Boards - 1) "both these countries are rich today because of the slave trade": They became rich from "free lab

Zagg

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11 Jan 2012 2:02PM

1) "both these countries are rich today because of the slave trade": They became rich from "free labor" as well. The implication that they became rich only from slavery is false. 2) "the only reason they stopped was because slaves began to burn the plantations they worked on (it was no longer economically viable)": You seem to be making two claims here, both of them false. Abolition was not a result of slave rebellions. There were rebellions in the West Indies, but the reason Britain abolished slavery was because of increasing moral and political objections to it. See the career of Wilberforce, for example. In the US, slave rebellions were practically nonexistent (only Stono, Nat Turner, and one in Louisiana were of any significance). Abolition came because of increasing Northern opposition to slavery and its spread. Even in Brazil, where there were significant rebellions, abolition came as a result of moral and political opposition, not as a result of anything the slaves did. As far as slavery being uneconomic, the work of Fogel and Genovese puts that old notion completely to rest.

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Anonymous

11 Jan 2012 4:27PM

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