Editing Triangular trade (section)

==Atlantic triangular slave trade==
{{Slavery}}
{{See also|Atlantic slave trade|Slave Coast of West Africa}}

The most historically significant triangular trade was the [[Atlantic slave trade|transatlantic slave trade]] which operated among Europe, Africa, and the Americas from the 16th to 19th centuries. [[Slave ship]]s would leave European ports (such as [[Bristol slave trade|Bristol]] and [[Role of Nantes in the slave trade|Nantes]]) and sail to African ports loaded with goods manufactured in Europe. There, the slave traders would purchase enslaved Africans by exchanging the goods, then sail to the Americas via the [[Middle Passage]] to sell their enslaved cargo in [[European colonization of the Americas|European colonies]]. In what was referred to as a "golden triangle", the slave ship would sail back to Europe to begin the cycle again.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Gold |first1=Susan Dudley |title=United States V. Amistad: Slave Ship Mutiny |date=2006 |publisher=Marshall Cavendish |isbn=978-0-7614-2143-6 |page=[https://archive.org/details/unitedstatesvami0000gold/page/35 35] |url=https://archive.org/details/unitedstatesvami0000gold |url-access=registration |language=en}}</ref> The enslaved Africans were primarily purchased for the purpose of working on [[plantation]]s to work producing valuable [[cash crop]]s (such as [[sugar]], [[cotton]], and [[tobacco]]) which were in high demand in Europe.<ref>{{Cite web | last1=Weber |first1=Jacques | url = http://www.esclavages.cnrs.fr/IMG/pdf/Bernard_Michon_Nantes_et_la_traite_negriere.pdf | website=Centre national de la recherche scientifique |language=fr|title=La traite négrière nantaise de 1763 à 1793 }}</ref><ref name="Vindt">{{Cite journal|last1=Vindt|first1=Gérard|last2=Consil|first2=Jean-Michel|date=June 2013|title=Nantes, Bordeaux et l'économie esclavagiste – Au XVIIIe siècle, les villes de Nantes et de Bordeaux profitent toutes deux de la "traite négrière" et de l'économie esclavagiste|journal=[[Alternatives économiques]]|volume=325|pages=17–21}}</ref><ref name="Morgan 2007">{{cite book |last1=Morgan |first1=Kenneth |title=Slavery and the British Empire: From Africa to America |date=2007 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |isbn=9780191566271 |page=62 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SGcwgJz5rQMC&pg=PA62 |access-date=16 October 2020}}</ref><ref name="Kowaleski2006">{{cite book |last1=Kowaleski-Wallace, A.P.o.E.E. |first1=Elizabeth |title=The British slave trade and public memory |date=2006 |publisher=Columbia University Press |location=New York |isbn=9780231137140}}</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=lDNFtAEACAAJ Liverpool and the Slave Trade], by Anthony Tibbles, Director of the Merseyside Maritime Museum</ref> Slave traders from European colonies would occasionally travel to Africa themselves, eliminating the European portion of the voyage.<ref>[http://africanhistory.about.com/library/weekly/aa080601a.htm About.com: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081014190833/http://africanhistory.about.com/library/weekly/aa080601a.htm |date=2008-10-14 }}. Accessed 6 November 2007.</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Triangular Trade|url=http://www.nmm.ac.uk/freedom/viewTheme.cfm/theme/triangular|website=[[National Maritime Museum]]|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111125125048/http://www.nmm.ac.uk/freedom/viewTheme.cfm/theme/triangular|archive-date=25 November 2011}}</ref>

[[File:Slaves embarked to America from 1450 until 1800 by country.jpg|thumb|400px|The number of slaves embarked to America from 1450 until 1800 by country{{cn|date=March 2024}}]]
A classic example is the [[colonial molasses trade]]. Merchants purchased raw sugar (often in its liquid form, molasses) from plantations in the Caribbean and shipped it to [[New England]] and Europe, where it was sold to distillery companies that produced rum. Merchant capitalists used cash from the sale of sugar to purchase rum, furs, and lumber in New England which their crews shipped to Europe.<ref name="Curtis 2006"/>

With the profits from the European sales, merchants purchased Europe's manufactured goods, including tools and weapons and on the next leg, shipped those manufactured goods, along with the American sugar and rum, to West Africa where they bartered the goods for slaves seized by local potentates. Crews then transported the slaves to the Caribbean and sold them to sugar plantation owners. The cash from the sale of slaves in Brazil, the Caribbean islands, and the American South was used to buy more raw materials, restarting the cycle. The full triangle trip took a calendar year on average, according to historian Clifford Shipton.<ref name="Curtis 2006">Curtis, Wayne (2006–2007). ''And a Bottle of Rum''. New York: Three Rivers Press. pp. 117-119 {{ISBN|978-0-307-33862-4}}.</ref>

