1. The Atlantic System & Africa, 1550-1800

2. English Royal African Co. (RAC) controls African slave trade • Atlantic System becomes world’s premier trading system • Caribbean islands were first to see Europeans, first to lose native pop. • African slaves and European capital rebuild Caribbean economy • Sugar plantations form base for economy • Spanish begin to ignore Caribbean in favor of American mainland colonies • Northern Europeans focus on Caribbean (England, France, the Netherlands) • 1614: English concentrate on Caribbean tobacco trade • Chartered companies/colonies • Dutch West India Co. • Portuguese sugar model exported to Dutch, British, French Caribbean • African slaves brought to work sugar plantations Plantations & Slaves

4. 1700: French colony of Saint Domingue (Haiti) is world’s largest sugar producer • English establish Jamaica as their top sugar producer • For profit, plantations need own mills (crushing/processing) • Average plantation size=200 acres • some islands devote all land to sugar production, import food • Ecological shift, European introduced plants/animals thrive • Plantocracy • Slaves work under harsh conditions • Down period for seasoning • Specialized labor gangs • Long hours • Cruel punishment at hands of drivers Plantation Life

6. Plantocratic Social Structure • Large Land Owning Whites • Non-Planter Whites • African slaves • Slave born children of whites freed—manumission • Sizeable freed black population emerges in Caribbean • Maroons, slaves who escape and form freed communities in mts. Free Society

7. Based on Capitalism & Mercantilism • Mercantilism produces competition b/w powers • British and French defeat the Dutch, break their monopoly on Atlantic trade • The Atlantic Circuit • The Middle Passage The Atlantic Economy

11. Europeans more interested in African trade, not colonies • Africans capture rival Africans, chain them together, march them to coast, sell/trade them to Europeans • Europeans stuff African slaves onto ships, sell them in Americas • Also traded for gold, ivory, timber (later rubber) • Biafra and Angola suffer huge populations losses, large slave market • Islamic traders engage in eastern slave trade, Swahili Coast • European colonies are few • Portuguese Angola connected to Atlantic trading system • Dutch Cape Colony (South Africa) • Muslim traders bring religion to Sub-Saharan Africa • Songhai (Mali) • Bornu (Sudan) Africa, The Atlantic, & Islam