One thing I have learned recently is that the value of the wool which is often seen as the "cash crop" which seeded the Industrial Revolution in England after 1850 could only have been created by more acres of grazing land than exist in all of England. Where then, is the source of this huge required investment? In fact it was in large part from the sugar plantations of Barbados where enslaved Africans had been subjected to inhuman toil and severe early mortality for fabulous material gain at the hands of their British taskmasters for two and a half centuries beginning in 1600. It is only by meticulous study of the history of West Africa beginning before the time of Columbus that one can understand how the Industrial Revolution, indeed, how our modern life with the convenience and health we so take for granted, ever came about in the first place. Virtually everything we have came from slavery. Yes, Black History is continuous, complex, and virtually completely unknown to almost every American in 2024.
One thing I have learned recently is that the value of the wool which is often seen as the "cash crop" which seeded the Industrial Revolution in England after 1850 could only have been created by more acres of grazing land than exist in all of England. Where then, is the source of this huge required investment? In fact it was in large part from the sugar plantations of Barbados where enslaved Africans had been subjected to inhuman toil and severe early mortality for fabulous material gain at the hands of their British taskmasters for two and a half centuries beginning in 1600. It is only by meticulous study of the history of West Africa beginning before the time of Columbus that one can understand how the Industrial Revolution, indeed, how our modern life with the convenience and health we so take for granted, ever came about in the first place. Virtually everything we have came from slavery. Yes, Black History is continuous, complex, and virtually completely unknown to almost every American in 2024.
Yes. There is a revealing Atlantic World history around cotton. The same can be said of sugar. You may be interested in this article: "The Barbaric History of Sugar in America" https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/sugar-slave-trade-slavery.html
Thank you for sharing!
I'm so glad it was helpful! Thank you for reading!