[[File:Luxborough galley burnt nearly to the water, 25 June 1727.jpg|thumb|250px|The loss of the slave ship ''[[Luxborough Galley]]'' in 1727  ("I.C. 1760"), lost in the last leg of the triangular trade, between the Caribbean and Britain.]]
[[File:North Atlantic Gyre.png|thumb|The [[North Atlantic Gyre]]|250x250px]]

The first leg of the triangle was from a European port to one in West Africa (then known as the "[[Slave Coast of West Africa|Slave Coast]]"), in which ships carried supplies for sale and trade, such as [[copper]], [[cloth]], trinkets, [[slave beads]], [[guns]] and [[ammunition]].<ref>[http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/abolition/ Scotland and the Abolition of the Slave Trade] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120103172434/http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/abolition/ |date=2012-01-03 }}.  Accessed 28 March 2007.</ref>  When the ship arrived, its cargo would be sold or bartered for slaves. Ports that exported these enslaved people from Africa include [[Ouidah]], [[Lagos]], [[Aného]] (Little Popo), [[Grand-Popo]], [[Agoué]], [[Godomey|Jakin]], [[Porto-Novo]], and [[Badagry]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Mann |first=K |date=2007 |title=An African Family Archive: The Lawsons of Little Popo/Aneho (Togo), 1841-1938 |journal=The English Historical Review |volume=CXXII |issue=499 |pages=1438–1439 |doi=10.1093/ehr/cem350 |issn=0013-8266}}</ref> These ports traded slaves who were supplied from African communities, tribes and kingdoms, including the [[Allada]]h and [[Ouidah]], which were later taken over by the [[Dahomey]] kingdom.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lombard |first=J |chapter=The Kingdom of Dahomey |title=West African Kingdoms in the Nineteenth Century |year=2018|pages=70–92 |publisher=Routledge |doi=10.4324/9780429491641-3 |isbn=978-0-429-49164-1 |s2cid=204268220 }}</ref> 

On the second leg, ships made the journey of the [[Middle Passage]] from Africa to the [[New World]]. Many slaves died of disease in the crowded holds of the slave ships. Once the ship reached the New World, enslaved survivors were sold in the Caribbean or the American colonies. The ships were then prepared to get them thoroughly cleaned, drained, and loaded with export goods for a return voyage, the third leg, to their home port,<ref>A. P. Middleton, ''Tobacco Coast''.</ref> from the West Indies the main export cargoes were sugar, rum, and molasses; from [[Virginia]], [[tobacco]] and [[hemp]]. The ship then returned to Europe to complete the triangle.

The triangle route was not generally followed by individual ships. Slave ships were built to carry large numbers of people, rather than cargo, and variations in the duration of the Atlantic crossing meant that they often arrived in the Americas out-of-season. Slave ships thus often returned to their home port carrying whatever goods were readily available in the Americas but with a large part or all of their capacity with ballast.<ref name="Duquette 2014">{{cite journal |last1=Duquette |first1=Nicolas J. |title=Revealing the Relationship Between Ship Crowding and Slave Mortality |journal=[[The Journal of Economic History]] |date=June 2014 |volume=74 |issue=2 |pages=535–552 |doi=10.1017/S0022050714000357 |s2cid=59449310 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-economic-history/article/abs/revealing-the-relationship-between-ship-crowding-and-slave-mortality/E978DC4E5FE7CC560734D75A277D4787 |issn=0022-0507|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref name="EV Wolfe">{{cite book |last1=Wolfe |first1=Brendan |editor1-last=Miller |editor1-first=Patti |title=Encyclopedia Virginia |date=1 February 2021 |publisher=Virginia Humanities – Library of Virginia |location=Charlottesville, VA |url=https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/slave-ships-and-the-middle-passage/ |access-date=4 March 2021 |chapter=Slave Ships and the Middle Passage}}</ref> Cash crops were transported mainly by a separate fleet which only sailed from Europe to the Americas and back.<ref>Emmer, P.C.: ''The Dutch in the Atlantic Economy, 1580–1880''. Trade, Slavery and Emancipation. Variorum Collected Studies Series CS614, 1998.</ref> In his books, [[Herbert S. Klein]] has argued that in many fields (cost of trade, ways of transport, mortality levels, earnings and benefits of trade for the Europeans and the "so-called triangular trade"), the non-scientific literature portrays a situation which the contemporary historiography refuted a long time ago.<ref>{{Cite book |title=The Atlantic Slave Trade |last=Klein |first=Herbert S. |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge, United Kingdom |date=1999 |isbn=0-521-46020-4}}</ref>
<blockquote>Finally, even if the "triangle trade" idea is essentially incorrect, the Atlantic slave trade was one of the more complex of international trades that existed in the modern period. (…) Thus, while an actual "triangle trade" may not have existed as a significant development for ships in the trade, the economic ties between Asia, Europe, Africa, and America clearly involved a web of relationships that spanned the globe.<ref>Klein, Herbert S. ''The Atlantic Slave Trade''. Cambridge University Press 1999. p. 101.</ref></blockquote>

