This is a curious scholarly debate....

For the hundred years leading up to Eric Williams of Trinidad publishing "Capitalism and Slavery", by the University of North Carolina, the conventional historical view was that Britain's abolition of slavery came from altruistic motives, and went against the economics of the time. In other words, Britain allowed humanitarian motives to over-ride the profit factor in abolishing slavery. Williams, who later went on to lead Trinidad into independence, argued in his 1944 work, that Britain only abolished slavery when the British West Indian colonies were no longer economically valuable to Britain.

This work was widely accepted in the US as a change in the way of thinking with regards to humanitarianism vs economics with regards to slavery. But curiously, this work was not published in the UK until 20 years later, and it was not well-received, probably because it attacked certain widely-held views. Seymour Drescher in his "Econocide" and Roger Anstley then published "refutations" of Williams' "Capitalism and Slavery" in the 1970s. Interestingly, these "refutations" seem to be accepted in the UK, while across the Atlantic in the US and the Caribbean, the thesis of Williams is more widely accepted.

I'm puzzled as to why Drescher's work would be valued as the "winner", so I've decided to purchase a copy, and to compare his arguments to those of Williams. Already, I'm seeing one big flaw in Drescher's "Econocide", which seems to have its roots in how differently Britain and the Caribbean see the history of slavery.



Drescher is an American historian, but he seems to take a view widely accepted in Britain that the abolition of the slave trade in 1807 is a much more important landmark than the abolition of slavery in 1833 (1838), while in the Caribbean history, the abolition of the slave trade earns barely a footnote, because the Emancipation Act of 1833, and the eventual freedom of the slaves in 1838, is much more important. So, Drescher, in his "Econocide", restricts his study to the period of 1770-1823, which, to me, is deeply flawed, because the actual emancipation movement in Britain didn't actually started until 1823, until Thomas Fowell Buxton. Before that, abolitionists were concerned primarily with the abolition of the slave trade, and then amelioration of the condition of slaves, and it was only when the latter failed that campaigners such as Elizabeth Heyrick forced the male abolitionists to come off the fence and call for complete emancipation.

I've only just started...I will let off more steam as I read on.

Okay, in this title bout, let me deal with the issues round by round....

ROUND ONE - OVERPRODUCTION

In "Capitalism and Slavery", Eric Williams stated that, "overproduction in 1807 demanded abolition; overproduction in 1833 demanded emancipation" p152). While that is great use of language, it's not a statement that Williams meant to be taken literally, and unfortunately Drescher seems to have done so. That said, Drescher fails to convince us that overproduction did not occur by 1807. In the 18th century, the main sugar-producing colonies were Jamaica and Barbados, and to a lesser extent St Kitts and Antigua. By 1807, in the Caribbean, Britain had added the Guianas, Trinidad, Grenada, Tobago, St Vincent and st Lucia. But even more crucially, Britain was no longer dependent on slave plantations of the Caribbean for their sugar - they were now getting sugar from the East, which did not have slaves. Drescher supplies stats which he curiously ignores which show that East Indian beet sugar was catching up with cane sugar. In 1801-5, Britain imported 3,333,000 tons of cane sugar from the West Indies, and 3,577,000 from the rest of the world (p80). And this is in the lead-up to the 1807 abolition of the slave trade....

So, we can see from the above that Britain was no longer dependent on cane sugar to provide sugar for British housewives, and could now afford to be humanitarians, and abolish the slave trade. That was the point of Williams' argument. Drescher has not refuted those claims, but has actually unconsciously substantiated those arguments with those stats.

Also, by stopping his study at 1823, Drescher only focusses on the slave trade, and doesn't analyse the more important issue - the ending of slavery itself in 1833 (1838). My data tells me that sugar-slave plantations in the Caribbean went into rapid decline from 1823-33. Could that be the real reason why Drescher did not extend his study to 1833? Was he aware that his "refutation" would have been refuted if he did?

ROUND ONE TO WILLIAMS....

Fascinating topic shivfan. It's just surprising to find it hidden away here on the History of expression/Literature/Non-fiction board. It might maybe have been better posted on History of people/Civilisation and Community.

I can't claim to know too much about the history of slavery in the Caribbean but I have done some study of the continental North American variant. I would imagine that there are quite a few similarities between the two and not to mention many differences. I also tend to agree with the suggestion that the slightly nauseating UK habit of patting itself on the back with regard to the abolition of the slave trade and of slavery itself is something which needs to be questioned.

