1. AP World History Ch 18 Lecture Notes The Atlantic System
Europeans first began growing tobacco on
large plantations
 Chartered companies were private investors
with trade monopolies in colonies
 Dutch West India Company – private trading
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› Seized sugar-producing areas in Brazil
› Shipped slaves to Brazil
› Paid stockholders huge dividends
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2. Expansion of sugar plantations = sharp
increase in the African slave trade
 Barbados best illustrates the dramatic
transformation of the sugar plantations
 Indentured servants cost ½ as much as
slaves
 The cultivation and production of sugar
required farming AND factory production
 France and England expanded Caribbean
holdings by attacking older Spanish colonies
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3. Sugar plantations caused environmental
damage - soil exhaustion & deforestation
 “grass gangs” slave children doing simple,
lighter work
 90% of population was slaves on islands
 “Plant-o-cracy” = a small # of rich men who
owned the land and slaves
 Men outnumbered women – twice as many
men were imported
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4. 
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“Drivers” were male slaves over other slaves
Slaves worked to escape punishment
Manumission – slaves purchase or receive
freedom
Life expectancy of Brazilian male slaves =23 yr
Most slaves died of disease
Slaves lost their African culture traditions by
› learning colonial languages
› Converting to Christianity
› Mixing slaves from different parts of Africa
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5. Jamaican maroons– first to sign treaties
recognizing their independent status
 Companies bought insurance to reduce the
risks of overseas trading
 Mercantilism = a government policy that
protects trade and demands gold & silver
 English Navigation Acts = confine trade to
English ships and cargo
 Atlantic Circuit= clockwise network of sea/
trade routes
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6. 
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Second leg – Middle Passage = transporting
slaves across the Atlantic to plantations
Principal cause of mortality on ships = disease
Africans trades slaves to Europeans for guns
hardware and textiles
Greatest source of slaves for the Atlantic trade
was from Angola
Bight of Biafra – slaves were kidnapped form
interior
Atlantic African slave trade was a partnership
between European and African elites
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7. Most slaves in the Islamic world were
soldiers and servants
 Islamic law prohibited the enslavement of
Muslims
 Women for concubines and servants –
majority of African slaves in the Islamic
world
 Islamic trade was MUCH smaller
 Europeans gained far more wealth from the
Atlantic slave trade than Africans
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8. 
Population loss in Africa as a results
› Areas near the Slave Coast lost most
› Even at peak, the population of Africa remained
large
› New foods from the Americas helped offset
population losses due to the slave trade
› Loss was reduced by the fact that more men were
traded into slavery
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