Commercial Trade in the Caribbean and The Exploitative Transatlantic Slave Trade

Student’s Name
Professor’s Name
Course
Date
Commercial Trade in the Caribbean The Caribbean is the region in the Americas that is made up of  the Caribbean Sea and the islands of Barbados, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic, among others. The region first fell under the Spanish colony, through explorer Christopher Columbus. The Spanish dominated the region through the 15^th and 16^th centuries before the entry of other European powers including Frace and England. Before the invasion by the European colonies,  the Caribbean was covered by impenetrable forests and thick savannah that were later replaced with new forms of crops such as cocoa, ginger, cotton, tobacco, and sugarcane (Pons 95). The establishment of agricultural colonies in the Caribbean, coupled with the trans-Atlantic slave trade led to the emergence of new global trade networks, powered by the growing demand for slaves to work in the newly established sugarcane and tobacco plantations. The Caribbean -Europe Trade Network One of the leading commodities that led to the emergence of the Caribbean-European trade network was sugar. Its production and exportation to the European market contributed significantly to the emergence of the trade network. The prevalent use of tea among the poor, the middle class, and the rich as a beverage in Europe and especially among the English led to the rapid expansion in the production and exportation of sugar from the Caribbean to Europe. The sugar consumption in Europe quadrupled in Europe in the era between 1600 and 1700, leading also to the quadrupling of sugar production in the Caribbean that had become the main source of the product for the European nations (Pons 95).  The mono-cultivation of sugar in most of the Caribbean islands opened new trade networks that allowed the importation of other food substances into the islands. Apart from the English, the French also provided a robust market for the Caribbean sugar, opening up new trade networks between the Caribbean and Europe. Caribean-North America Trade Network The large-scale production of sugarcane also led to the widespread production of molasses in the region. The molasses produced from the Caribbean islands and also those smuggled from the French island were exported to North Americas where its demand had grown tremendously, leading to the emergence of new trade networks to North America. As pointed out by Pons, the North Americans needed the molasses for the production of spirits that were later traded with the African slaves, thus leading to the emergence of other trade networks from the North Americas to the African West Coast (111). Trade Between Africa and Europe The Exploitative Transatlantic Slave Trade The Atlantic slave trade marked the beginning of the exchanges between the two continents, Africa and Europe, where the British established trade routes that continue to be used to date to transport slaves and other goods. The Europeans imported manufactured goods such as firearms, luxury goods, jewelry, alcohol, and textile into the African continent in exchange for slaves and other valuables such as gold (M’baye 608). The establishment of slave ports by the Europeans at the West African Coa...