It is an undisputable fact that enslaved Africans were put through violent, horrific practices in all areas of enslavement. Some particularly draconian practices include the Middle Passage, which was used to destroy the culture and humanity of the enslaved Africans, and subsequently the violent punishments suffered by enslaved workers. One argument used to provide some reasoning to this is through mercantilism and capitalism. It is important in this context, to define capitalism and mercantilism in order to decisively understand their roles in enslavement. Mercantilism centres around the benefits of profitable trading while capitalism specifies that the profiteers are private owners, rather than the state. While this idea of profit for private owners shows some reasoning for the horrific treatment of the enslaved Africans, there are more prominent arguments in psychological standpoints such as white supremacy and religious justifications. Primarily focussing on the works of Williams, Rodney and Chinweizu, we will see that mercantilism and capitalism alone do not provide adequate reasons to explain the violence of enslavement, unless combined with other factors like the belief in white supremacy, religion, racial discrimination, and a need for control.
To begin, it is important to first label the ways in which capitalism and mercantilism may provide somewhat adequate reasons for the horrific treatment of the enslaved. The institution of trans-Atlantic chattel slavery possesses its origins in wealth-seeking entrepreneurs pursuing profit away from Europe. As Ignatius Sancho writes, ‘The grand object of English navigators—indeed all Christian navigators—is money—money—money.’[1] Stikkers argues that ‘the Caribbean slave trade was an early manifestation of capitalism rather than its antithesis.’[2] This idea is evident through much of the Caribbean planter class consisting of petty nobility and commercial wealth searchers such as John Gladstone, seeking the Caribbean as a place of fortune with a competitive, aggressive intention. This aggression and competition led to the brutal treatment of the enslaved workers to achieve maximum output and profit. We see examples of this throughout narratives of enslaved people such as Mary Prince who, aside from the direct punishments she suffered from her enslavers, also suffered awful injuries from her work itself, such as salt blisters from the ponds where she worked which ‘afflicted the sufferers with great torment.’ [3] This presents a notion of capitalism being the reasoning behind a more indirect form of violence against the enslaved, through an absence of concern for their wellbeing. The year in which Mary Prince began her forced work as an enslaved person at the salt ponds is very significant; she was sold to the enslaver at the salt ponds in around 1802[4] meaning that, at this point, as C.L.R James states, ‘slaves could always be bought, and profit was always high.’[5] As a result, this harsh plantation system was only harshened further after 1807 when restrictions were imposed on the trading of enslaved people as their supply was cut, leading to an increase in demand. As Morgan states, ‘planters needed to work slaves hard to keep up output levels […] more so after the British slave trade ended in 1807 and problems ensued in breeding slaves from existing stock.’ [6] Through the gruelling labour, such as that described by Mary Prince, as well as systems of forced breeding, this plantation methodology succeeded in capitalist and mercantilist objectives by increasing wealth through commodity output and increasing the number of enslaved people, who were a commodity themselves. This methodology of using people as an inexhaustive supply demonstrates aggressive mercantilism and industrial capitalism as a motivation for controlling enslaved people as it establishes the perspectives of the use of the enslaved to achieve goals in acquiring profit above anything else.
Another form of control that was essential to create the enslaved workforce needed to produce the capitalist goods was the destruction of the human psyche and the personality of an individual. This was a long process, beginning with the Middle Passage. The Middle Passage was a mechanism for the destruction of the African personality through extreme physical and psychological violence, spiritual destruction, loss of human identity and culture, degradation, and deprivation of liberty. This destruction of the African personality was vital in the building of a submissive, enslaved workforce. On the subject, Chinweizu comments on how the African personality ‘was wrenched off its trajectory and dragged into the devastating orbit around Europe.’[7] We see this ‘dragging’ of the African personality by the Europeans through the horrors of the Middle Passage as the primary objective was to destroy any trace of the religions and cultural practices of primarily West Africa from the minds of the enslaved Africans and subject them to a breaking process in order to rebuild them into submission. In his eighteenth-century narrative, Olaudah Equiano recalls his experience of the Middle Passage: ‘every circumstance I met with served only to render my state more painful, and heighten my apprehensions, and my opinion of the cruelty of the whites.’[8] He describes flogging, beatings, murder, and starvation upon the ship taking him to Virginia. Equiano’s experience of the Middle Passage is crucial to our understanding of the atrocities practiced by the Europeans in order to enslave Africans psychologically, as well as physically. These practices, in turn, formed the enslaved workforce required for capitalistic endeavours of raw commodity production. Similarly, after the Middle Passage, the enslaved Africans were subject to draconian punishments for even minor offences, such as working slowly: solitary confinement, sexual violence, beatings, lashings, amputations, disablement, and death were among many possible punishments that they may have been subjected to. This was used to set a precedent for both the enslavers’ control over the enslaved, but also to keep up production and output of goods. For the most part, however, it was important that an enslaved worker should be kept alive and useful to fulfil their function for their enslaver and damaging them would be a crime against the master’s property. From their origins in Africa to the plantations across the Atlantic, as Rodney states, ‘African workers and peasants produced for European capitalism goods and services of a certain value.’ From this, it can be argued that the abuse of the enslaved Africans was primarily due to capitalist and mercantilist reasons as they served the function as a means of production of goods, thereby increasing the wealth of their enslavers.
