What made England colonise places thousands of miles away? What drove them to kidnap and transport and hold people in enslavement?

 

In the Tudor and Stuart era the three factors, Wealth, Fighting Spain, and Religion, fuelled colonisation.

 

Wealth

 

There was lots of wealth to be gained from the Americas. Gold pulled people to the Western Hemisphere[1] and the thought of free land encouraged many to finance expeditions. While they may not have found a route to the spices of Asia, improved shipping and navigation meant that huge riches were on offer.

 

After a while, colonists realised that there was much more money to be made in growing crops, in particular sugar. Sugar grew well in the Caribbean climate. Pirate Henry Morgan, who once used Jamaica as a base to steal from the Spanish, realised that he could make more as a plantation owner. After a while, a new saying “as rich as a West Indian Planter” entered the idiolect of a growing Britain.[2]

 

The first people to work on these new plantations were the enslaved Indigenous people in the Western Hemisphere and indentured labour from the colonising country. However, getting those people to grow the sugar could not last long and soon: eyes turned to Africa to provide enslaved labour.

 

 

Fighting Spain

 

Ever since the Reformation, England and European superpower Spain had been enemies. Caused by religious difference and competition to rule the new sea lanes to the Americas, England had battled against its much more powerful European neighbour. These fights at first took place at sea led by navies and then the use of privateers (pirates that work for a government). Having bases overseas rather than returning home meant that more wealth could be stolen from the Spanish.

 

Religion

 

The division in Europe between Catholicism and Protestantism had caused rifts between European powers that led to wars in Europe. There was a desire among those powers to spread their religion to these new places and convert the people there (and the people from Europe that moved there) to their religion.

 

The Start and Sugar

 

Seymour Drescher describes the initial process of colonisation as ‘The repertoire of raiding, trading, and rescue, and of conversion, salvation, and civilisation.’ This sums up well how much empire building in the Western Hemisphere went.[3]

 

Portuguese expansion to West Africa began this process that other countries, including Britain raced to join in on. The lure of wealth in the form of gold and national pride made the risks acceptable and improved technology sped the colonisation process up.

 

In Britain in particular the growing popularity of sugar proved a motivating factor in colonisation of the West Indies.

 

Sugar  was at first the luxury of the richest in society. However, as more lands were turned into plantations, the price of sugar lowered, making it more available to the less wealthy, which in turn made it more valuable. The more sugar that entered the English diet increased the desire for even more and a vicious cycle was created. As we today know too well, sugar gives a quicker sugary hit than honey and fruit and this was seen in Britain, more than any other European country. The use of sugar increased by an estimated 2500% from Elizabethan times to 1800.[4]

 

Sugar production is labour intensive. Initially, Indigenous peoples were enslaved on plantations; this was just one of the ways in which European colonists kept the Indigenous peoples under their control. However, with Indigenous numbers plummeting due to murder, spread of disease and displacement, this source of labour quickly needed bolstering. Raiding parties were introduced in the Americas to keep the production moving.[5] The same reasons for this initial enslavement were mooted: spoils of war, revenge for wrongdoing, religious conversion, civilisation.

 

For a while free and indentured labour from Europe were sent to work on plantations. However, numbers were small, and the price high enough to bite into profits.

 

Seymour Drescher asks the question: why were Europeans not used in greater numbers, instead of Africans? He points to research that estimates 50,000 people a year from Europe could have been taken at less expense, on a shorter journey to America, than taken from Africa. And it is here that we see racism come to the fore, as cruel as Europeans could be to other Europeans in numerous ways, the idea of enslavement was not accepted.

 

Even though indentured labour was used, its conditions, though harsh, were different from enslavement. Eric Williams explains the differences well: ‘The [white] servant’s loss of liberty was of limited duration; the Negro was slave for life. The servant’s status could not descend to his offspring, Negro children tool the status of the mother. The master at no time had absolute control over the person he had over the slave. The servant had rights, limited but recognised by law and inserted in a contract.’[6]

 

Williams' argument that economics rather than racism were the driving force behind the beginning of the Trans-Atlantic Trade in Enslaved Africans is strong, as it began to increase plantation profit. However, that Europeans were not used as stock does suggest an early racial bias. Williams himself insists that Europeans were more than able to exist in the West Indian climate.[7] 

 

The excuses we have seen above for enslavement would not have worked on a European level. European wars had decreased in the 17th century so would not have provided enough prisoners of war. Punishment too would not have provided the numbers and the argument for conversion is lessened even considering the schism of the reformation.

 

How did Britain take advantage of the Asiento?

 

The Asiento was a series of agreements begun in 1518 by Spain so that it could trade with private individuals who brought enslaved Africans to its colonies in the Americas. This allowed Spain to populate its plantations with enslaved people while not having the expense of taking them from Africa. It also collected a tax from those who took part. 

 

For individuals this was worth doing as there were fortunes to be made. Seeing this fortune, England wanted a piece of it. Private English traders (people acting on their own, not as part of the government of a country) carried 7096 enslaved people from West Africa between 1651 and 1660.

 

The Atlantic at this time was dominated by the Spanish who controlled the Americas and the Portuguese who dominated the West coast of Africa. Danish, French and later British slave traders would do most of the sailing, providing captured people to the Spanish in the Americas. In this, British merchants were not in control of the West African hunting grounds or the rich plantations. However, here they could become part of the process, make profits, and see with their own eyes the immense fortunes to be made by enslaving people. 

 

Britain officially entered into this system in 1713. This boosted Britain as a major power and allowed for Britain to become the major player in the Transatlantic Trade in Enslaved Africans. 

 

It is interesting here that two long-standing enemies - England and Spain - were able to both trade with each other, to the detriment of those who were kidnapped but to the gain of both countries. It also shows an early sign of moving away from Mercantilism, that countries within an empire would only trade within that empire. 

 

What started yet one more European war in 1701 (this time over who should rule Spain) ended with the Treaty of Utrecht, 1713. This peace treaty gave Britain land in the Americas, access into the Asiento and showed Britain as a major world player. 

 

 

[1] We will use the term Western Hemisphere in PNS when applicable. The term ‘New World’ is problematic as it denies the history of the hemisphere before European contact.

[2] Tom Zoellner, Island on Fire audiobook, narrated by Mirran Willis. Chapter 3. King Sugar 10.00. Accessed 03.08.22.

[3] Drescher, S., 2009. Abolition. New York: Cambridge University Press, p.40.

[4] Tom Zoellner, Island on Fire audiobook, narrated by Mirran Willis. Chapter 3. King Sugar 06.40. Accessed 03.08.22.

[5] Drescher, S., 2009. Abolition. New York: Cambridge University Press, p42

[6] Williams, E., n.d. Capitalism and slavery. p.15.

[7] Williams, E., n.d. Capitalism and slavery. P.19.