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Coerced Labor

Coerced Labor. 1450 -1750. Historical examples of Slavery . Southeast Asia. Ancient Greco-Roman World. Muslim World. Black Sea Trade Network. Sub-Saharan Africa. Common Features. Status for slave holder Outward sign of social inequality

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Coerced Labor

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  1. Coerced Labor 1450 -1750

  2. Historical examples of Slavery Southeast Asia Ancient Greco-Roman World Muslim World Black Sea Trade Network Sub-Saharan Africa

  3. Common Features • Status for slave holder • Outward sign of social inequality • Most often productive capacity – agricultural servitude, some cases domestic servitude • As a result of debt or prisoners of war – overtime tradition (degree of permanence varied) • Trade networks made slaves a profitable commodity • Gender roles and ratios a reflection of slavery’s purpose

  4. Non-Slave Coerced Labor Serfdom American Mit’a System Corvee

  5. Common Features • Reciprocal in Nature • Based on cultural tradition, precedence and political order Like slavery, outward sign of social inequalities & productive capacity, but

  6. BASELINE @ 1450 Slave / non-slave Productive capacity – Labor , hard work Valuable for productivity Valuable as commodity Social inequality Motive: need/purpose Locally developed &orchestrated

  7. HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENTS AFTER 1450 Big Ideas….Global trade network Transatlantic exchange – west coast of Africa Plantation Complex Economy – mines/monoculture More Specific…Portugal – around Africa Sugar Plantations (Cyprus, Atlantic Islands, Americas) Great Dying of Amerindians Role of Interior Africa THAT PROVIDE HISTORICAL UNDERSTANDING OF THE CHANGES TO COERCIVE LABOR…

  8. COERCED LABOR 1750 • Race as dominating factor • Plantation Complex predominant form for enslavement • Profits from Trade as significant as monoculture product • Global Institutionalized Network Still a sign of status, outward social inequality and economic production…

  9. Philip Curtain Using Statistics to develop historical understanding: The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census

  10. Est. Slave Imports to the new World

  11. Slavery: A Comparative Perspective North America • natural reproduction • equal sex ratio, a high birthrate, and a predominantly American-born population. • only about 1/3rd of the population was enslaved • Direct control by landowners and managers • Greater disparity in slave ownership (1000s– 1) • Two-category system of race Latin America • Death rate 1/3rd higher • lower proportion of female slaves, a much lower birthrate, and a higher proportion of recent arrivals from Africa • 80 to 90 %of the population • Absentee landowners utilized free black managers and mulattos as intermediaries • intricate system of racial classification emerged • more tolerant of racial mixing

  12. Curtain’s African Slave trade • Impact on Africa and Role of Africans • Distribution of Slave Populations in the Americas • Role of Sugar Plantation Complex

  13. Philip Curtain, Rise and Fall of the Plantation Complex The feudal class was a military class not a group of agricultural estate managers. Agricultural production above the family level was organized through the village, but no one managed village agriculture in detail. Villagers, whether serf or free, worked the soil according to a system embedded in tradition and sanctioned by custom that had the force of law. The lord of the manor was around somewhere, and normally had certain rights to the labor of the villagers and to the product of the land. He also held rights to a set of customary payments. But these rights were always limited, and they did not include the right to organize agricultural production as he saw fit….. The point here is that the lord of the manor did not own the land. He was not free to use the land as he saw fit. All he owned was a set of customary rights.

  14. Discuss the change and continuity of plantation agriculture in Latin America between the mid 1400s to 1750. • Baseline: • No integration of Hemispheres • large-scale agriculture among the Aztecs and Incas • majority of people are peasants • mit'asystem in Inca; tribute empire

  15. Global Context: Think Big! • Rise of the West • Reconquista • Protestant Reformation • spread of Christianity • European competition for control of global trade (Portuguese trading empire) • Mercantilism / capitalism Treaty of Tordesillas • Columbian exchange

  16. Latin America… • Fall of empires to Spanish • superior weapons/horses; dissatisfaction of groups • decimation of population; some flee to rural areas to maintain traditional farming methods • initial focus on mining, encomiendasystem (and Christianity) • Batolomede las Casas (Tears of the Indians); Black Legend • concern by monarch about power of landholders- New Laws of the Indies difficult to enforce; revolt by some encomenderos • plantation monoculture; cash crops--sugar (rum and molasses) ; export economy; triangular trade; African Slaves • miscegenation--dominated by people of European descent/some elevation to mestizo/mulatto class • alternative systems- repartimiento/mit’asystem; peonage system (haciendas)

  17. Plantation Economy • Large capital investment • Extensive labor force-Slave labor • Encomienda – Native American population too low • African Slave Labor • Intensive labor at multiple levels of production– harvest, sugar mill, molasses • Monoculture export • Capitalist enterprise – Profits to produce capital Consider again Curtain’s Plantation segment

  18. End Point • large-scale plantation agriculture (sugar) • social hierarchy based on race • exploitation of Amerindians • African race-based Slavery • coercive labor still in place • beginning to question validity of the system of slavery

  19. Thesis… Significant changes occurred in Latin America between 1450 and 1750. The age of discovery ushered in an era of European domination that resulted in the destruction of existing Amerindian civilizations and dramatic transformations in the economic landscape. While agriculture continued to play an important role for a majority of the population who often toiled for the benefit of others, monoculture plantations worked by exploited indigenous people along with imported slaves became the norm.

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