Carl’s Blog Post #1: The Driving Force of Commerce

Outsourcing, insourcing, or slavery—commerce was and is the driving force behind the three. Well before America was founded, commerce played a major roll in the economic development of Britain. As pointed out in the first post on this blog, trading goods came before enslaving Africans. Even the African people dealt in trading with other countries such as India, China, and European areas. The goods sold and/or traded were, sugar, cotton, tobacco among other things that one have in their land. There was money to be made and goods to be sold at a profit.

During the 18^th century, it is estimated that 38.4 million (in pounds) was made and continued to rise to about 102.7 million (in pounds) toward later part of the 18^th century. Look at the chart below:

COMMODITY COMPOSITION OF BRITISH IMPORTS FROM THE AMERICAS (Through or pass Africa)

Products          1663-1669       1752-1754       1804-1806

Share of Total over Time (Percentage):


Sugar              60.8                 48.5                 35.6

Tobacco          16.4                 20.9                 3.1

Cotton                                     2.1                   24.5

Coffee                                      0.1                   12.9

Rice                                         6.2                   0.9

Others                         22.8                 22.2                 23.0

                                   100.0               100.0               100.0

Official Value of Total (1,000’s pounds):

Sugar              256                  1,302               6,689

Tobacco          69                    560                  591

Cotton                                     56                    4,605

Coffee                                      3                      2,414

Rice                                         167                  166

Others             

---

421                  2,684                           18,782

Sources: Ralph Davis (1969a p. 96, 1969b p. 119, 1979 pp. 114-5).

This means all of Africa participated in the trading/commerce during the 18^th century. The encounter with the people of Africa happened by chance during the 15^th and 16^th centuries. Europeans traveled through the Sahara and along the Nile, thereby giving them access to West Africa. In addition, once they begun to sail the African coast—they were able to go deeper into Africa’s trading routes. Europeans learned through trading with the Africans that, there was a language barrier and they could use the Africans against each other to build upon their commodities. Those commodities would not only add money to the traders but to the farm owners in America. Now we have slavery. A commodity that burdened Africans and made some White Americans rich.

Portuguese and Spanish seafarers shipped enslaved African people to Spain and Portugal and to their islands in the Atlantic, but slaves were only a small part of what interested these adventurous traders: gold, spices, dyes, and timbers, ivory – a host of African commodities – were far more attractive.

But all those were pushed aside, after 1600, by the lucrative development of plantations in the America. Henceforth, humans, not inanimate commodities, were the greatest commercial attraction for European traders along a vast stretch of African coastline, from Senegambia to Angola.