The Triangular Trade and the Middle Passage

Goal: After this lesson you can explain the triangular trade and how the sugar plantation was built on the forced labor of enslaved people. Subject: Social Studies | Run time: about 7 minutes

Quick recall

Last time we traced sugar's path to the New World. Two quick questions. One: who brought cane to the New World, and when? Columbus, in 1493 (Mintz, 1985). Two: which 1640s island set the Caribbean plantation model? Barbados (Williams, 1994).

Why this matters

The demand for cheap sugar in Europe set in motion a system of trade across the Atlantic that moved goods, people, and profit in a loop. At the center of that loop was the forced transport of millions of enslaved Africans, and the conditions were brutal. We are going to look at it clearly, because the cheap sugar came from it.

The idea

The system is often called the triangular trade, a three-leg loop across the Atlantic (Williams, 1994). On the first leg, ships left Europe for the West African coast carrying manufactured goods, textiles, weapons, and rum. On the second leg, the Middle Passage, ships carried enslaved Africans to the Americas, packed into terrible conditions on a crossing of six to eight weeks, on which about 15 percent of people died (Williams, 1994). On the third leg, the ships returned to Europe loaded with sugar, rum, and molasses, often at a profit of 100 to 200 percent (Williams, 1994). Now see where the money went. On a Barbados plantation around 1750, the single largest startup cost was not the land or the mill. It was the enslaved people themselves, who made up about half of the total investment (Williams, 1994; Schwartz, 2004). The system treated human beings as property and as the main capital of the business. And see who was there. On the Caribbean sugar islands around 1750, enslaved Africans were about 85 percent of the population (Schwartz, 2004). The islands were majority enslaved, run by a small number of planters and overseers. That is the human reality behind the falling price of sugar in the last lesson on economics.

Picture it

Picture a triangle drawn over the Atlantic. One line runs from a European port down to West Africa. A second line, the Middle Passage, runs from West Africa across to a Caribbean island. The third line runs back up to Europe, heavy with sugar. The map on this lesson traces that triangle. Every barrel of sugar on the third leg sat on the suffering of the second.

Remember this

The fact to carry out: the sugar plantation ran on the triangular trade and the Middle Passage, in which enslaved people were treated as the main capital of the business, about half of a plantation's startup cost, and made up about 85 percent of island populations (Williams, 1994; Schwartz, 2004). Cheap sugar and the slave trade were the same system.

Quick check

Quick check. On a 1750 sugar plantation, what was the single largest startup cost? The enslaved people themselves, about half of the total investment (Williams, 1994; Schwartz, 2004).

Key Takeaways

• The triangular trade was a three-leg Atlantic loop: goods to Africa, enslaved people to the Americas, and sugar back to Europe (Williams, 1994).
• The Middle Passage carried enslaved Africans in brutal conditions, with about 15 percent dying on the crossing (Williams, 1994).
• Enslaved people were about half of a sugar plantation's startup cost, treated as property and capital (Williams, 1994; Schwartz, 2004).
• Around 1750, enslaved Africans were about 85 percent of the Caribbean sugar islands' population (Schwartz, 2004).

Sources

• Mintz, S. W. (1985). Sweetness and power: The place of sugar in modern history. Penguin Books.
• Schwartz, S. B. (Ed.). (2004). Tropical Babylons: Sugar and the making of the Atlantic World, 1450-1680. University of North Carolina Press.
• Williams, E. (1994). Capitalism and slavery. University of North Carolina Press.