1450 -1750 coerced labor. historical examples of slavery ancient greco-roman world southeast asia...
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COERCED LABOR
HISTORICAL EXAMPLES OF SLAVERY
Ancient Greco-Roman World
Southeast Asia
Muslim World
Black Sea Trade Network
Sub-Saharan Africa
COMMON FEATURES
• Status for slave holder• Outward sign of social inequality• Most often productive capacity – agricultural
servitude, some cases domestic servitude• As a result of debt or prisoners of war – overtime
tradition (degree of permanence varied)• Trade networks made slaves a profitable
commodity• Gender roles and ratios a reflection of slavery’s
purpose
NON-SLAVE COERCED LABOR
Serfdom
Corvee
American Mit’a System
COMMON FEATURES
• Reciprocal in Nature• Based on
cultural tradition, precedence and political order
Like slavery, outward sign of social inequalities &
productive capacity, but
BASELINE @ 1450
Slave / non-slaveProductive capacity – Labor , hard work
Valuable for productivityValuable as commodity
Social inequalityMotive: need/purpose
Locally developed &orchestrated
HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENTS AFTER 1450
THAT PROVIDE HISTORICAL
UNDERSTANDING OF THE CHANGES TO
COERCIVE LABOR…
Big Ideas….Global trade networkTransatlantic exchange – west
coast of AfricaPlantation Complex Economy –
mines/monoculture
More Specific…Portugal – around Africa
Sugar Plantations (Cyprus, Atlantic Islands, Americas)Great Dying of Amerindians
Role of Interior Africa
COERCED LABOR 1750
Still a sign of status, outward social inequality
and economic production…
• Race as dominating factor
• Plantation Complex predominant form for enslavement
• Profits from Trade as significant as monoculture product
Global Institutionalized
Network
PHILIP CURTAIN U S I N G S TAT I S T I C S T O D E V E LO P H I S T O R I C A L U N D E R S TA N D I N G :
T H E AT L A N T I C S L AV E TR A D E : A C E N S U S
EST. SLAVE IMPORTS TO THE NEW WORLD
SLAVERY: A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE
North America• natural reproduction• equal sex ratio, a high
birthrate, and a predominantly American-born population.
• only about 1/3rd of the population was enslaved
• Direct control by landowners and managers
• Greater disparity in slave ownership (1000s– 1)
• Two-category system of race
Latin America• Death rate 1/3rd higher• lower proportion of female
slaves, a much lower birthrate, and a higher proportion of recent arrivals from Africa
• 80 to 90 %of the population• Absentee landowners utilized
free black managers and mulattos as intermediaries
• intricate system of racial classification emerged
• more tolerant of racial mixing
CURTAIN’S AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE
• Impact on Africa and Role of Africans
•Distribution of Slave Populations in the Americas
•Role of Sugar Plantation Complex
PHILIP CURTAIN, RISE AND FALL OF THE PLANTATION COMPLEX
The feudal class was a military class not a group of agricultural estate managers. Agricultural production above the family level was organized through the village, but no one managed village agriculture in detail. Villagers, whether serf or free, worked the soil according to a system embedded in tradition and sanctioned by custom that had the force of law.
The lord of the manor was around somewhere, and normally had certain rights to the labor of the villagers and to the product of the land. He also held rights to a set of customary payments. But these rights were always limited, and they did not include the right to organize agricultural production as he saw fit…..
The point here is that the lord of the manor did not own the land. He was not free to use the land as he saw fit. All he owned was a set of customary rights.
Discuss the change and continuity of plantation agriculture in Latin America between the
mid 1400s to 1750.
Baseline: No integration of Hemispheres large-scale agriculture among the
Aztecs and Incasmajority of people are peasants • mit'a system in Inca; tribute
empire
GLOBAL CONTEXT: THINK BIG!
Rise of the WestReconquistaProtestant Reformationspread of ChristianityEuropean competition for control of global trade (Portuguese trading empire)Mercantilism / capitalism Treaty of TordesillasColumbian exchange
LATIN AMERICA…
Fall of empires to Spanishsuperior weapons/horses; dissatisfaction of groups
decimation of population; some flee to rural areas to maintain traditional farming methods
initial focus on mining, encomienda system (and Christianity)Batolome de las Casas (Tears of the Indians); Black Legend concern by monarch about power of landholders- New Laws of the Indies difficult to enforce; revolt by some encomenderos
plantation monoculture; cash crops--sugar (rum and molasses) ; export economy; triangular trade; African Slaves
miscegenation--dominated by people of European descent/some elevation to mestizo/mulatto class
alternative systems- repartimiento/mit’a system; peonage system (haciendas)
PLANTATION ECONOMY Large capital investment Extensive labor force-Slave labor Encomienda – Native American population
too low African Slave Labor Intensive labor at multiple levels of
production– harvest, sugar mill, molasses Monoculture export Capitalist enterprise – Profits to produce
capital
Consider again Curtain’s Plantation segment
END POINT
large-scale plantation agriculture (sugar)
social hierarchy based on race exploitation of Amerindians African race-based Slavery coercive labor still in place beginning to question validity of the
system of slavery
THESIS…
Signifi cant changes occurred in Latin America between 1450 and 1750. The age of discovery ushered in an era of European domination that resulted in the destruction of existing Amerindian civilizations and dramatic transformations in the economic landscape. While agriculture continued to play an important role for a majority of the population who often toiled for the benefi t of others, monoculture plantations worked by exploited indigenous people along with imported slaves became the norm .