Writing about 20 years before Eric Williams was the American historian Ulrich Bonnell Phillips who caused a stir with his works on American slavery. Phillips’ made an unusual case by suggesting that American slavery was unprofitable economically while it was benign socially. This was in contrast with historians such as Kenneth Stampp who argued that slavery was economically efficient but harsh as an institution and also with the likes of Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman who would say that slavery was profitable but also mild as an institution. A complex issue.

Thanks for that, Vizzer....

Williams also looks at the economies of the two sets of colonies, and their relationship with the mother country. The West Indies was ideal - these island provided the raw material (sugar), which was then refined in England, and sold locally and abroad. The slave economies in North America were mainly in the cotton industry, which provided the raw materials for the growing cotton industrial sector in Manchester, etc. However, the North American colonies tended to produce industries and economies that were in direct conflict with those in England, and that was really at the heart of the conflict that led to the American War of Independence.

Back to the title fight....

ROUND TWO - INTRODUCTION

In his Introduction, David Brion Davis makes some derogatory comments about the nationality of Williams, and his race, implying that because of both, he would be unable to present a coherent, unemotional assessment of the debate. I found these comments to be in bad taste, especially since Davis made no reference to Drescher's professionalism being affected by his race and nationality too. They were condescending comments which say more about the person who made them, than they did about the person they were said about.

I have read halfway through "Capitalism and Slavery", and it's about 200 pages long, and I still have not come across the section referred to by Drescher. It seems that Drescher accepts the thesis by Williams that slavery and slave trade played a major role in fuelling the Industrial Revolution, and were very important to the economy of a growing Britain. All that is the main part of "Capitalism and Slavery", which is in the first half of the book, supplied with ample references, statistics, etc. Drescher accepts all of these arguments, which represented a new view of the anti-slavery movement, and Williams deserves credit for introducing this new approach.

However, it seems that Davis and Drescher cannot accept the new ground broken by Williams in this regard, and continue to harp on how well Drescher refuted and destroyed Williams' decline theory. No mention is made whatsoever by these two historians about the work done by Williams in the first half of the book, and the conclusions drawn about the slave trade and slavery prior to 1776, which were accepted by Drescher.

I will later move on to Drescher, and how he tackles Williams' decline theory....

In the meantime....

DRESCHER AND HIS TRAINER DAVIS WERE DEDUCTED A POINT FOR A LOW BLOW - ROUND TWO TO WILLIAMS....

ROUND THREE - REFUTATION

"The attack falls into three phases: the attack on the slave trade, the attack of slavery, the attack on the preferential sugar duties. The slave trade was abolished in 1807, slavery in 1833, the sugar preference in 1846. The three events are inseparable." Williams, p136

This alone shows that the claims by Drescher and Davis that "Econocide" refuted the decline theory are false, because Drescher has only included 1807 in the scope of his 1770-1820 study. The slave trade is the only landmark in his study, and he's failed to cover the abolition of slavery itself, and the final removal of the protectionist policy that guaranteed West Indian sugar a market in England.

Drescher builds his entire thesis on the theory that the abolition of the slave trade closed off African labour to the British colonies (Drescher, p16). But that is a false assumption to make, as I will show in subsequent rounds. The main British sugar producing colonies already had enough slave labour to function effectively for another generation.

But why is important that Drescher should've widened the scope of his study beyond 1820 to 1833 and beyond?

1) "It was not until 1823 that emancipation became the avowed aim of the abolitionists." Williams, p182. Up to then, the main focus of the abolitionists had been the slave trade, not slavery itself.

2) Drescher's own stats show that the UK's imports and exports from the British West Indies (BWI) declined from 1818-22 (25.7 & 9.9%) to 1828-32 (20.1 & 7.0%) p19. BWI share of British trade declined from 20.9% in 1808-12 to 15.9% in 1818-22 (p21). The BWI share of British imports fell from 30.3% in 1808-12 to 25.8% in 1818-22 (p22). The BWI share of British exports fell from 14% in 1808-12 to 9.7% in 1818-22 (p23). Surely those stats should've told Drescher that they were worth analysis?

3) Drescher admits that decline of the BWI followed the abolition of the slave trade, and that devaluation came into effect after the end of the Napoleonic Wars (p20). That fits into the Williams decline thesis, which has 1833 and 1846 as the end product, not 1807.

In subsequent rounds, I will look at why abolishing the slave trade did not seriously affect the economy of the slave plantation, and was not "Econocide" by any stretch of the imagination....

ROUND THREE TO WILLIAMS....

