More than a little credit for the development of the idea of universal
human rights should go to the slave rebels of Haiti This week's Nation
magazine contains an essay by Eric Foner, "Inhuman Bondage: On Slavery,
Emancipation and Human Rights," which reviews Robin Blackburn's American
Crucible. Excerpts follow:
...With its theoretical sophistication and combination of a broad
international approach and careful attention to local circumstances, The
American Crucible takes its place alongside David Brion Davis's Inhuman
Bondage as one of the finest one-volume histories of the rise and fall
of modern slavery.
Blackburn emphasizes that far from being static, New World slavery was a
constantly evolving institution, and he identifies three broad eras in
its history. In the first, which he dates from about 1500 to 1650,
slavery was centered in t
he Spanish colonies, small-scale and urban-based. By 1630 half the
population of the great colonial cities Lima, Havana and Mexico City
consisted of African slaves and their descendants. But in the
countryside, in the silver and gold mines that enriched the Spanish
crown and on the haciendas ruled by powerful colonial settlers, the
indigenous population performed most of the labor.
At the time, the Spanish Empire lacked an extensive plantation system. That system developed first in Brazil and then quickly spread to the British and French colonies of the Caribbean and mainland North America, launching the second era of modern slavery's history (1650-1800). Sugar and tobacco produced by slave labor, along with African slaves themselves, 6 million of whom were transported across the Atlantic in the eighteenth century, became key commodities of international commerce. Sugar was the first mass-marketed product in human history. By 1770 colonial exports and re-exports, mostly of slave-produced goods, represented between a third and a half of Atlantic trade. The profits swelled merchants' coffers and the treasuries of European nation-states. By this time, too, the slave plantation had become a highly versatile economic unit, well adapted to the demands of the capitalist marketplace and quite modern in its methods of production, marketing and credit arrangements. Far from a retrograde drag on economic development, slavery was "a sinew of national strength" and of economic prosperity.
During this second era, slavery came to play a central role in key features of Western economic development-the spread of market relations, industrialization and the rise of a consumer economy. Carefully examining the old debate about the relationship between slavery and the Industrial Revolution, Blackburn concludes that the vast accumulation of capital derived from slave labor was a necessary, but not sufficient, cause of industrialization. Such pro fits did not boost manufacturing development in Spain and Portugal. Industrialization required not only money but a large home market and a supportive state, both of which only late eighteenth-century Britain possessed. Once it got under way, industrialization spurred the further growth of slavery, creating a giant market for cotton from the American South and fueling the spread of a "commodity-based notion of freedom," in which ordinary consumers demanded more and more of the sugar, tobacco, rum and coffee produced on slave plantations.
At the time, the Spanish Empire lacked an extensive plantation system. That system developed first in Brazil and then quickly spread to the British and French colonies of the Caribbean and mainland North America, launching the second era of modern slavery's history (1650-1800). Sugar and tobacco produced by slave labor, along with African slaves themselves, 6 million of whom were transported across the Atlantic in the eighteenth century, became key commodities of international commerce. Sugar was the first mass-marketed product in human history. By 1770 colonial exports and re-exports, mostly of slave-produced goods, represented between a third and a half of Atlantic trade. The profits swelled merchants' coffers and the treasuries of European nation-states. By this time, too, the slave plantation had become a highly versatile economic unit, well adapted to the demands of the capitalist marketplace and quite modern in its methods of production, marketing and credit arrangements. Far from a retrograde drag on economic development, slavery was "a sinew of national strength" and of economic prosperity.
During this second era, slavery came to play a central role in key features of Western economic development-the spread of market relations, industrialization and the rise of a consumer economy. Carefully examining the old debate about the relationship between slavery and the Industrial Revolution, Blackburn concludes that the vast accumulation of capital derived from slave labor was a necessary, but not sufficient, cause of industrialization. Such pro fits did not boost manufacturing development in Spain and Portugal. Industrialization required not only money but a large home market and a supportive state, both of which only late eighteenth-century Britain possessed. Once it got under way, industrialization spurred the further growth of slavery, creating a giant market for cotton from the American South and fueling the spread of a "commodity-based notion of freedom," in which ordinary consumers demanded more and more of the sugar, tobacco, rum and coffee produced on slave plantations.
http://www.thenation.com/article/162669/inhuman-bondage-slavery-emancipation-and-human-rights?page=full
