Profit made from slavery

The pursuit of profit

The link between sugar and slavery established in Brazil spread to the British and French colonies in the Caribbean. In colonies such as Barbados, Jamaica and Saint-Domingue (modern day Haiti) outstanding profits were made on the backs of the enslaved African labour force.

From 1500 to 1860 it is estimated that around 12 million enslaved Africans were traded to the Americas (3.25 million in British ships). Profits made on these voyages were often very large.

For instance, in the seventeenth century, the Royal Africa Company could buy an enslaved African with trade goods worth £3 and have that person sold for £20 in the Americas. The Royal Africa Company was able to make an average profit of 38% per voyage in the 1680s.

Although average profits on successful slave voyages from Britain in the late eighteenth century were less – at around 10% – this was still a big profit. The love of sugar that developed in Britain and other European populations meant the demand for sugar could only be met by the expansion of the slave trade to keep the plantations busy.

Conditions were terrible for enslaved Africans on these plantations. At its worst (in Brazil for instance) so many enslaved workers died that whole populations needed to be replaced each decade.

Slavery was the oil in the machine of these transatlantic economies. By the 1760s annual exports from the West Indies alone to Britain were worth over £3m (equivalent to around £250m today).

Individuals made large profits: for instance the merchant Thomas Leyland, three times mayor of Liverpool, made a profit of £12,000 (about £1m today) on the 1798 voyage of his ship Lottery.

Plantation workers were subjected to harsh routines during the eighteenth century, such as 24 hour working during the peak harvesting period. Some of these routines were later imposed upon European workers during Europe’s Industrial Revolution.

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Is it acceptable?