The Paradox of Freedom and Slavery
A Review of Eltis' "The Rise of African Slavery in the Americas
David Eltis, The Rise of African Slavery in the Americas (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000)
The Rise of African Slavery in the Americas (2000) is one of the classic texts in Atlantic world history and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Written by David Eltis, a professor emeritus of Emory College, argues that the rise of the African slave trade came as a result of what he terms the “slave - free paradox.” This paradox, would both lead to the explosive growth and the eventual death of European participation in African chattel slavery.
Through twelve chapters, Eltis traces the role of capitalism and the role of European conceptions of freedom in driving the explosion in the use of African slaves. While the primary focus is looking and economic and ideological factors, Eltis also notes ecological and cultural factors that affect this Atlantic world story as well. Drawing on the then newest data derived from a years long project of imputing massive amounts of data into computer programs, Eltis provides a unique perspective on slavery and the slave trade (for those interested in the current data see here).
Beginning with the Iberian empires (Spain and Portugal) Eltis traces the explosion of European enslavement of African peoples. He argues that the Iberians were the first to impose a “European view of the world on Atlantic regions” as they expanded their empires into the islands off the coast of Africa and Iberia. In essence, what Eltis observes is Europeans beginning to see each other (for a variety of reasons) as non-enslaveable (though he neglects the Iberian enslavement of Eastern Europeans). Instead they turn to “outsiders” or non-European groups, to supply their need for forced labor. While the Iberians begin this process, it is the Dutch and English (later British) who perfect and drive the explosion of Africa slavery in the New World. English slave trading in particular supplied not only English colonies, but also other imperial powers throughout the New World.
An important note is that Eltis does not see the othering of African peoples as uniquely a European phenomenon. He frequently notes that slavery was a millennia old institution that crossed cultures and ethnic groups. What was unique for Europeans was the drive to move from economically advantageous labor (poor Europeans) to a more costly (and more dangerous) imported labor force from Africa.1 Eltis in Chapter Three demonstrates quite forcefully why economically enslaving poor Europeans made far more sense as an enslaved labor force. However, because of ideological conceptions of liberty that applied to ethnic Europeans, Africans instead became the primary labor force.
This labor force was critical in the creation of the New World and until the 19th century Eltis notes that Black forced migration outnumbered European migration to the New World. This, Eltis argues can only be explained by how Europeans othered and placed people of African descent as outsiders that were capable of being enslaved. Another fascinating area that Eltis explores is the role of African peoples in controling the slave trade. Importantly, Eltis argues that the slave trade, which was determined on African terms across the west coast of Africa, is an example of African polities strength, rather than weakness. (pg. 149).
Ultimately, Eltis makes some powerful arguments about the profitability of slavery as an institution. Drawing on British shipping data, he illustrates that while the slave trade certainly ran at a profit, it never was more than at most 3% of the economic tonnage of the British fleet. He further argues that capital investments had less to do with the plantation growth in the Caribbean and more to do with the wealth of individual planters who funded the sugar plantations. Eltis more emphatically argues that on both sides of the Atlantic two labor systems developed, a slave driven system and a non-slave driven system. Rather than the systems function as competitors, Eltis instead suggests that they were different but reinforcing. I found this view not only compelling, but more nuanced than some of the more extreme ends of slavery’s capitalism, which suggest capitalism is rooted solely in oppression and slavery. Eltis, while not arguing over the oppressiveness of capitalism is unsympathetic to views (such as Eric Williams’) that suggest the entire Industrial Revolution was dependent on the rise of the plantation economy. Noting the tiny fraction of the economy that sugar played, Eltis is emphatic that such a small force could not have produced the world altering changes of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
While this book has many strengths, Eltis is at times too focused on economics and fails to bring in religion and culture more fully in explaining why Africans became the favored group to be enslaved. His synopsis of the Iberian empires also felt a bit lacking and the text felt more to be a story of the British’s’ role in Atlantic world slavery. Furthermore, he rejects the role of ecology in the New World. Eltis insights that ecology had no role in driving the shift to African based slavery. However, when discussing why Europeans failed to get a toe hold in Africa, Eltis readily notes the role of ecology in killing countless Europeans. I would suggest, as J.R. McNeill has, that the transatlantic trade brought a steady stream of diseases into the New World that decimated white settlers, but was less devastating on those exposed to African diseases such as yellow fever and malaria (i.e. those born in African climates who had gathered immunity as children). Ecological factors were not the only reason why African peoples became the primary group of enslaved people. I do believe that Eltis should have engaged more with this rather than brush it aside as a major factor in the trade.
Overall, this was a fascinating book and it shows the magnitude and tragedy of the slave trade. Eltis complicates narratives of slavery and demonstrates that there was no one single factor that drove the brutal changes in the Atlantic world. Yet, while he notes the brutality, Eltis also shows that in the growth of the slave trade were also the seeds of its destruction. Abolitionism drew on European ideas of freedom and expanded them beyond Europeaans to include all mankind. While I suggest that Christinaity had a major role in this change, nevertheless, Eltis provides a fascinating study of a major transformation of the Atlantic world.
Robert Swanson
Please share your thoughts and comments and questions below!
Intriguingly Eltis notes that pro-slavery advocates in the South began arguing for the need to use criminals also as slaves.