ROUND FOUR - FOREIGN COMPETITION

Williams has maintained that the rise of St Domingue as a French sugar colony in the 1780s meant that the economic importance of Jamaica and Barbados declined. That was also the view of a lot of British West Indian planters, government officials, etc at the time, and why the planters in the BWI were so happy about the demise of St Domingue in what later became known as the Haitian Revolution. Williams, pp113-4.

However, Drescher has used statistics to show that in the 1780s most of the BWI sugar was sent to Britain, and hardly any of it went to Europe, and similarly St Domingue's sugar went to France, and hardly any of it went to Britain. That situation remained relatively unchanged throughout the Haitian Revolution in the 1790s, and after Haiti became officially independent in 1804. Drescher, pp46-9.

IMHO, Drescher wins that argument....

However, in ending his analysis in the early 1820s, Drescher misses the key point of Williams argument, which is that the British interest in ending the slavery connection in the British West Indies was because the BWI were no longer as economically important as they used to be, which can be witnessed by the growing British trade with slave-grown sugar in Brazil and Cuba.

As Thomas Babington Lord Macaulay said in 1845, "My especial obligations in respect to negro slavery ceased when slavery itself ceased in that part of the world for the welfare of which I, as a member of this House, was accountable." Williams, p193.

Even though the new members of parliament from Manchester opposed slavery as brutal before 1833, "After 1833, the Manchester capitalists were all for free trade in sugar, which meant slave-grown sugar." Williams, p156.

"For after 1807 the British West Indians were denied the slave trade, and after 1833 slave labour." Williams, p188. But at the same time, these same abolitionists were calling for the total removal of the preference on BWI sugar, so that the BWI sugar planters, now with paid labourers, had to compete unfavourably with sugar grown by the free slave labour used by Brazilian and Cuban plantations.

"In 1843, British firms handled three-eighths of the sugar, one-half of the coffee, five-eighths of the cotton exported from Pernambuco, Rio de Janeiro and Bahia." Williams, p172.

So, we can see that while the abolitionists successfully called for the ending of slavery in the BWI when the Caribbean sugar colonies were no longer important, they were happy to increase their trade with the slave plantations of Brazil, indicating that economics still held sway over humanitarian issues where a stance against slavery was concerned....

In summary, Williams' point about Britain gravitating towards cheaper sugar regardless of production methods still remains strong, given the growing trade with Brazil in the 1840s, I think Drescher deserves credit for pointing out that the competition with St Domingue was more imagined than real. It is just a pity that Drescher did not try to take on Williams' more important point of the trade with Brazil and Cuba. That shows the flaw in ending your study at 1823, before the real events took place. But because of Drescher's analysis of St Domingue, I have given the round to him....

ROUND FOUR TO DRESCHER....

I will look at how the abolition of the slave trade affecting the slave colonies in the next round....

ROUND FIVE - ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE TRADE

Drescher builds his argument around the assertion that when the slave trade was abolished in 1807, Britain's wealth was at its height, and so was the wealth of the sugar colonies of the Caribbean. His argument follows that due to huge humanitarian pressure, the British govt did the right thing, and abolished slavery, running the risk of committing "econocide". He then states that slavery and sugar in the British West Indies (BWI) went into terminal decline, as a result of this bold humanitarian move (Drescher, p142, p160). However, Drescher makes these bold statements without backing them up with facts.

Was that actually the case? And how important was the actual slave trade economically when compared to the production of cane sugar in the Caribbean itself?

Drescher admits in a passing reference that the capital invested in the slave trade was a small fraction of the amount invested in the production of slave-grown products (Drescher, p25). In the years leading up to the abolition of the slave trade in 1807, the importation of slaves had been declining, from 44,800 annually in the period 1791-1800 to 35,000 annually from 1801-7 (Drescher, p27). Drescher's own stats show a gradual decline in the importation of slaves.

That leads on to the next point, which was ignored by Drescher...the abolition of the slave trade DID NOT severely affected the sugar-slave system in the BWI. Drescher admits that the slave trade itself did not seriously affect the economy of slave-trading ports of Liverpool, Bristol and Glasgow, who just switched their trade to shuttle trade, i.e. directly trading with the British Caribbean for sugar, cutting out the West African leg of the triangular trade (Drescher, p75). Williams earlier made the point that when Bristol lost its hegemony to Liverpool in the slave trade, they had already switched to a shuttle trade. In fact, in 1787 30 Bristol ships were engaged in the slave trade, while 72 Bristol ships just traded directly with the BWI for sugar (Williams, p61). So clearly, the abolition of the slave trade had little effect on Bristol, who already had more ships engaged in trading for sugar alone, than in the slave trade. Even in Liverpool, the slave trade was of declining importance. In 1792, one-twelfth of ships were engaging in slave-trading, while in 1807 it had declined to one-twenty-fourth (Williams, p162). These are stats that Drescher failed to refute. The highest point of the slave trade was in 1791-2, a point never reached again (Drescher, p117). It could be argued that the slave trade was a slowly declining business after that. In the last decade of the 18th century, the capital invested in the slave trade was less than five per cent of Britain's total export trade, while in 1807 it had declined to 1.25 per cent (Williams, p167).