On the other hand, it has been argued that while chattel slavery may have begun as a capitalistic endeavour, it was also brought down by what it sought to create. Williams argues that, alongside the decline of the economies in the Caribbean,[9] enslavement was successful in ‘providing the capital which financed the Industrial Revolution in England,’ and subsequently, as was ‘mature industrial capitalism in destroying the slave system.’[10] He also distinguishes the commercial capitalism of the eighteenth century, which developed Europe’s wealth through the institution of slavery, from the subsequent industrial capitalism of the nineteenth century which the former helped to create, ‘which turned round and destroyed the power of commercial capitalism, slavery, and all its works.’[11] Here, Williams alludes to the spread of abolitionist beliefs and opinions in the industrial cities of Britain such as Birmingham and Manchester and the support they provided for abolition, originally stemming from the commercial capitalism of enslavement. Brandon comments on the ‘mounting challenge by the industrial bourgeoisie to mercantilism,’ [12] offering support to Williams’s theory of growing industrial wealth in England, which was likely to have had some link or its roots in enslavement and its link to the rise in industrial capitalism over commercial capitalism and therefore, enslavement itself. Due to this, some argue that capitalism may have created the institution of slavery, but it was also the trigger for its end.
This argument has been criticised, however, as others such as Eltis and Engerman claim that ‘the new developments in particular segments of the labour market provided a key basis for the attack on the slave trade, and apparently did so on grounds that were more ideological than economic.’[13] This argument contrasts Williams’s view as it suggests that the development of industrialised labour was a much more important factor in the cause of the rise of abolition than the rise of industrial capitalism at the time. Both ideas hold probity and the reason for the decline of enslavement and rise of abolition was likely a combination of both the reformation of industrial labour and the rise of industrial capitalism over commercial capitalism. Either way, both arguments demonstrate the link of industrial capitalism to the abolition of slavery, and in turn, the violence used to enslave Africans and, as James states, ‘nothing, however profitable, goes on forever.’[14] The institution had to come to an end and capitalism, through both the emergence of wealth of industrial capitalists and the evolution of the labour force in Britain, played its part in its downfall.
Moreover, one could argue that there were clearer explanations for the violence against the enslaved. These explanations take on more of a psychological and ideological nature such as white supremacy and, in turn, its place in science and religion. The emergence of the science of race demonstrates the manipulation of facts used to justify the abuse of enslaved Africans. Through beliefs of polygenesis and the works of those such as Linnaeus, Blumenbach and Meiners, the violence against Africans becomes justified in the mind of society, as they are not seen as the same level of human, if human at all. A moral gloss is placed over the aggressive discrimination as the belief was that they are underdeveloped evolutionarily, so the most economically sound solution was to enslave them to fund the economies of higher people.[15] For example, Linnaeus’ 10th Edition of Systema naturae, which became the basis for scientific racism, attempted to add moral attributes to the four separate races he pinpoints in his work, thereby encouraging the absurd generalisation of humanity into groups varying in intelligence and morality depending on race.[16] It is important to note that Linnaeus’ 10thEdition of Systema naturae was published in the mid-eighteenth century when the enslavement of Africans was already in full effect, meaning that Linnaeus’ pseudoscientific conclusions were likely rooted in the pre-existing societal racialisation of the African subcontinent in Europe at that time and subliminally and retrospectively attempts to justify the violence and enslavement of Africans. As Rodney claims, ‘while capitalism was willing to exploit all workers everywhere, European capitalists in Africa had additional racial justifications for dealing unjustly with the African worker.’[17] Through this idea it becomes clear that, while capitalism may provide some motivation for the systemic violence against Africans and people of African descent, the lack of humanity in the violence it produced was employed primarily due to racial discrimination through misinformed biology.
Aside from science, religion further cements racial discrimination and violence through biblical means such as the Curse of Ham, the Mark of Cain, and the association of blackness with the Devil. The original enslavement of Africans was morally justified using the notion that they are ‘infidels’ and their ungodliness gives reason to enslave them. [18] Overtime, this notion of religious morality developed into a system of control; as the enslaved Africans became Christianised, they were taught by their masters that their souls will turn white and go to heaven, but only if they serve their European masters well and perform their functions. This was furthered by the indoctrination of the belief that the soul of an African descendant could not enter heaven, thereby providing the enslaved workers with an aim that serves European desires; enslaved Africans will work hard and loyally with the promise of heaven in death, as opposed to striving for liberty in life. This racialised perversion of biblical teachings demonstrates a methodology of enslaving Africans which, although not necessarily violent in this case, was systemic and effective. One could argue, however, that the violence comes with European doubts to their own superiority, whether through either scientific or religious means. For example, as Jordan comments, ‘castration of blacks clearly indicated a need in white men to persuade themselves that they were really masters.’[19] This idea suggests that, while science and religion motivated the European belief of their superiority, the systemic violence used against the enslaved Africans was a means of retaining their control and superiority over them.
