Reviews for Destruction of Brazilian Slavery, 1850-1888

The average rating for Destruction of Brazilian Slavery, 1850-1888 based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-01-27 00:00:00 Ruth Settle A very dense socioeconomic history and I certainly can't/won't explain every point. In contrast to the rather elementary discussion of race and slavery often found today in the American media, this work depicts slavery as not evolving strictly on race-based lines initially. Instead, African slavery was slowly introduced to the European colonial system after previous labor supplies were exhausted: native populations dwindled, traditional white slaves (Eastern and Southern Europeans) and indentured servants became either newly freed or they refused to do the work any longer. Racial lines only hardened in the mid 1600s after two centuries plus of contact. During the Renaissance, new ideological mechanisms were invented to allow slavery while in the "Mercantalist age" of the 17-18th centuries, white servitude declined dramatically because of a number of factors. Finally, the demand for Atlantic trade products dramatically increased the shift to African slavery as the main colonial powers experimented with efficient plantation systems. This work is about labor supply and the effect of plantation capital on the Atlantic system. Cultural impacts of maroon communities, social classes, female slaves' differing roles in different national economies after being taken from their homelands, and how creole cultures and languages adapted to the horrific conditions are all discussed. However, labor and markets are the main focus so that's what I'll briefly review. First, through disease, overwork, and resistance, native populations proved inadequate as a labor supply to produce Blackburn's main product of interest: sugar, which Europeans had gotten a taste of from the Crusades on and struggled to find suitable locations to grow it for themselves when cut off from the Holy Land and the Eastern Mediterranean by the Ottoman conquests. There were too few of the natives left to enslave in the Caribbean islands where sugar grew best and where the natives were most numerous (in Mexico or Peru), sugar was least suitable, especially when silver could be mined and was even more valued (Peru). White indentures were the next largest, initial labor supply. There was much hesitancy to bringing back enslavement especially when much of Western Europe had largely moved past it from the Middle Ages. Instead, white indentured labor was cheaper, often more expendable, and more available than the risky African trade. Since a Christian hierarchy was natural and acceptable and indentures willingly signed contracts, no Christian bonds were broken. Economically, 4 whites could equal 2 blacks in terms of cost, work, and life expectancy, and because the white indentures were not slaves, moral dilemmas could be avoided, and the Africans wouldn't have to be converted to Christianity and treated potentially equally. Some plantations had an equal number of blacks and whites, occasionally with both working the fields on an equal basis. Even though African slaves were more expensive, they were preferred because of the superior work and survivability in tropical conditions. In terms of life expectancy, it's interesting to note how low that was in general in an era where most people lived and worked in brutal, quasi-Medieval conditions or that the average impressed galleyman/sailor up until the 18th century was about as likely to die on a ship from the conditions of overwork, disaster, malnutrition as a plantation slave. Whereas another work "A Fistful of Shells" studies the impact of trade with African kingdoms for gold and precious metals on a fairly equal diplomatic basis, and slavery being introduced as a result of that connection, Blackburn focuses on the market economy in the Americas and how those slaves made their way particularly to the Caribbean to produce sugar. Commodities that the African kingdoms had (gold, ivory, and diamonds) or the spice trade that required the support of them along the route to India and China are minimized by Blackburn to focus on the capitalization of the plantation system and how sugar was desired above other colonial products like tobacco, rice, and indigo. Whereas in "A Fistful of Shells," European labor issues were alongside a desire for specie because of the Ottoman Empire's control of that trans-Saharan trade, in "The Making of New World Slavery," sugar was the deterministic factor and driving force behind the need for slave labor. African slavery was not exclusively race-based until the transitional era of the late 16-17th century economies. As Blackburn states, many in Christian Europe hoped that the double-edged Noah Myth (that black Africans were the descendants of Noah's son Ham who was seen as human, but more sinful) would provide African allies, especially in Christian Ethiopia, against Muslim powers. The other side was that black Africans were naturally lesser because they came from Ham's sinful (black) line and thus worthy of enslavement. Dehumanizing them evolved over time as it conflicted with the notion that black Africans might be naturally sinful, but by descending from Noah, were still humans and not a commodity. The natural order of God's world was a very medieval/feudal notion that in one sense rejected slavery (especially of Christians), but also could be used to enslave non-Christians when labor needs gave added impetus. Overall, this was a very thoughtful and important work. However, the last quarter or so of the book gets bogged down in economically-dense theory (traditional capitalist vs. Marxist comparisons), number jumbles of 18th century British colonial trade, and historiography. It is a good book to read in conjunction with "A Fistful of Shells" to see two economic views of the same horrific system.

Review # 2 was written on 2010-06-10 00:00:00 Alexander Pantelle Phew! This was a slog! Blackburn's scholarship and thesis is persuasive; however, it's pretty needlessly dense, with too much exactitude and repitition. Style is bit of an issue, too. The tone is hyper-objective, to the point of it reading like a computerized algorithmically programmed voice. I learned much from this dense tome. (Psst. I skimmed the last 200 pages!) I would recommend this book to serious experts in the discipline and only to glean sources and tidbits from. I'm more informed now but exhausted.