A Respectable Trade: Slavery
Many economic systems are revealed in A Respectable Trade: Slavery, Feudalism, Self-Employment, and Capitalism. England in 1788 was entering a period of economic transition. Viewing this finite period in A Respectable Trade allows us, as economists, to dissect the different market systems prevalent during that time.
Slavery is the market system most focused on in A Respectable Trade. Josiah's "respectable trade" involves trading sugar, cocoa, coffee and cotton in Africa for captured Negro men, women and children. He then ships these "slaves" to the Caribbean, where he sells them. He makes all of his money in the sale of these people. While Josiah and Sarah Cole have been involved in the slave trade for many years, in 1788 they have just begun to experience the immediate effects of slaves in their lives. Josiah has determined that he will make more money if he ships some slaves to England to train as house slaves. He has married Frances so that she will train and teach them while they live with the Cole's in England. Josiah, Sarah, and Frances are learning the techniques of the slave master. As the film progresses, Josiah becomes more crass and unfeeling toward the slaves, seeing them solely as property. When the slaves first arrive, he feels awkward and anxious about harming them. He knows that he should punish them and lord over them, but he is more comfortable allowing Bates to reprimand and beat the slaves. He allows his customer to rape the slave girl, but he is uncomfortable doing so and does not want to watch. However, at the end of the movie, he stands over Bates while he severely beats Matthew, watching closely with no remorse. Holding human beings as property by chaining them and locking them in the house, controlling their lives and fates by selling them and forcing them to work, Josiah Cole has become a cruel slave master. Frances has a chief role in the slave system. Marrying Josiah, she becomes a teacher and a manager of the slaves in her home. She teaches them English, manners, and proper ways to serve their masters so they may become a more successful sale for Josiah. She does not do this because she desires his success, but because she is held in marriage in a feudal contract.
Francis, a young woman without significant funds, without supportive family, and without an acceptable job, has few options in life.
In the years leading up to the American Revolution, important economic changes took place within the colonies as their economies transitioned from the previous subsistence farming and subsistence living type of economies into true consumer economies. (Devore, Lecture #3.) This shift toward a true consumerism society in the colonies, also known as Anglicizing the colonies, began to make the colonies more uniform and began to bring the colonies together into more of a cohesive unit. (Devore, ...
In the “Interpretive Essay”, Kenneth Banks discuses the consequences of the Atlantic slave trade. The negative effects on the Africans due to the Atlantic slave trade range from the influence on Africans societies and warfare, inhumane and atrocious living and working conditions, decrease of their population, and the long-term impact of bigotry. During the Atlantic save trade’s peak, the movement to abolish slavery started because it went against certain religious beliefs, several thinkers saw it as inefficient, and was unethical.
During the late 1700’s, the United States was no longer a possession of Britain, instead it was a market for industrial goods and the world’s major source for tobacco, cotton, and other agricultural products. A labor revolution started to occur in the United States throughout the early 1800’s. There was a shift from an agricultural economy to an industrial market system. After the War of 1812, the domestic marketplace changed due to the strong pressure of social and economic forces. Major innovations in transportation allowed the movement of information, people, and merchandise. Textile mills and factories became an important base for jobs, especially for women. There was also widespread economic growth during this time period (Roark, 260). The market revolution brought about economic growth through new modes of transportation, an abundance of natural resources, factory production, and banking and legal practices.
The Middle Passage was a trade that started with the Europeans kidnapping African Americans to sell them in North America, The Caribbean, and South America mostly Brazil. The African Americans were forced to travel chained for months in a slave ships, most slaves were sold, but other slaves preferred death over being enslaved. The Middle Passage was a horrendous act were millions of slaves died, and were sold, but The Middle Passage was necessary for the developing of The United states during slavery time. Over ten million slaves were sold.
Although the slaves in the film are generally absent from the physical atmosphere, they are vital to the economic growth of Bristol, England. Josiah Cole exemplifies the plight of the struggling businessman. His dream of a better life is echoed in today’s capitalist society. His constant drive is to move out of his father’s small home and into a bigger house in a better section of town. He is a shroud businessman who works hard to be innovative and find a new demand for his product. The economy of Bristol seems to revolve around one product, which is traded and sold. This description of Bristol doesn’t seem very different from many of today’s capitalist societies. The one difference is the product that is being sold and traded. The humans that are being treated as cargo change the whole system from a thriving capitalist society to one of slavery. The town of Bristol becomes the economic center for slave trading. The slaves are seldom seen, but the money gained from their trading is essential to the town. Cole is taking a business risk by bringing the slaves to Bristol; most of the slaves are traded for other goods by the time they reach the port. He is refining the product he trades in hope that it will fetch him a higher price. The more refined the slave is, the higher price he can charge. This simple business venture is made complicated by social standards because he is trading human beings. Watching this class process of slavery now, from a different societal standpoint, seems foreign. But to the slave traders, such a Josiah Cole, they ignored the fact that they were buying and selling human beings and avowed that they were involved in, A Respectable Trade.
In this book, the author discovered that many historians believed that the practice of leasing convicts of the South was an abuse to the African Americans. Even though many see as it was just one of the many things that occurred in the large sweep of the racial evolution of the South. The cruel and brutal punishments toward the blacks was unjustified.
