AHC/What If: End the Atlantic Slave Trade earlier

[Mad Bad Rabbit]

That's called malaria and it did little to stop the slave trade

Much more lethal: call it the Red Death. Africans only get a mild fever and rash, anyone with the AKCR1 gene (the rest of humankind) gets a cytokine storm and dies.

[ Sorry China, you weren't even doing slavery, and now only archaeologists can read Chinese... ]

 

[Aluma]

I actually thought of a timeline where the tsetse fly got to the Americas through the first slave ship that was sent its way

Its a very low probability event and I have seen people saying it'd be ASB since it clearly havent happened IOTL and as such they believe it would require a evolutionary POD, but I disagree because we have found fossile evidence of an ancestor of it in Florissant(download link of the source) that diverges little from it's modern counterpart save for size, so in theory the spread of it to the Americas under ideal conditions should be possible

It would be much less lethal than a pandemic, though still harmful to humans(unless it suffered a mutation later that made it not target humans, which since it'd post POD I dont think it'd be ASB), overall killing more of the cattle and beasts of burden of the Americas(in particular, horses and other animals brought by europeans)

I believe that would ruin the prospect of massive european colonies and empires in the New World as they no longer would be able to rely on ranchs for a living and use cavalry for communication and expansion, plus plantations having a even higher mortality rate making profiting from them impractical

 

[Booster Gold]

Much more lethal: call it the Red Death. Africans only get a mild fever and rash, anyone with the AKCR1 gene (the rest of humankind) gets a cytokine storm and dies.

[ Sorry China, you weren't even doing slavery, and now only archaeologists can read Chinese... ]

Population densities aren't big enough to make that viable at this time. If it's that deadly it'll burn itself out.

 

[Insane Ranter]

There were slaves before 1492 in Europe, but not very many, and they weren't as economically important as plantation slaves would be later on.

Good points! My point was that the idea of slaves and slavery being acceptable was in place before the Atlantic Slave trade. That attitude and acceptance might need to be quelled or changed to affect the Atlantic Slave Trade later.

 

[Insane Ranter]

I think you highlight the reason why Africa wasn't identified as a major sugar producing area - having the production outside of the control of the buyers would not be acceptable to many countries. And trying to exert control over West Africa where the Columbian Exchange doesn't devastate the local population is difficult before modern medical support.

Interestingly one area where sugar can be grown in relatively hospitable conditions in Africa is the Cape Colony (Natal in particular). It would require someone to realise sugar could be grown in the area just after the Dutch founded Cape Colony which whilst being unlikely is at least possible. British or Portuguese are best bets

Would not be atrocity free but potentially an alternative. Caribbean sugar is still likely cheaper

Part of the problem with Africa before the scramble for Africa is that Europeans couldn't get to the interior and up the rivers until the steam boat came around. Villages on the coast could just up and move in land and away from any Europeans until later in OTL. Add in the factor of disease. Taking and holding land in Africa was also much harder than the Caribbean. The Europeans might not even been able to until later as well.

 

[sarapen]

Much more lethal: call it the Red Death. Africans only get a mild fever and rash, anyone with the AKCR1 gene (the rest of humankind) gets a cytokine storm and dies.

[ Sorry China, you weren't even doing slavery, and now only archaeologists can read Chinese... ]

China most certainly had slavery, it just didn't import African slaves at European scales.

 

[Jürgen]

This is the answer. Sugar was the magic ingredient for chattel slavery of Africans, tobacco and cotton were both profitable but the margins were always much lower than for sugar and they developed much later. The idea of extracting sugar from beet dates back to 1575 but it didn't become commercially viable until the early 19th century, if you could bring that forward by 150 years to the mid 17th century chattel slavery remains marginal.

Yes, the first we need is for early experiment in sugar production using fodder beets instead of red beet, the red coloring in red beets make the process much harder. The next thing we need are countries with a clear mercantilist focus to embrace this, I would say France, Austria, Saxony, Sweden and Denmark-Norway are good candidate for this. Especially France focusing on beet sugar would be great, as it would give it the prestige to spread across Europe.

If sugar is no longer the money maker, we will likely see the existing slave population being moved to other markets, and they rarely have the same mortality rate as sugar cane farming. The result are slave population with natural replacement rates and falling prices for slaves. This will both result in falling interest in importing more slaves, but also likely less interest in keeping close control with the slaves, it’s likely that slavery will shift to de facto serfdom and tenantship.

Of course in Africa, the falling interest in slave import will disrupt the African markets and the coastal states will be forced to shift to other goods to get European goods. So they will to go away from OTL easy access to money, which will result in stronger more developed coastal states, which is the recipe for an inland expansion. In OTL the disruption happened at the worst possible time for the African state as it happened as European improvement in medicine allowed inland expansion. Of course some of the coastal tribes may decide to become vassals of European powers, but without European population being able to survive long term in the region, local Europeanized African elites will run these states.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

Good points! My point was that the idea of slaves and slavery being acceptable was in place before the Atlantic Slave trade. That attitude and acceptance might need to be quelled or changed to affect the Atlantic Slave Trade later.

Slavery was actually somewhat controversial during this period -- there were various Papal bulls trying to prohibit the practice, and you had people like las Casas and other members of the Salamanca School arguing that it violated people's natural rights. Unfortunately the sheer profitability of the slave trade ended up overriding such concerns, but there's certainly material there for a general turn against slavery.

 

[Thoresby]

Much more lethal: call it the Red Death. Africans only get a mild fever and rash, anyone with the AKCR1 gene (the rest of humankind) gets a cytokine storm and dies.

