The Trade Triangle

The triangle of trade

The triangle of trade refers to the trade between the European nations the West African nations and the Americas between 1450 and 1855 it is unknown exactly how many Africans were taken across the middle passage to the Americas the Caribbean and to other parts of the world. Some experts estimate the numbers to be somewhere between 10 and 28 million.

What is clear is the brutal way these people were stacked into the hulls of the ships for the 10 to 12 week journey and given barely enough food and water to stay alive it is estimated that on average 10 % of the enslaved people died on a good voyage and that 30% on a bad voyage never made it through the brutal middle passage between Africa and the Caribbean where they were then sold to the highest bidder.

You see the triangle was the process of carrying guns, powder, clothing and other manufactured goods. From Europe to the West African countries where they were traded for slaves which were huddled into ships designed to carry as many slaves as they could pack in the small space. The slaves were sold or traded for such raw material as furs, tobacco, dye stuffs, sugar, molasses, cotton, coffee and diamonds. Which were taken back to Europe and sold the money was used to purchase guns iron, powder, cloth, and shells which were taken to Africa and traded or sold to buy more slaves.

There were many industries that were very dependent on the trade of these slaves and other goods. There were the plantations in the south that raised corn, cotton and tobacco which were very labor intensive. Then there were the sugar cane plantations in the Caribbean and South America also the diamond, Gold and silver mines. All of these industries blossomed into large global enterprises as a direct result of increased productivity due to the cheap labor and the ability to work these slaves to the point of death. These industries in South America and the Caribbean continued to drive upward the numbers of slaves forced to endure the atrocities of forced migration and forced labor well into the eighteenth century. There were large numbers of slaves in the Caribbean and southern America being used to support the worlds growing hunger for sugar and Gold produced in this part of the world. The increase in the production of these products and the huge profits reaped because of the triangle trade helped to make the economies of cities like Amsterdam, London, Liverpool and others became truly major players in a growing