The sugar trade was driven by land and climate, consumer demand, and the economy. Land and climate was a major factor in driving the sugar trade. Included in Document 1 is a Colonial Map of the Caribbean. The map presents that most Caribbean land are colonized by the British, French, and Spanish. Referring the map to Document 2, explains that an ideal climate average for the growth of cane sugar is sixty-eight degrees Fahrenheit to ninety degrees Fahrenheit which slaves are forcefully working and growing sugar out in the heat.
The Columbian Exchange in the Americas: Change Over Time The Americas were influenced by many different factors. These factors led to the population dropping and population skyrocketing. Advancing technology and biology made an impact as well. From 1492 to around 1750 societies from Europe and Africa greatly influenced and changed the Americas. The Europeans introduced a deadly wave of small pox and the measles, where slaves from Africa were brought over to grow and harvest sugar cane.
This enabled trade that region to occur faster than ever before. Another change in the Indian Ocean’s commerce came through new strains of cereals and maize found in the America’s, which became a new commodity for trade. Along with grains came another new commodity for trade: humans. During 1000-1750 AD, the Fatimid Dynasty, a Muslim government in Egypt, began to slowly take over surrounding regions in Africa. After permeating African society, Muslim merchants began capturing slaves and selling them to buyers in Arabia, where slaves were prized as status symbols.
The Transformation of the Virginia over the years greatly influenced and shaped the Virginia of today. Virginia was founded by the Loyal Company in 1624 as a royal colony and is named after the “Virgin Queen” which it what Queen Elizabeth queen of England was referred as. Jamestown, Virginia was founded as a business venture by Captain John Smith to make profit for the shareholders and it was also a hotspot for gold which was a highly profited item. The later development of tobacco as stated in Document B would be the main cash crop of Jamestown and would begin to provide a sorely needed economic base for the colony. Tobacco was the main source of the colony’s economical growth and was in great need of being produced.
At this time there was a need for a labour force to work the lucrative plantations and so this was the basis on which the slave trade was formed. When Britain won the Asiento contract in 1713 to supply Spanish colonies with slaves they gained total dominance of the West African slave trade to the Caribbean and the West Indies. Planters in the West Indies and Caribbean needed a labour force
The Caribbean islands were a great place for sugar to be produced because of the warm climates, rainfall, latitude, and soil composition (doc. 2). Since the sugar was produced from colonies it was exported cheaply to England where it was processed and sold back to the colonies for money which benefited the ‘mother country’(doc. 12). To buy an adult male slave on the West African coast was on 14 pounds in 1748 and to sell a slave in England during the same year was 32 pounds(doc 9).
Cotton is the next thing plantation owners turn to after the failure of indigo and tobacco. The plantation owners strike a goldmine after Eli Whitney introduces the cotton gin to the South region. The cotton era is born and with it comes the explosion and need to have even more slaves. Slaves are now needed to clear the land, work the cotton crop in the fields and to harvest the cotton once it has completed full growth. Mississippi was admitted as a slave state to the union because of the intense profitability of cotton and the use of slaves.
In 1493 Christopher Columbus introduced sugar to the Caribbean islands. During this time sugar was unknown. The British and the French competed for ascendancy over the Caribbean just for sugar. The horrific part was that sugar had to have the perfect conditions for growing. That’s why Jamaica and the Barbados were huge in growing sugar.
St. Domingue Slave Revolt, which began in 1791, was successful in achieving permanent independence under a new nation. These revolutions were influenced by the French revolution of 1789, which would come to represent a new concept of human rights, universal citizenship, and participation in government. In the 18th century, Saint Dominigue, as Haiti was then known, became France's wealthiest overseas colony, largely because of its production of sugar, coffee, indigo, and cotton generated by an enslaved labour force. There were five different groups in the French Colony. There were white planters -- who owned the plantations and the slaves -- and petit blancs, who were artisans, shop keepers and teachers, those who were free, those who were slaves, and those who had run away.
After a brief period of experimenting with indentured European labor, the British turned to large scale importation of Africans to be used as slaves on the sugar plantations. The plantation dominated economic life in every sense. It occupied the best lands, the laws supported the slave system, and in general all commercial and other economic activity depended on the rhythm of activity of the plantation. Upon Emancipation, many of the ex-slaves settled down as small farmers in the mountains, cultivating steep hill slopes far away from the plantations. With many Africans settling into the beautiful landscape of Jamaica, new musical dawns were on the horizon.