Gunpowder and slavery
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This article is very interesting (although I’ve only skimmed it):
The British Gunpowder Industry and the Transatlantic Slave Trade
“This article answers that question through a study of five firms that supplied gunpowder to the slave trade. It first demonstrates that the Atlantic slavery trade certainly expanded Britain’s explosives industry during the eighteenth century. British merchant capitalists established five plants in the proximity of Bristol and Liverpool to meet African demand, provincializing the gunpowder industry for the first time. The slave trade also inflated the gunpowder industry’s volume, with twelve percent of all powder going to Africa before abolition. This article next reveals that supplying the slave trade was likely a lucrative pursuit for British manufacturers, with investors in the five mills earning profits that exceeded those of slaving. The boost given to the explosives industry faded considerably as abolition neared, however, and so this article concludes that Atlantic slavery’s stimulus was likely of limited importance for driving the later Industrial Revolution.”
And, of course, providing a continuing industry for arms production outside wartime helped the British state maintain its armed strength: even today, Britain exercises world power through manufacture and export of arms.
”this article concludes that Atlantic slavery’s stimulus was likely of limited importance for driving the later Industrial Revolution.”
There is an obituary in today’s Times of Professor Nick Crafts, billed as “economic historian known for his radical reinterpretation of the Industrial Revolution”. The obituary quotes him as saying that “I was accused of taking ‘industrial’ and ‘revolution’ out of the Industrial Revolution”, and goes on:
“He argued that the British economy was already well advanced by the early 18th century, before industrialisation began, thanks partly to an early transition into what he called capitalist farming driving many smallholders to the cities to find work. He paid tribute to the role of railways and canals, but noted that steam did not become cost-effective until the 1840s.”
”this article concludes that Atlantic slavery’s stimulus was likely of limited importance for driving the later Industrial Revolution.”
There is an obituary in today’s Times of Professor Nick Crafts, billed as “economic historian known for his radical reinterpretation of the Industrial Revolution”. The obituary quotes him as saying that “I was accused of taking ‘industrial’ and ‘revolution’ out of the Industrial Revolution”, and goes on:
“He argued that the British economy was already well advanced by the early 18th century, before industrialisation began, thanks partly to an early transition into what he called capitalist farming driving many smallholders to the cities to find work. He paid tribute to the role of railways and canals, but noted that steam did not become cost-effective until the 1840s.”
thanks for that boss. spiced by the americans’ guilty obsession with race (all them floyds done gone to their heads), this sort of stuff is frothing out the woodwork. the connection between slavery and the indrev is tenuous at best. one only has to look at the second country to undergo capitalist transformation – belgium. the number of slaves transported in ships from that area? a reliable (ie obsessive source) says “undoubtedly thousands”. or “a drop in the ocean” as we realists like to call it. well that few bob ain’t gonna grease the wheels is it? bleeding liberals innit.
“The slave and plantation trades were the hub around which many other dynamic and innovatory sectors of the economy pivoted. Slavery, directly and indirectly, set in motion innovations in manufacturing, agriculture, wholesaling, retailing, shipping, banking, international trade, finance and investment, insurance, as well as in the organization and intensification of work, record keeping and the application of scientific and useful knowledge. Slavery certainly was formative in the timing and nature of Britain’s industrial transition.”
Slavery, capitalism and the industrial revolution / Berg & Hudsondoes the surrender of the spgb to idpol extend to the embrace of its hack historians? class not race. economic forces not petite bourgeois guilt trips. i’ve mentioned belgium. but how about the states? in 1861, the opposing forces were orthodox industrialists versus mercantilist plantation owners. the victory of the former paved the way for the gilded age. or the ukland dependency itself? here, it wasn’t until slavery was on the way out (ie after the somerset judgement) that the industrial revolution really took off. slavery forms part of the background of capitalist development. but only a part of it. and a disposable, optional, and, in many ways, obstructive, part at that. asserting its primacy as berg and hudson do is clearly “political history” at its worst.
Berg and Hudson don’t say slavery caused capitalism, but that it shaped the character of the British development of capitalism: and certainly, colonialism too (especially in the way it related to land clearance in Britain). The point is the so-called primitive accumulation of capital was closely entwined with colonialism and enslavement: and it shaped the for particularly of financial services, as well as some parts of the geographical growth of industry in Britain (in part explaining the industrial west, and cities like Liverpool Bristol and Lancaster).
Belgium did have a small part in the slave trade but capitalism was born early in Flanders, and it’d be interesting to see how slavery and colonialism helped Britain compete and overtake that early lead (also, I wonder how much Flemish capital was linked to Dutch, which had a more extensive part in slavery).
