invaded, they began to exterminate the Arawaks, but they were also wiped out by years of disease and slavery. 138 years after the first slaves were brought to Jamaica, the British seized the island and gained full control. By 1834, slavery was abolished by the British Parliament (“Ja...
The political and economic history of Jamaica is based upon its foundation as a slave colony. From the beginning, the colony was under Spanish rule that relied upon native slave laboring in the sugar fields. The first law to be implemented upon the island under Spanish rule was the Repartimiento, introduced by Governor Esquivel, the first governor of Jamaica. The law enabled colonists to apply for and receive special permission to use the natives for a period of time; forcing them into labors such as planting and logging (Bennett 70). Francisco de Garay, who became governor in 1514, enacted an other set of regulations called the Requermiento (The Requirement) (Bennett 70). This system was implemented with the basis that the colonists had to convert the natives to Christianity; Garay was hopeful that in doing so, the natives would “be tractable, properly maintained and live and greatly multiply” (Sherlock 70).
Once the British gained control of the island, development was swift. The industries of sugar cane and other agricultural resources were increased, thus creating a larger demand for African slaves. Due to this explosion of growth in the late 17th century, Jamaica became one of the largest slave trading centers in the world. The slave trade was conducted out of the city of Port Royal, made famous for being a hideout of the pirate Blackbeard, until the city was destroyed by an earthquake in 1692. The destruction of Port Royal led to th...
In 1645, British imperialists established colonial rule over Jamaica and exploited enslaved African to capitalize on the islands’ rich resources. An estimated 700,000 descendants of Africa were subjugated to slavery and shipped to Jamaica over the course of the following two centuries. Additionally, civilizations of indigenous people were destroyed, pre-Columbian economies were eliminated, and New World ideologies, particularly racial stratification, were established. Transatlantic slave trade was discontinued by Britain in 1807, yet, slavery continued to thrive in Jamaica until August 1, 1834 when Parliament sanctioned an indenture system that required all slaves over the age of six years to complete an involuntary four – six year term of apprenticeship prior to being granted their freedom. This system was comparatively as disparaging to blacks as slavery because oppressors sought to utilize this timeframe to further weaken and or diminish the morale of blacks before they gained their freedom. The wrath of colonization and slavery completely debilitated the black community in Jamaica and inhibited their ability to establish self-sovereignty until 1958. In 1962 Jamaica finally gained independence from Britain, yet, to this day, the economic, social, and political infrastructure of Jamaica remains dilapidated and the nation struggles to establish itself above the grade of a third world country.
“For the island colony was divided into three main groups in a political and social way. The descendants of the slaves were three-fourths of the population and classified as black or dark brown. The descendants of Europeans and slaves were about one-fifth of the population and classified as coloured or light brown. The rest were a few thousand East Indians and Chinese and perhaps the same number of pure European decent.” (Pg. 4) Claude Mckay blatantly describes the historical reality here in his novel, Banana Bottom. The reality that McKay is describing in Jamaica, directly relates to the history of the Caribbean and Jamaica specifically in the 19th Century.