British Slavery in the Middle of the 18th Century - Essay Example

How did British slavery affect society in the middle of the 18th century? of affiliation Date of submission How did British slavery affect society in the middle of the 18th century? Introduction to British slavery This paper examines how British slavery affected society in the middle of the 18th century. In Britain, the description of the seventeenth and eighteenth century was by vast expansion of slave interests, which then saw the growth of triangular trade. The slave trade led to the shipping of slaves from their homelands into Britain and other nations like the US to satisfy the growing appetite for black labour (Major, et al., 1999). Slaves led to the change of demography of Britain owing to the resulting revolution of local economies. Shipping of slaves involved English ships trading with Africa and the colonies for slaves went back home filled with African produce and black slaves (Rediker, 2007, pp. 34-56). In Britain colonies, the white masters owned black domestics and the number of black servants one had showed their position or wealth. With time, owning slaves became a trendy habit and slaves were imported to satisfy these tastes. In England, slaves were more than rejects and worthless people in the growing Atlantic empire. Slavery suited Africans since the whites regarded them as less human, which then made them predators of slavery system that removed them from their homelands and cast them ashore in Europe particularly Britain. In Britain, forcing slaves into horrible labour involved justifications from the Bible and ancient Greek practise. In defence, the whites used “The Pro-Slavery Argument” that stated that as an institution, slavery was God ordained (Major, et al., 1999). In order to secure their future of living free from work, white masters declared that the child to a slave woman remained a slave for life and this meant no freedom for slaves. In addition, the white masters preferred African slaves since they were productive even under worst conditions and due to greed, they needed slaves to profit themselves without working. For instance, slaves were crucial in the production of high quantities of tea products and for use in sugar plantations and production. The history of Slaves in Britain The definition of Britain as the largest slave trafficker globally was highly due to London. It was in London where the earliest slave traffickers like John Hawkins lived in the 16th century. In addition, the early seventeenth century saw the creation of monopoly firms by Royal Charter with the objective of slave trade. Slave trade companies located in London included The Royal Africa Company and the Royal Adventurers. Ports in London played the crucial role of sending ships to Africa and America, and handling and processing most slave-produced goods and sugar into Britain. Obtaining slaves from African states was not an easy task and at times, it involved random raids by Europeans before becoming a regular commerce. The African societies got into slave trade under pressure in the hope that they could benefit themselves. The most affected were states along the coast that were convinced that slave trade was necessary and fell into the traps set by European slavers. Here slaves exchange was for riffles, gunpowder, cloth, powder, brandy, ironmongery, and glassware, which was unequal exchange. During the eighteenth century, British perfected their slave trade after its establishment of during the Roman Empire. In addition, it was during the eighteenth century that slave trade and the industry of purchasing, carrying, and selling slaves expanded. In order to control the slave business, numerous British merchants invested into the lucrative bandwagon, committed ships, and seamen to transport of slaves. Transportation involved use of slave ships and most of slave trade merchants form today’s most aristocratic families. When in Britain, slaves were used as industrial workers participating in activities in of crop production like tea, coffee, and sugarcane. The slaves Trade in Britain The most lucrative aspect of the British slave trade of was the Transatlantic Slave Trade during the 18th century (Walvin, 1986). The trade was intended at boosting the introduced sugar plantation in the Caribbean. During this trade, numerous families in Britain benefited with London being one of the main trading centres particularly due to River Thames and London docks. In addition, merchants established in Blackheath, Deptford, and Greenwich handled 75% of sugar imports. At first, Europeans were visiting Africa for slaves, despite occasionally acquiring them. On the contrary, European settlers visited Africa for its valuable commodities like Gold. The first traders concentrated on seeking raw materials for their companies in gold, hides, dyes, ivory, and timber. However, the establishment of slave trade was the introduction of plantations like growing sugar that required extensive labour that was easily affordable from African slaves for plantations in the Caribbean islands. The British then eagerly adopted sugar plantations and other crops, which then called for increased use of enslaved African labour. For the Britons, slave trade influenced its economy since ships getting slaves left Britain ports loaded with goods for the West African coast. In West Africa, the commodities from Britain traded for other commodities that included humans. The most common of Britain commodities were military supplies including guns, brass rods, and cutlery