We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Africans and the Industrial Revolution in England Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2009
THE PROBLEM
IN THE LATE 1930s AND EARLY 1940s the contribution of African people to the economic development of parts of Western Europe featured in the work of four scholars of African descent in the Americas. In a book published in 1938, C. L. R. James made some brief remarks on the link between French industrial progress in the eighteenth century and the French American colony of Saint Domingo, modern Haiti:
In 1789 the French West Indian colony of San Domingo supplied two-thirds of the overseas trade of France and was the greatest individual market for the European slave-trade. It was an integral part of the economic life of the age, the greatest colony of the world, the pride of France, and the envy of every other imperialist nation. The whole structure rested on the labour of half-a-million [African] slaves.
He asserted that virtually all the industries that developed in France in the eighteenth century originated from the production of manufactures for the slave trade in Western Africa or for export to the French American colonies: “The capital from the slave trade fertilized them … ”
Limited to a few pages, James did not pursue the subject in any detail. That was not the objective of his study. His book was intended to demonstrate that enslaved Africans in the Americas did not accept slavery passively. Confronted with all the instruments of physical and psychological violence at the disposal of the slaveholding class, they employed their mental and physical energy to resist slavery.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