This idea of maintaining control as a justification for violence can further be seen in the brutal suppression of rebellion and revolution, such as that of the Morant Bay Rebellion in Jamaica in which, although no longer legally enslaved, formerly enslaved people of African descent were suppressed brutally by Governor Edward Eyre, which resulted in an estimated death toll of 439.[20] On this idea of violence for control and its roots in racism, Chinweizu notes the ‘psychotic violence of those possessed by its spirit,’ [21] suggesting that, more so than capitalism or mercantilism alone, racial discrimination and its justifications through science or religion, paired with an intense desire for control, provided a much more adequate explanation for the atrocities to undermine and control Africans, thereby reducing them into enslaved people.
In conclusion, mercantilism and capitalism provide somewhat adequate reasoning as to the systemic violence used against people of African descent. The origins of trans-Atlantic chattel slavery being founded in the search for wealth away from Europe associate the institution itself with capitalism, mercantilism and, in turn, the necessity of commodity output for profit. The violence and horrors of the Middle Passage, used to break down the humanity of the enslaved people, converted them into the submissive workforce necessary for capitalist production. Maintaining an efficient rate of production was attained using systemic violence on the plantations through punishment, offering some argument to capitalism’s role in the violent enslavement process. Williams’ argument opposes this notion, however, suggesting that capitalism and mercantilism served as the foundations of the institution of enslavement but also resulted in its downfall through the emergence of industrial capitalism in the place of the antiquated commercial capitalism and, in turn, the social, political, and financial support for the abolitionist movement from industrialists and the major industrial centres.
However, mercantilism and capitalism only provide adequate reasoning for the systemic violence against enslaved Africans when combined with the scientific and religious rationalisation of the abuse, which argued that people of African descent were not human in the same way as Europeans and therefore should not be treated as such. Scientific explanations such as those of Linnaeus arguing that Africans had lesser levels of morality and intelligence than Europeans attempted to rationalise their enslavement. Religious explanations used biblical notions such as the Curse of Ham and Mark of Cain to associate Africans with the devil, thereby using their supposed ungodliness as a justification for the abuse and violence against them, while also controlling them through Christianisation and the promise of heaven through loyal work.
When considering the reasons for the systemic violence against Africans, one can see that, while mercantilism and capitalism provide a foundation, the rationalisation from science and religion combined with an intense desire to control are the stimuli of maintaining the system of violence. With their motives originally founded in capitalist endeavours, morality unquestioned through the dehumanisation of Africans through science and religion, and an intense desire for control, we can see that systemic violence against Africans to reduce them and enslave them came from a complex combination of reasons, as opposed to capitalism and mercantilism alone.
Japneet Hayer is currently studying towards an MA in History at the University of Nottingham.
Notes: [1] I. Sancho and J. Jekyll, Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, An African. In Two Volumes. To Which Are Prefixed, Memoirs of His Life, Vol. 2, (2013), p. 4 [2] K.W. Stikkers, 'The Spirit of Capitalism and the Caribbean Slave Trade', The Pluralist, 10/2 (2015), p. 194 [3] S. Strickland, The History of Mary Prince: A West Indian Slave, dict. M. Prince, (1831), p. 10 [4] M. Rowney, ‘Preserver and Destroyer: Salt in The History of Mary Prince,’ European Romantic Review, 29/3 (2018), p. 358 [5] C.L.R James, The Black Jacobins (London, 1938), p. 18 [6] Kenneth Morgan, ‘Slave Women and Reproduction in Jamaica c. 1776-1834’, History, 91/2 (2006), p. 235 [7] Chinweizu, The West and the Rest of Us (New York, 1975), p. 221 [8] O. Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Oladuah Equiano (London, 1789), p. 80 [9] E. Williams, Capitalism and Slavery (Chapel Hill, 1944), p. 135 [10] Ibid., p. ix [11] Ibid., p. 210 [12] P. Brandon, ‘Reconsidering The “Making of” the Williams Thesis’, International Review of Social History, 62/2 (2017), p. 319 [13] D. Eltis and S.L. Engermen, ‘The Importance of Slavery and the Slave Trade to Industrializing Britain’, The Journal of Economic History, 60/1 (2000), p. 139 [14] James,Black Jacobins, p.21 [15] P.D. Curtain, ‘“Scientific” Racism and the British Theory of Empire,’ Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, 2/1 (1960), p. 43 [16] I. Charmantier, Linnaeus and Race, 2020, < https://www.linnean.org/learning/who-was-linnaeus/linnaeus-and-race> [17] W. Rodney How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (London, 1972), p. 130 [18] C. Raymond Beazley, “Prince Henry of Portugal and the African Crusade of the Fifteenth Century,” The American Historical Review, 16/1 (1910), p.16 [19] Winthrop B. Jordan, The White Man’s Burden: Historical Origins of Racism in the United States (New York, 1974), p. 82 [20] P. Daniel, ‘The Governor Eyre Controversy,’ New Blackfriars, 50/591 (1969), p. 574 [21] Chinweizu, ‘What “Slave Trade”? (Toward an Afrocentric Rectification of Terms)', Black Renaissance, 10/2 (2012), p. 139
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