produced in Birmingham. As a result, the gun industry in Wednesbury and Darlaston received critical and constant demand for guns from the West African Slave Trade. For the traded slaves, the life in the slave ships was very inhuman and was a deadly voyage or the middle passage. For most slaves, this passage was brutal, unfamiliar, and unendurable. In the ships, African slaves were packed in very tiny places that they could hardly turn while they could barely eat, drink, or breathe to keep them alive. As a result, 10% or more died upon each crossing and this rose to as high as 30% for bad voyages. For the surviving slaves, landing on Britain’s soil introduced them into new lifestyle and culture, despite being far from their people, home, and places that were familiar to them (Major, et al., 1999). The result was distressing to the surviving slaves since they owned nothing, had different, and language and customs (Graff, 2011, pp. 135-136). By the fourth quarter of 18th century, the population in London had grown to comprise thousands of black people and worked in domestic settings, port cities, and industrial hubs. Sugar Slaves (East India Company) Sugarcane and tea plantations In Britain, slaves and sugar production in the eighteenth century cannot separate. In Britain, the cultivation of cane and sugar production was labour intensive and involved using enslaved Africans to toil the fields. Barbados in England remains the most famous colony rich with sugar and slavery. With increased slave trade, the overseas trade also increased substantially during the eighteenth century with custom records indicating an almost six-fold increment in exports and over fivefold increment in imports. However, Carrington (2002) reveals that imports and exports increments involved unsuccessful struggles to identify the appropriate useful and reproductive ways of dealing with volatile and unpredictable sugar market. East India Company was one of the companies in the 18th century that largely operated by Britain with competitors owning just a small portion of the company. As a results, profits gave Britain a vast financial advantage with contacts established to supply Britain with all kinds of luxury goods in exchange for silver. However, Britain did not stop at anything to take advantage of India’s political instability and slowly colonised and ruled the large country and began building firms in different areas in India like Madras, Calcutta, and Bombay. For the East India Company, colonisation of India meant cheap labour, increased profits, added wealth for colonisers, and establishment of trade monopoly. However, the slavery did not last long as in anti-slavery evolved from 1787 – 1838. Black Servants in Britain As the triangular trade expanded continually, the black community also grew in England (Walvin, 1986, pp. 55-80). Since the 17th century, the number of slaves increased with the success of slave colonies, which ensured that more Africans and Afro-Americans found their way into England until 1838 during slave trade liberation. Prior to slave trade abolition in Britain, slaves worked side-by-side with free people due to the perception that blacks would not live peacefully with their fellow blacks (Sandhu, 2011). Consequently, working with free persons made the black slaves’ subject to humiliation and unequal treatment that saw them continually running away into poor warrens of London. In search of lost slaves, firms continually advertised for run-away slaves than for the sale of newly acquired slaves. Running away resulted from the fact that the slaves wanted to cease being slaves unequal treated in a free country, hence they disappeared to form black ghettoes, and lived outside the law as was required for any England’s poor. The runaway slaves were however not safe as they risked arbitrary abduction and maltreatment. In addition, England’s the importation of slaves faced numerous challenges including cases that compounded a legal confusion intended at defining whether or not slavery was legal. However, the courts did not provide a verdict to free blacks in England but to have them remain while creating room for others. According to Sandhu (2011), the circumstances of blacks in Britain varied greatly for centuries. While some black slaves have been enslaved and exploited, others enjoyed status and privilege. The enslaved and exploited slaves worked in plantations in America or Caribbean where working involved backbreaking labour under hot sun. For some of the enslaved blacks, ferrying was done to parts of Liverpool, London, and Bristol. In Britain, the offering of black people to the slaving vessel commander as gift and later sale for domestic services was common especially in London at Quayside auctions or at coffeehouses and given new names (Sandhu, 2011). Other slaves came into Britain and bought by military, government officials, and naval officers during their return to the United Kingdom. During the long voyages to bondage, slaves were reassuring companions for the loneliness encountered by the white experts during their return voyage. Some lucky slaves worked as household assistants or butlers in upper-class families and were only human equivalents of textile, wallpapers, and lacquered pieces continually bought from the East. These slaves often clothed in amazing attire and their heads wrapped in brightly coloured turbine. To be a domestic attendant or butler, one needed to be good looking with lustre on their skin (Sandhu, 2011). Bad Treatment of Slaves in Britain Prior to the abolition of