[ Sorry China, you weren't even doing slavery, and now only archaeologists can read Chinese... ]

You'd still get a transatlantic slave trade, slavery was endemic in subsaharan Africa as in all early agricultural societies so after your super disease has killed everyone else off when the Americas are repopulated African slaves will be transported across the Atlantic, its just the masters will also be African.

 

[HyperMuscularDemon]

Is there any to make the process of growing sugarcane way more easier? That way, plantation owners in the Americas might import white male European workers rather than African slaves.

 

[Jürgen]

Is there any to make the process of growing sugarcane way more easier? That way, plantation owners in the Americas might import white male European workers rather than African slaves.

No.

 

[Mad Bad Rabbit]

after your super disease has killed everyone else off when the Americas are repopulated African slaves will be transported across the Atlantic, its just the masters will also be African.

yeah, probably... >;k

 

[Jürgen]

yeah, probably... >;k

Yes, we really need sugar beet to make the slave unviable, and while sugar cane will likely be cheaper, the mercantilist policies which dominated would result on cane sugar being blocked from being exported, and as slave prices fall the infrastructure for the slave trade would be disrupted making mass export of slaves harder. At last the sugar beet producers would also have an interest in banning the slave trade, so they could have privateer attacking slave ship and liberate the slaves.

Another interesting aspect of this will be the American South with a very limited African population, will likely have to depend on the import of Indian and South East Asian indentured servant for cotton production after the cotton gin are developed, so you end up with with American South with more similarities to Guyanas.

 

[Thoresby]

Another interesting aspect of this will be the American South with a very limited African population, will likely have to depend on the import of Indian and South East Asian indentured servant for cotton production after the cotton gin are developed, so you end up with with American South with more similarities to Guyanas.

You already had Africans being imported for growing tobacco so even without sugar would still see a small scale transatlantic slave trade before cotton takes off and slave grown cotton will always outcompete free labour grown cotton. Slavery may be immoral but there was a reason it was so widespread historically, it is a very efficient way of producing labour intensive cash crops.
But the OP is about the slave trade and cotton and tobacco plantations were a lot less deadly than sugar so the US south and Carribbean would be self sufficient in African slaves relatively early meaning there would be a limited demand for new slaves from Africa and once the trade falls below a certain level the supporting infrastructure of the slave forts etc. collapses and the whole trade ends. Also as in OTL in the US in the early 1800's large slave owners would be motivated to restrict imports because it would make their existing slaves more valuable.

 

[holycookie]

But the OP is about the slave trade and cotton and tobacco plantations were a lot less deadly than sugar

There was a pope who almost banned slavery in the 15th or 16th century and I don't remember his name. But perhaps a ban on slavery at the outset would prevent the Iberian powers from beginning the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

so the US south and Carribbean would be self sufficient in African slaves relatively early meaning

Right, that's what you do with Brazil, the country that consumed 40% of all slaves in the slave trade. Slaves in this region were not only used on plantations, they were used in mining, civil construction, free slaves and their children served as soldiers, head hunters, bureaucrats, representatives of planters, mestizo sons of the planter served as right-hand man or enforcers to the white son of the planter, among other functions. During the war with the Netherlands (Portugal/Dutch war) a son of free slaves basically became a general. Slavery in Brazil was something much more intrusive than blacks working on farms and that it.

 

[Jürgen]

You already had Africans being imported for growing tobacco so even without sugar would still see a small scale transatlantic slave trade before cotton takes off and slave grown cotton will always outcompete free labour grown cotton. Slavery may be immoral but there was a reason it was so widespread historically, it is a very efficient way of producing labour intensive cash crops.
But the OP is about the slave trade and cotton and tobacco plantations were a lot less deadly than sugar so the US south and Carribbean would be self sufficient in African slaves relatively early meaning there would be a limited demand for new slaves from Africa and once the trade falls below a certain level the supporting infrastructure of the slave forts etc. collapses and the whole trade ends. Also as in OTL in the US in the early 1800's large slave owners would be motivated to restrict imports because it would make their existing slaves more valuable.

Most of the African American slaves came in the last period of British rule and in the early USA, slavery ended just a half century early would result in a much smaller population and most would likely be free by 1830, and with only a small slave population slavery would almost certainly be banned rather early. This leave the cotton belt lacking a source of labor, here It would natural to do the same as the Guyanas.

 

[Thoresby]

Most of the African American slaves came in the last period of British rule and in the early USA, slavery ended just a half century early would result in a much smaller population and most would likely be free by 1830, and with only a small slave population slavery would almost certainly be banned rather early. This leave the cotton belt lacking a source of labor, here It would natural to do the same as the Guyanas.

Absolutely a world where the slave trade ends in 1700* with sugarbeet undercutting slave grown sugar is going to have many fewer people of African descent in the Americas than OTL. My point was that by that point and taking into account natural population growth there are already enough slaves in the Americas to meet the demand for tobacco and cotton growing without the high mortality sugar industry.

*without a medieval PoD I can't see sugarbeet coming earlier

 

[Jürgen]

Absolutely a world where the slave trade ends in 1700* with sugarbeet undercutting slave grown sugar is going to have many fewer people of African descent in the Americas than OTL. My point was that by that point and taking into account natural population growth there are already enough slaves in the Americas to meet the demand for tobacco and cotton growing without the high mortality sugar industry.

*without a medieval PoD I can't see sugarbeet coming earlier

That we need to think about in that context is that the descendant of most early Black slaves are likely White today, and the effect of this would be significant stronger without a continued supply of slaves, you will see continued influx of White admixture and you will see many buy themselves free over time. So while they may have natural growth themselves, they will almost certainly be a much more free and lighter group by 1830.

 

[HyperMuscularDemon]

With a much smaller African American slave population that will be more and more free as the years pass bay, could there be less racial tensions and racial antagonism in the Americas?