Few Americans know this real story. They think their ancestors were all free eager colonists coming over here to create a brave new world.
Read Smuggler Nation, just to wake up. Then go to Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, and Empires of the Atlantic World, but you need your thinking cap on.
Then go right into Colonists in Bondage for the piece du resistance.
At one time at least seventy percent of those convicted at The Old Bailey were sent to America (all were white).... Back cover.
Where do you think the rest might have gone? How about Australia?
Only after that, read the mountain of mostly bull about how bad only negro slavery was here in North America.
Guess what? Another actual history bomb then drops:
Only about one tenth of all negro slaves were ever even sent to North America. Nine tenths were sent to the West Indies and South America.
Believe me, when you read the fuller accounts, North America was a virtual garden spot for the relatively few Negro slaves sent here, as well as for the white indentured servants, political prisoners (Irish, jacobites, quakers, etc), and convicts sent both places too, compared to either the Caribbean or South America!
Very few white prisoners turned into Captain Blood! Most of them died a lot faster than the negro slaves sent to the Indies and South America. They couldn't take the tropics. That is why, over time, negroes commanded twice the price of white labor in the Indies and South America.
Very few white prisoners turned into Captain Blood! Most of them died a lot faster than the negro slaves sent to the Indies and South America. They couldn't take the tropics. That is why, over time, negroes commanded twice the price of white labor in the Indies and South America.
The negroes sent here were actually able to live in conditions that allowed them to procreate! Jefferson has a nice account of how his slaves are incorporated into his capitalist nail manufacturing business, and how he made money on the sale of his slaves' children, realizing he estimated 5% a year on them, all told. "Unmasking Thomas Jefferson", Smithsonian Magazine.
That was not the case either in the West Indies or South America, where they were worked to death without procreation privileges, because it was more profitable to import more than to pay for their maintenance.
Don't take my word for it, see J H Elliott, Bailyn, Smith, and a myriad of other highly respected sources. Before 1776, Teaching Company video lecture course, also very good.
Smell the coffee.
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