A 2017 study provides evidence for the hypothesis that the export of gunpowder to Africa increased the transatlantic slave trade: "A one percent increase in gunpowder set in motion a 5-year gun-slave cycle that increased slave exports by an average of 50%, and the impact continued to grow over time."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Whatley |first=Warren C. |title=The Gun-Slave Hypothesis and the 18th Century British Slave Trade |journal=Explorations in Economic History |volume=67 |pages=80–104 |doi=10.1016/j.eeh.2017.07.001 |year=2017 |url=https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/80050/1/MPRA_paper_80050.pdf }}</ref>

===New England===
[[File:Graph of the Number of Slaves Imported From Africa.png|thumb|248x248px|The number of slaves imported from Africa from 1501 to 1866]]

New England also made rum from Caribbean sugar and [[molasses]], which it shipped to Africa as well as within the [[New World]].<ref>[http://www.slavenorth.com/rhodeisland.htm "Slavery in Rhode Island"]. Slavery in the North. Accessed 11 September 2011.</ref>  Yet, the "triangle trade" as considered in relation to New England was a piecemeal operation. No New England traders are known to have completed a sequential circuit of the full triangle, which took a calendar year on average, according to historian Clifford Shipton.<ref name="Curtis 2006" /> The concept of the New England Triangular trade was first suggested, inconclusively, in an 1866 book by George H. Moore, was picked up in 1872 by historian George C. Mason, and reached full consideration from a lecture in 1887 by American businessman and historian William B. Weeden.<ref name="Curtis 2006" />

In the context of an incohesive operation rather than a sequential circuit, expansive eastern seaboard "Farms" had, in earnest after 1690, sustained southern New England proprietorship, land banks, and [[Rhode Island pound|currency]] within a Greater Caribbean plantation complex. During the seventeenth century, colonial charters and royal commissioners precluded attempts to establish a New England carrying trade by, for example, the [[Atherton Trading Company]] and [[John Hull (merchant)|John Hull]]. But proposals by [[Peleg Sanford]] provided implementation frameworks for eighteenth-century "Farms" and carriers. Historian Sean Kelley examines nineteenth-century "American slavers" because "the North American transatlantic slave trade before 1776 was, in essence, merely another branch of the carrying trade."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kelley |first1=Sean M. |title=American Slavers: Merchants, Mariners, and the Transatlantic Commerce in Captives, 1644-1865 |date=30 May 2023 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-27155-3 |page=81 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Oakes |first1=James |title=Ships Going Out |journal=New York Review of Books |date=September 2023 |url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2023/09/21/ships-going-out-american-slavers-sean-m-kelley/ |language=en |issn=0028-7504}}</ref> Before [[1780 Atlantic hurricane season|1780]], wartime embargoes and the [[Atlantic hurricane season]] spurred carrier attempts to address [[Impact of hurricanes on Caribbean history|deficits]] by circumventing mercantile restrictions, increasing New England trade with the Dutch, Danish, and French Caribbean.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Schwartz |first1=Stuart B. |title=Sea of Storms: A History of Hurricanes in the Greater Caribbean from Columbus to Katrina |date=2016 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0-691-17360-3 |pages=48–49 |language=en}}</ref> 

Periodic trials and executions of notorious smugglers diminshed royal peacetime embargoes, particularly in response to illegal carrying as well as General Assembly endorsement of [[Aquidneck Island|Aquidneck]] as a haven for pirates. These pirates began to disperse from Newport between [[Queen Anne's War]] and 1723 mass executions, establishing the seaport as the dominant carrying hub, with Providence coming in a distant second. British carriers continued to provision plantations outside the boundaries of empire.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Burgess |first1=Douglas R. |title=A Crisis of Charter and Right: Piracy and Colonial Resistance in Seventeenth-Century Rhode Island |journal=Journal of Social History |date=2012 |volume=45 |issue=3 |pages=605–622 |issn=0022-4529}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Hanna |first1=Mark G. |title=Pirate Nests and the Rise of the British Empire, 1570-1740 |date=22 October 2015 |publisher=UNC Press Books |isbn=978-1-4696-1795-4 |pages=365–392 |language=en}}</ref> 

