Triangle Trade & Social Change (College Board AP® US History)

What was the Triangle Trade?

This impactful trade structure existed between the 16th and 19th centuries. Goods, services, ideas and enslaved human beings moved between North America, South America, Africa, and Europe.

Triangle Trade

• The routes were known as the Triangle Trade (or the Triangular Trade) because the route formed a triangle that connected three geographic areas: Europe, Western Africa, and the Americas

• Portugal, Spain, and England had exhausted the supply of indentured servants and enslaved Indigenous labor

  • Slave traders and tribal leaders captured people, abducted them from Africa, and transported them to the Americas

  • Enslaved Africans became the labor force used in the Americas 

• The Triangle Trade became a cycle that repeated itself over and over again. Once ships completed the third leg of a journey, the first leg of a new journey began

• The first leg was from Europe to Western Africa

  • On this leg, they transported metals, brass dishes, knives, tools, textiles, firearms, ammunition and alcoholic beverages 

  • These were exchanged with tribal leaders for captured people

• The second leg was Africa to Brazil or the West Indies

  • On this leg, they transported captured Africans who became enslaved people and worked on the plantations

• The third leg was North American colonies to Europe and Europe to the North American colonies

  • On this leg, raw materials grown on the plantations were transported from North America to Europe 

  • Manufactured goods went from Europe to North America

• While not considered a fourth leg of the journey, North American colonies also traded goods with Africa and the Caribbean

  • They exported rum, gunpowder, iron, tools and cloth to Africa

  • They exported fish, meat, flour and lumber to the Caribbean

  • They imported sugar and molasses from the Caribbean in return

The Middle Passage

• The Middle Passage is the name for how slave traders transported more than 12,500,000 abducted Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas

• The trafficking of enslaved Africans during the Middle Passage was the second leg of the Triangle Trade

• The voyage across the Middle Passage lasted about 80 days

Conditions onboard the ships

Source: https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47da-7518-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99 

• Slave traders packed people on ships that had wooden platforms between decks

• Captured people:

  • were stacked close together 

  • had little space to sit up or move around

  • had to suffer high temperatures 

  • had little moving air or ventilation on board

  • Had no facilities for bathing

    • Buckets were the only form of sanitation 

  • Could only access a small amount of available water

• There were separate areas for men and women

  • Men were chained or shackled together

  • Most women were unshackled but confined to a small space

• Children were allowed to run around the ship

• Around 15 to 25% of the captives died during each journey, due to:

  • sickness, infections, and mental illness: dysentery, smallpox, depression and despair

  • serious injury or abuse: whippings, use of thumbscrews, thrown overboard to prevent outbreaks of disease

  • suicide: jumping overboard or refusing to eat 

• Some African captives attempted to rise up against slave ship crews

  • The revolts were often unsuccessful

  • Revolts held the possibility of death for captive people and the crew

  • Captive people who survived were treated harshly

Mercantilism

• Mercantilism was a system based on the economic link between a home nation and its colonies

• Scottish philosopher Adam Smith created the term “mercantile system” in 1776

• The mercantile system was used between the 16th century and the 18th century

  • It aimed to enrich the country by encouraging exports and restricting imports

• Large populations in the colonies symbolized wealth because they

  • supplied home nation with a labor force

  • supported business and commerce within a nation

  • sustained a home nation’s military forces 

• Mercantilism also argued the world had a limited amount of wealth because there was a limited supply of gold and silver available

  • The amount of gold and silver a nation had represented a significant measure of that nation’s wealth

• Nations began to locate, collect, and keep as much gold and silver as possible

• Colonies existed to provide economic benefits to their home nations

• According to mercantilism, the connection between a home nation and its colonies should  

  • be monopolistic 

  • always favor the home nation

• Raw materials came from a colony to a home nation, and finished goods went from a home nation to a colony

  • If a colony’s resources did not allow a home nation to make a profit, that colony was considered useless

The Consumer Revolution

• The Consumer Revolution occurred between 1600−1750 and was a time when members of Europe’s noble and middle classes bought large amounts of consumer goods

• Manufacturers who produced goods, and merchants who sold them, had higher social status than their workers

• In England and other parts of Europe, nobles, professionals, skilled artisans  and some wealthy farmers began purchasing more and more 

  • clothing

  • furniture

  • tableware

  • curtains

  • pictures/artwork

  • cutlery

  • items from colonies

• Some historians believe that households could afford these products because men, women, and children all worked

• Most peasants, unskilled laborers, migrants and enslaved people did not have the financial resources to buy these types of items

Actions and effects during the Consumer Revolution 

• Merchants and manufacturers kept wages low

  • This meant workers could not afford to buy the goods they made

  • More luxury goods were available to export for profit

• Members of the noble and middle classes purchased large amounts of consumer goods

  • This allowed European nations to expand their empires

  • Plantation enslavement and exploitation of Indigenous peoples increased in the Americas

• Nations removed resources from colonies

  • This led to colonies experiencing limited economic growth

  • Colonists faced punishments for trying to avoid trading rules