Consumers and slavery: diversified markets for plantation produce and the survival of slavery in the 19th century

• Market demand for plantation produce was crucial for the survival of American slavery in the 19th century. De-colonisation opened up for increasingly complex geographical patterns of trade for the American producers of these crops. This paper estimates quantitatively the ‘materialized labour’ necessary for the consumption of these goods, in order to show the impact of developing markets upon the institution of slavery. The paper finds that the production of goods for semiperipheral markets in Europe, such as the Baltic, required the labour of some 200,000 slaves annually by the middle of the 19th century.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Ekonomisk historia (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Economic History (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Consumption

demand

slavery

commodity chain

Baltic

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)