John Jay a founding father of the United Sates of America stated in 1786 that ‘to contend for our own liberty and to deny that blessing to others involves an inconsistency not to be excused’. The ideology of the American Revolution such as liberty and equality did not extend to slavery, even though slavery was the antithesis of the ideals of the American Revolution it still survived and the emancipation of slaves was a developmental process. The fact that slavery was not abolished during the revolutionary era even though freedom for every man was a key focus reveals the hypocrisy which was rampant at this time. In order to expose the great American contradiction this essay will examine the American Declaration of Independence and one of its key authors Thomas Jefferson.
village, and then burn the huts to the ground. Most of the people who were taken
My critique comes from a commentary titled " Did We Sell Each Other Into Slavery?" by Oscar L. Beard. The author is a consultant in African Studies. The commentary was written May 24, 1999, which contains a discussion about slave trading. The author wants readers to understand the history of slave trading before making any type of judgements. The author feels African American character has been negatively effected because of the remarks made about slavery. My discussion will hold two views. The views will show that I agree we did sell each other to slavery in some forms and I agree Whites had some responsibility for slavery too.
One facet of this unique system involved the numerous economic differences between England and the colonies. The English government subscribed to the economic theory of mercantilism, which demanded that the individual subordinate his economic activity to the interests of the state (Text, 49). In order to promote mercantilism in all her colonies, Great Britain passed the Navigation Acts in 1651, which controlled the output of British holdings by subsidizing. Under the Navigation Acts, each holding was assigned a product, and the Crown dictated the quantity to be produced. The West Indies, for example, were assigned sugar production and any other colony exporting sugar would face stiff penalties (Text, 50). This was done in order to ensure the economic prosperity of King Charles II, but it also served to restrict economic freedom. The geographical layout of the American colonies made mercantilism impractical there. The cit...
Douglass's narrative is, on one surface, intended to show the barbarity and injustice of slavery. However, the underlying argument is that freedom is not simply attained through a physical escape from forced labor, but through a mental liberation from the attitude created by Southern slavery. The slaves of the South were psychologically oppressed by the slaveholders' disrespect for a slave’s family and for their education, as well as by the slaves' acceptance of their own subordination. Additionally, the slaveholders were trapped by a mentality that allowed them to justify behavior towards human beings that would normally not be acceptable. In this manner, both slaveholder and slave are corrupted by slavery.
From the sixteenth century to the nineteenth century from across the Atlantic came the largest forced migration in the world's history. This became known as the Atlantic slave trade or transatlantic slave trade. The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade truly began when the Portuguese interests in Africa moved away from their cherished and beloved deposits of gold and moved towards something they found much more readily available than minerals, slaves. Europeans saw Africans as a source of inexpensive labor for their American colonies. European planters established large farms and plantations in the America's to grow tobacco, sugar and many other cash crops. As the plantations grew, the amount of people needed to tend them grew as well. Thus their demand for more slaves. By the seventeenth century the trade was no longer a game but actually in full effect, reaching a peak towards the end of the eighteenth century. It was a trade which was very precise due to the fact that each stage of the trade were extremely profitable for merchants. This came to known as the infamous triangular trade.
What really makes economics and society flow nicely together? Economics can be described as the social science that deals with the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Society is described as the social relationships among us. The answer is always changing as well as the economical and sociological thoughts behind it as well. This paper will relay a couple economic views from the poem “Cotton And Corn: A Dialogue” by Thomas Moore (1779-1852), an Irish poet. Should people be allowed to trade with whomever they want to? We’ve been doing it for thousands of years. There should always be fare/free trade, even if the government manipulates it a little bit. If there is an unhappy consumer out there, there is at least one unhappy firm. People should be able to trade freely and hardly controlled by the government. Too much of the time the government regulates it too much, and we lose some of our free trade rights, as this poem illustrates. As François Quesnay believed the idea of “Laissez-Fair,” the government should have very little control, if no control over the economy at all. The government will then regulate heavily, create high tariffs, embargoes, and other forms of monopoly to accumulate wealth. This poem was written about the famed Corn Laws that took place in England, that limited the trade of corn to other countries if international rates fell bellow a certain value. The government didn’t want wealth to leave the country, as they stopped importing corn, wouldn’t export their corn out, and monopolized peasants to buy the countries corn with a regulated price. This is third idea, is a form of mercantilism. Hoarding a countries wealth, and building up power. Thomas Moore addresses some of these views by introducing thoughts about fare trade, how the government can control/manipulate trade, and mercantilism, in his poem about the Corn Laws. The question is then, with all of this government supervision and control over trade, how do economies prosper and stay alive and well?
With the cotton industry booming in the south there was a dire need for slaves, because of that the Domestic Slave Trade flourished from 1800-1860. Slave Trade originated from ancient times in Rome from around the first and second centuries B.C. Many nations wanted to put a stop to the trade, and even though many nations started to outlaw it it still continued for many years. Both England and America voted to ban slave trade in 1807, and the ban became effective in 1808 (Worth 59). Along with just putting a ban on slave trade there were also other laws to follow because of how stubborn people were and the continuation of smuggling slaves into the states. The treatment of slaves in this time and any time was horrendous and caused many slaves
The Transatlantic slave trade encouraged the best forced migration of a human population ever. Many of Africans were transported to the Caribbean, North and South America, and also Europe and elsewhere.Most of the trafficking that is done by the European countries. The transatlantic slave trade did not only strengthened capitalism for individuals and their countries. It also weakened Africans because it made them depend on other countries.