slave Trade, black slaves lived as property subject to purchase or sale at the wish of its master. In addition, black slaves did not possess any rights and could not even leave their master’s homes. Further, the law did not offer slaves any rights to enter into a contract or testify in court, own weapons or have their marriages recognized. For the female black slaves, the roles included giving birth to the next slave generation whose half survived and entered into labour as early as 3-4 years (The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, 2009-2014). While some slave children served as servants in the houses of masters, others were subjected to special children gangs, whose roles included clearing drying cornstalks from fields, carrying water to the fields, weeding, feeding animals, grazing, and chopped cotton which accounted to child labour. Additionally, slaves were subject to numerous diseases including bowed legs, skin lesions, convulsions, blindness, abnormal swelling, beriberi, pellagra, tetany due to deficiency calcium, magnesium and vitamin D, Rickets, and Kwashiorkor (The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, 2009-2014). Early childhood death rates increased due to other diseases like dysentery, respiratory disease, whooping cough, and diarrhoea. Despite all this challenges, enslaved Africans clang to their spiritual orientation for comfort in adversity. This strong spirituality brought about resistance to bondage oppression while church attendance offered religious comfort, social contact and an avenue to express pain, humiliation, and anger (Laurie & Neimeyer, 2010, p. 224). Ending Slavery The first agency to fight for slave trade abolishment was the Society for the Abolition of Slave Trade, which was a reform organization. In order to achieve end of slavery this society published abolitionist books, prints, and pamphlets and distributed them across the country (Oldfield, 1995, pp. 70-80). This strategy worked by 1792 but with political reaction in Britain, the resolutions reversed. However, the society extended its campaign in the 19th century saw the outlawing of British Atlantic Slave Trade and 1807 Slave Trade Act gave way to new African institutions but not in all counties. The luring of other counties to abandon slave trade was through the anti-slavery Society led by African institution member like Wilberforce, Clarkson, and Zachary. This society began by calling for implementation of improved slave circumstances coupled with plan for gradual liberation that resulted to absolute freedom. The Anti-slavery Society had auxiliaries in local and regional levels and largely involved activities of mass appeal. However, despite attempts of failure, the society managed to organize the Agency Committee in 1831, which advocated for elimination and dedicated itself to instant slavery elimination (Oldfield, 1995, pp. 96-112). In 1833, a new legislation finally passed into law and required implementation of gradual slavery elimination through apprenticeship and later without apprenticeship through compensation of planters like West Indian Planters in 1838 (Walvin, 1986, pp. 18-34). According to (Graff, 2011, p. 136), the end of slavery did not end the trauma amongst black slaves due to subjection to racial segregation, unequal access to education and other resources, humiliation and brutalization, and disenfranchisement among others. Conclusion The discussion in this paper has explored how Britain slavery affected the society in the mid – eighteenth century. The paper explores slavery in Britain in terms of slaver acquisition, slaves shipping, slaves roles in Britain, and maltreatments, and slavery abolition. From the paper, it is clear that slavery was a very useful means of attaining free labour for agricultural, domestic, and industrial use. During this time, slaves contributed to and increment in the amount of export and import and this meant more profitability and financial gain. In addition, slavery led to the increase in the population of Blacks in the society who contributed to the increase in Britain’s productivity. Bibliography Carrington, S., 2002. The Sugar Industry and the Abolition of The Slave Trade. 1st ed. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida. Graff, G., 2011. The Name of the Game is Shame: The Effects of Slavery and it aftermath. Journal of psychohist, 39(2), pp. 133-144. Laurie, A. & Neimeyer, R., 2010. Of Broken Bonds, and Bondage: An Analysis of Loss in the Slave Narrative Collection. Death Studies, Volume 34, pp. 221-256. Major, E., Bell, L., Baldridge, T. & Jackson, T., 1999. Slavery in Eighteenth Century England. [Online] Available at: http://www.umich.edu/~ece/student_projects/slavery/ [Accessed 7 july 2014]. Oldfield, J. R., 1995. Popular Politics and British Anti-Slavery: The mobilization of Public Opinion against Slave Trade, 1787-1807. 1 ed. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Rediker, M., 2007. The Slave Ship. 1st ed. New York: Viking, . Sandhu, S., 2011. The First Black Britons. [Online] Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/black_britons_01.shtml [Accessed 7 July 2014]. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, 2009-2014. Facts about the Slave Trade and Slavery. [Online] Available at: http://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/slavery-and-anti-slavery/resources/facts-about-slave-trade-and-slavery [Accessed 7 July 2014]. Walvin, J., 1986. England, Slaves and Freedom, 1776-1838. 1st Edition ed. Mississippi: Macmillan Publishers Limited. Read More