The important part is that contrary to the myth of thrift and industry, capitalism was born out of violence and bloodshed, which created and structured racism to this day.
“…the hub…pivoted…set in motion…formative…” well, jings! that’s what these keywords strongly suggest. in fact, i’d go so far as to say “slavery caused the industrial revolution (sic)” is not a gross misinterpretation of the passage you’ve just reproduced. intersectionalism your latest craze is it? can’t you do situationism? situationism’s groovy. weird sex and tight trousers. intersectionalism has bluehair and smells of mice.
Hub, pivot and formative are not causative, they are positional and instrumental. What was ‘set in motion’ was innovations in activity, not capitalism itself: it would be obtuse to say that mass enslavement had no effect on the society that practiced it.
The final sentence of the quote: “Slavery…was formative in the timing and nature of Britain’s industrial transition.” is the precise summation of what they are proposing, not that slavery caused capitalism but that it structured and shaped it in the British case.
Take for example Bristol, slavery spurred allied trades, such as metallurgy (someone had to make the chains) rope and other trades needed to support it.
We know from the Legacies of British slavery database that the compensation paid out to emancipate the enslaved people in British territories very much did fund a lot of mid-19th century projects and firms exist to this day which were capitalised through that route.
Part of why I flagged this article, is that it struck me how arms exports formed a core part of the spread of colonial dominance, and, in fact, to this day, the UK is reckoned by it’s own state machinery, to be the second largest arms exporter in the world
Slavery was not only slavery, it was a composition of several economic sectors, from agriculture, transportation, banking, textiles industries, investments, guns production, whisky production, constructions and several others economic ventures.
The historian Dr Gerald Horne has covered those economic gains for several years and he has written more than 35 books, and he has debunked many myth about the history of slavery and he has knocked down many saints from their altars including George Washington who was a slave owners, trader and marketeer
His main thesis is that the so called US revolution was a counter revolution of slave owners against the British slaves traders
Gerald Horne’s main drive in “The Counter-Revolution of 1776” is that the American Revolution was actually a counter revolution directed against the real revolutionaries – the *abolitionist* British Empire (not slave owners versus slave traders). It’s an anti-Marxist position. Marxists view 1776 as a historically progressive bourgeois democratic revolution. Of course, both points of view are wrong. Viewing the creation of the USA, a bastion, throughout its life, of owning class privilege, as a positive development is ludicrous. On the other hand, making race, divorced from class, the focus, as Horne does, is an idealistic conceit, if an understandable one. The real drive in history is always economic – if you want to know the truth look at whose pocket the money’s going in. However, since the British Empire is dead and gone and the American Empire, the self same state set up in 1776, now the foremost proponent and practitioner of fundamentalist capitalism, is very much alive and kicking shit across the world, I, for one, heap praise upon Professor Horne’s noble sable brow. Yes, Professor, an irredeemably evil racist state from its birth.
That’s an interesting take, clearly the Somerset case had spooked the American slave holders: and that, coupled with British prevention of expansion into further native American lands (as well as the other nominal causes of taxation and mercantilism and paying for the French wars). Certainly, the British tried to weaponise the enslaved by freeing them and recruiting them into their army during the wars of independence.
But, again, this just shows the extent to which the institution of slavery shaped events in world history and structured the conditions in which capitalism was developing (and that capitalism is compatible with slavery).
I’d dispute that the British Empire is gone, as mentioned re: arms exports, and the disproportionate military spend, the UK does exert informal dominance still in some parts of the world, it just doesn’t trumpet them.
This will please KAZ. Mind you, it has been subject to criticism and pushback:
well, i did say, as have others, that horne’s incorrect. or, rather, coming at it from the wrong angle. the british were certainly a potential threat to the established practices of the settlers, such as slavery and settlement, but other economic interests took priority. the most notable error is that the timing’s wrong. the clapham sect (snigger) wasn’t formed by wilberforce and co until 1785 – ten years after independence. and the proclamation line was basically a dead letter from the start. evil bastards the americans undoubtedly were (and are) but slavery was a minor factor, at best, in 1776.
the same applies to the development of capitalism in general. asserting the contrary is kowtowing to the idpol zeitgeist. what next? the spgb backing reparations? a shopping and fashion (sorry “feminist”) column in the standard?
the pritish hempire not gone? pull the other one squire! ukland has been a protectorate of the american empire since 1945. since brexit, it’s been upgraded to a full on colony, under complete social, economic and political control of washington. its influence in the world, separate from its imperial overlords, is zero.
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