Cotton, Slavery And The Caribbean
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Cotton,
Slavery and the Caribbean
An
interview with Columbia University author/scholar Sven Beckert
By
KJ Mullins-Toronto
Trinidad Guardian: The
Caribbean played an important role in the growth of slavery in the Southern
United States, the Industrial Age and the booming cotton trade of the 18th
century. While cotton was never as large an industry in the Caribbean (as what
happened with sugar) the islands played an important role in the growth of the
United States and fostering the Industrial Revolution.
Author
Sven Beckert explores this historical period in depth along with other aspects
of the cotton industry in his award winning Empire of Cotton: A Global
History. The Pulitzer Prize finalist was
in Toronto for the Cundill Prize took time to discuss how the slave
trade, growth of Island cotton plantations and the Caribbean slave revolts
influenced the booming slave trade within the southern United States. “I wanted to bring the economy of the United
States into the global context, to trace how the global connections were
related to each other,” Beckert says of his book which follows cotton from its
beginnings to today. “ We often think of global capitalism in terms of freedom
but during a moment in the 1800s the industry of cotton was very much war
capitalism with violent trade and slavery. This war capitalism was at the root
of the global cotton experience.”
The
growing importance of cotton in the late 18th century wasn't the beginning of
the slave trade in the Caribbean yet it was a major turning point of the mass
capture and enslavement of Africans. For
the Islands sugar was the major money crop. During the mid-17th century the
growing sugar trade with Europe grew the need of a large labor market resulting
in the first wave of African slaves. Still that wave was not on the massive
proportions that the emerging cotton trade required. The increasing need for
raw cotton from within the industrial centres of Europe is what truly caused an
explosion for the slave trade in both the Caribbean and North America.
Cotton
had been grown and used in trade centuries prior to the Industrial Revolution.
For the most part the cotton business within Europe came from small farms in
the Ottoman Empire, Egypt and India and
traditionally had not needed a huge labor force to service the demand for
cloth. Back then cotton was only for the
rich and royalty prior to the 18th century. This changed as
innovations for mass production of this plant fiber took place in England
creating products that the mass population could now afford. As a result the
need for raw material —i.e. the Caribbean — increased. This voracious need for
the cotton plant changed the world.
In
theory had Europe been able to grow cotton readily the growth and expansion of
colonies within the New World of the Caribbean and North America may have not happened at a breakneck speed.
The innovations taking place within the cotton factories of the UK along
with a perfect combination of viable
cotton mass farming production in the New World and a ready supply of free
labour created a situation that grew nations. This increased need also had a
price, forcing people into a life of poverty and enslavement in order to afford
the costs of production.
Beckert
points out that the much of the New World had been colonized by relatives and
friends of British business owners. Now these leaders in business had
connections to fertile land with perfect climate conditions to grow the massive
quantities of cotton needed in their factories. In order to enable this growth
there was the need for a massive labor force bringing forth a new era of 'war
capitalism' where the violence of slave labor became the logical answer. In the
past Beckert explained that because the British factory owners that fueled the
industrial revolution did not have to deal with the slave issue directly the
connection has been largely separate in historical reports. "The history
of slavery, business, labor and the general sense of connection has not been
well developed," Beckert stresses when in fact each piece in the equation
created a perfect storm for radical change and are quite connected.
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| Andrew Bell (l) interviews Sven Beckert on BNN news |
It
was the successful slave revolt in Saint-Dominique that took place in 1791 that
redefined this period of history by reshaping the cotton industry. After the
revolt the cotton industry within Haiti dried up. Plantation owners in the
southern United States were able to flourish using the strong cotton seeds from
the Islands without dealing with the new laws forbidding slavery that had come
to much of the Caribbean. The increasing supply of cotton from the United
States gave the new nation importance inside the world market within the
industry while the Caribbean trade slowed.
Beckert's
Empire of Cotton: A Global History is an important read detailing how
this fluffy plant changed the entire world. From the earliest civilizations to
today's market cotton has clothed nations, fuelled wars and created revolutions
for rapid change.
Empire of Cotton: A
Global History (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2014)
Sven Beckert Talks About
His Book About Cotton and The Cundill Prize
Sven Beckert Talks About
Cotton And The Effects It Has Had Upon The Caribbean
Toronto's KJ Mullins is one of Canada's most important on-line journalists. She is also the Editor of http://newz4u.net
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