Wilberforce and his colleagues had expressed the hope that once the slave trade was abolished, slavery itself in the Caribbean would eventually decline and fade away. That did not happen....

Drescher makes much of the slave trade increasing the slave population in the British Caribbean in the 15 years prior to 1807 (Drescher, p91). In fact, the slave population in the BWI actually also increased from 585,000 in 1805 755,000 in 1814, after the slave trade was abolished (Drescher, p34). Again, these are Drescher's own stats, so why does he ignore them? (Drescher, p36) Drescher claims that there was a labour shortage in Jamaica (Drescher, p64). But nothing could be further from the truth. He draws on some spurious claims that a lot of land in Jamaica was still to be converted into sugar plantations, but ignores the fact that most of this land was either hilly, mountainous terrain unsuitable for sugar, or in the hands of the rebellious Maroons (Drescher, p93). The reality is that the abolition of the slave trade did not seriously affect the production of sugar in the Caribbean, because the BWI colonies already had enough slaves. In the first half of a decade of the 19th century, Jamaica was actually re-exporting slaves to Trinidad and the Spanish Caribbean (Drescher, pp93-4). No labour shortage then....

So, the abolition of the slave trade DID NOT spell econocide for the British slave plantations of the West Indies...sugar production went on as normal. This why Drescher's study should've gone up to 1833 and beyond, because the 1823-33 period was of critical importance.

ROUND FIVE TO WILLIAMS

I will next look at issues of monopoly and trade with sugar and cotton-producing countries, which still had slaves.

Quote :

Thomas Babington Lord Macaulay said in 1845, "My especial obligations in respect to negro slavery ceased when slavery itself ceased in that part of the world for the welfare of which I, as a member of this House, was accountable."

A strange and somewhat cold statement which (at first reading) is actually difficult to make grammatical sense of. Once one has got one's head around it, however, it does fit with the Utilitarian ethos of the Whig governments of the 1830s and 1840s. The same governments which freed slaves and emancipated catholics etc were those which also instituted workhouses. Utilitarianism was all about pragmatic governance and had little to do with human kindness.

To stop his study in 1823 certainly seems to be a case of Drescher missing the main event.

Shivfan wrote:

Drescher makes much of the slave trade increasing the slave population in the British Caribbean in the 15 years prior to 1807 (Drescher, p91). In fact, the slave population in the BWI actually also increased from 585,000 in 1805 755,000 in 1814, after the slave trade was abolished (Drescher, p34). Again, these are Drescher's own stats, so why does he ignore them? (Drescher, p36) Drescher claims that there was a labour shortage in Jamaica (Drescher, p64). But nothing could be further from the truth. He draws on some spurious claims that a lot of land in Jamaica was still to be converted into sugar plantations, but ignores the fact that most of this land was either hilly, mountainous terrain unsuitable for sugar, or in the hands of the rebellious Maroons (Drescher, p93). The reality is that the abolition of the slave trade did not seriously affect the production of sugar in the Caribbean, because the BWI colonies already had enough slaves. In the first half of a decade of the 19th century, Jamaica was actually re-exporting slaves to Trinidad and the Spanish Caribbean (Drescher, pp93-4). No labour shortage then....

It was a similar story in mainland North America where the abolition of the slave trade in 1808 seemingly acted as a spur to slave-owners to encourage reproduction among their slaves. With no new slaves now coming in from Africa etc slave-owners had to ensure the internal supply of slaves. U B Phillips even goes so far as to say that the welfare of slaves improved significantly as a result. He suggests, for example, that physical punishment of slaves was generally minimised because a maimed slave was of reduced value to the owner. Similarly the status of female slaves was supposedly improved because they were after all the ones who would give birth to and nourish the next generation of slaves. And of course the owners would want strong and healthy slaves so the diet of slaves (both male and female) is also said to have greatly improved during the first half of the 19th Century.