Wartime embargoes that reduced overseas trade precipitated speculative ventures, as well as land and estuary auctions of [[Narragansett people|Narragansett]] tribal reserves, under legislature (public) jurisdiction, by private trusts, a specific type of fiduciary relationship for subsidizing expense accounts, purveying regular annuities, or both. Bidders at vendue were frequently interior "composite"<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bushman |first1=Richard Lyman |title=Markets and Composite Farms in Early America |journal=The William and Mary Quarterly |date=1998 |volume=55 |issue=3 |pages=351–374 |issn=0043-5597}}</ref> yeomen and fishermen,<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Kulik |first1=Gary |title=Dams, Fishes, and Farmers: Defense of Public Rights in Eighteenth-Century Rhode Island |journal=The Countryside in the Age of Capitalist Transformation: Essays in the Social History of Rural America |date=1985 |volume=University of North Carolina Press |issue=Chapel Hill |pages=25–50}}</ref> who (according to certain historians) misconceived<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kulikoff |first1=Allan |title=From British Peasants to Colonial American Farmers |date=1 February 2014 |publisher=Univ of North Carolina Press |location=Chapel Hill |isbn=978-0-8078-6078-6 |pages=104 and 207 |language=en}}</ref> of revenue derived from the carrying trade  as income "competency." Bidders included competitive carriers in secondary seaports such as Providence as well.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Vickers |first1=Daniel |title=Competency and Competition: Economic Culture in Early America |journal=The William and Mary Quarterly |date=1990 |volume=47 |issue=1 |pages=3–29 |doi=10.2307/2938039 |jstor=2938039 |issn=0043-5597}}</ref> Despite the antebellum rise of "Greater Northeast" industrial agriculture,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ron |first1=Ariel |title=Grassroots Leviathan: Agricultural Reform and the Rural North in the Slaveholding Republic |date=2020 |publisher=JHU Press |isbn=978-1-4214-3932-7 |page=12 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UIYIEAAAQBAJ |language=en}}</ref> the southern New England "Farms" and the carrying trade<ref>{{cite book |last1=Clark-Pujara |first1=Christy |title=Dark Work: The Business of Slavery in Rhode Island |date=2016 |publisher=NYU Press |isbn=978-1-4798-7042-4 |pages=24–27 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FgvMCgAAQBAJ |language=en}}</ref> in [[Sugar plantations in the Caribbean|Caribbean sugar]], [[Colonial molasses trade|molasses]], rice, coffee, indigo, mahogany, and pre-1740 "[[Seasoning (slavery)|seasoned slaves]]",<ref>{{cite book |last1=O'Malley |first1=Gregory E. |title=Final Passages: The Intercolonial Slave Trade of British America, 1619-1807 |date=2014 |publisher=UNC Press Books |isbn=978-1-4696-1535-6 |page=213 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=K7_qCQAAQBAJ |language=en}}</ref> began to dissipate by the [[Election of 1800]]<ref>{{cite book |last1=Clark-Pujara |first1=Christy |title=Dark Work: The Business of Slavery in Rhode Island |date=2016 |publisher=NYU Press |isbn=978-1-4798-7042-4 |page=90 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FgvMCgAAQBAJ |language=en}}</ref> and largely collapsed into agrarian ruins by the [[War of 1812]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Taylor |first1=Alan |title=The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels, and Indian Allies |date=2010 |publisher=Alfred A. Knopf |isbn=978-1-4000-4265-4 |pages=31 and 119 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XpKLDQAAQBAJ |language=en}}</ref> 

[[Newport, Rhode Island|Newport]] and [[Bristol, Rhode Island]], were major ports involved in the colonial triangular slave trade.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.projo.com/extra/2006/slavery/day1/ |title=The Unrighteous Traffick |website=[[The Providence Journal]] |date=March 12, 2006 |access-date=July 31, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090912032147/http://www.projo.com/extra/2006/slavery/day1/ |archive-date=September 12, 2009 }}</ref> Many significant Newport merchants and traders participated in the trade, working closely with merchants and traders in the Caribbean and [[Charleston, South Carolina]].<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Deutsch|first=Sarah|date=1982|title=The Elusive Guineamen: Newport Slavers, 1735–1774|jstor=365360|journal=[[The New England Quarterly]]|volume=55|issue=2|pages=229–253|doi=10.2307/365360}}</ref>