Circa1865

The trade in African slaves long-predated Britain’s American colonies, as it was essential for labor-intensive plantations. By 1705, New England’s own transatlantic slave trade began surpassing England’s. At the time of the Revolution, cotton production was limited to a small scale, but in 1793, Massachusetts tinkerer Eli Whitney’s cotton gin greatly increased production and the demand for more African slaves. By the early 1800s, Massachusetts textile mills competed with England’s own industry – both were deeply responsible for the perpetuation of slavery in America. Even as late as 1860, New York businessmen and Portuguese slave merchants were bribing New York port authorities to allow ships bound for Cuba for outfitting as slavers, which then sailed for Africa to load slaves, thence to Cuba and Brazil to work the sugar cane fields.

The African Slave Market

“. . . in the high Middle Ages numerous Sudanese and Guinean slaves were brought to the African shore of the Mediterranean by [Muslim] trans-Saharan caravans and then sold to Christian merchants who marketed them in eastern Spain, southern France, and Italy.

During the second half of the fifteenth century, the Portuguese re-routed a great part of this trade, as they re-routed much of the trans-Sahara gold trade at the same time. In both instances, from an overland trade with Muslim and Italian intermediaries, they developed a direct maritime trade with West Africa for gold and slaves, exactly as they did in the following century with the spices from the East Indies.”

(The Beginnings of Modern Colonization: Eleven Essays. Charles Verlinden, ed., Cornell University Press. 1970. C.R. Boxer review excerpt, The American Historical Review, Vol. 77, No. 1, February 1972, 118)