5.3.1

The Slave Trade

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The Triangular Trade

Britain lost control of her North American colonies, but still controlled important colonies in the Caribbean. These colonies were at the centre of the slave trade, which brought Britain great wealth.

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Sugar

  • Many British settlers in the Caribbean established vast sugar plantations, where they grew sugar which was then refined and exported to Britain.
  • Increasing demand for sugar in Britain meant increasing amounts of sugar needed to be produced in the Caribbean.
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West African slaves

  • But these British settlers needed workers to turn the sugar cane into refined, granulated sugar.
  • This was a time-consuming and laborious job, requiring a lot of labour.
  • Many of the native population of the Caribbean had been killed by European diseases, and the British were not prepared to do the work themselves.
  • So they resorted to using slaves from West Africa.
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The triangular trade

  • This resulted in the creation of the triangular trade.
  • Goods were transported from Britain to West Africa and exchanged for captured West Africans.
  • They would then be transported as slaves to the Caribbean and exchanged for rum or sugar which would be transported back to England.
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Atlantic crossing

  • Over 3 million Africans were enslaved by the British and forcibly taken to the Caribbean.
  • If they survived the terrible journey across the Atlantic, these slaves lived harsh lives, doing intense manual labour on the sugar plantations, which made the European plantation owners rich.
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Wealth

  • The triangular trade brought great wealth to British port cities, such as Bristol and Liverpool, and marked the beginning of a period in which Britain would come to dominate world trade.

Jump to other topics

1The Medieval World: 450-1450 AD

1.1Anglo-Saxon England

1.2The Contest for the English Throne

1.3Conquering the Holy Land, 10-96-1396 AD

1.4King John

1.5The Magna Carta & Parliament

1.6The Black Death

2Worldviews

3The Empire of Mali

4The Renaissance & Reformations, 1500-1598 AD

5The British Empire, 1583-1960 AD

6The Peasants' Revolt

7Religion in the Middle Ages

8Slavery, 1619-1833 AD

9The English Civil War, 1642-1660

10The Industrial Revolution, 1750-1840

11US Independence, 1775-1783

12The French Revolution, 1789-1815

13The British Empire, 1857–1930

14Suffrage

15World War 1, 1914-1918

16The Inter-War Years, 1919-1939

17World War 2, 1939-1945

18The Cold War, 1947-1962

19Civil Rights in the USA, 1954-1975

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