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Eric Williams Industrial Revolution

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Slavery is the ownership of one human by another. Slavery is the atrocious system that basically built our American economy. Many Americans, European-Americans, and African-Americans, forced other people through this cruel system. Slavery has lasted through history and is not even extinct today. In the past slaves were people who were often taken as prisoners and enslaved. In some places there were limits to how cruelly saves could be treated but it was very difficult to enforce these limits. There were several slave rebellions but they were eventually crushed and slavery continued. Although slavery was becoming important in the colonies, nevertheless it was disappearing in European countries who were in fact the colonial powers.
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What Eric Williams is saying has been challenged by Roger Anstey and Seymour Dresher, historian and author, who argue that profits from slave trade were never enough to be a significant source of capital for the industrial revolution (http://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences-and-law/political-science-and-government/military-affairs-nonnaval/slave-trade). When the industrial revolution in Britain began, the country no longer needed slave based goods. Britain was able to advance from new systems which depended upon high efficiency through free trade and labor. The English towns such as Manchester and Sanford became industrial centers of world importance and cotton replaced sugar, becoming the main produce of the British economy. England began to steer away from using slave labor as the basis of its primary economic system. Instead of trading with Africans for slaves, they traded for Natural Resources. As opposed to discussing the economic benefits of slavery, abolitionists highlighted the economic profits of a free labor system. A wide range of Europeans profited from slave trade and some people even argued that the slave trade provided political defense against European rivals. Movements in Europe against slavery used economic factors to …show more content…

Meanwhile, in Europe, slavery was becoming less relevant and necessary for these nations to succeed. European nations were also more advanced in technology and such than the Americas. Slavery was a horrendous process for various reasons. Slavery was wrong because basically it abolished the right to be human, you can’t own yourself, you can't speak up for yourself, you can't even think for yourself. Slavery is evil, it has been around for hundreds of thousands of years and it had had a good sense of corruption on humanity, racism for example. Slaves were beaten and there was no justice for them. They were forced to work long hours with no pay, almost no food and little water. Enslaving people was a hazardous process that the Americans and Europeans were completing, but it was an act of desperation and selfishness because these humans did not want to do work for

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