Servants, Hard Labour, and Slaves

by Dr. Alan Rice

When the European powers wanted to get wealthy by exploiting the land of the Americas they had a problem. They were unable to use the people who had always lived there (the indigenous population) because the Europeans had killed most of them through warfare and the diseases the Europeans brought with them. So instead they used people taken from their own continent. These people were taken under a contract that bound them to work for the plantation masters for many years on very low wages. Such workers were called indentured labourers. Such labourers included Scottish and Irish prisoners from the Civil War period of the 1650s who were sent as virtual slaves to Barbados.

However, indentured labour was considered inefficient. Even though it was cheap, relative to slave labour it was expensive. Some argued the European indentured labourers were not suited to the tropical conditions of the Americas, though this was unlikely.

When Britain brought slavery to an end in the Caribbean in 1838, they ironically returned to the system of indentured labour to work the plantations.

Indentured labourers were rapidly replaced by enslaved Africans. This meant a forced transportation of people unknown before or since. The movement of Africans to the Americas dwarfed European migration to the Americas, making the African the typical migrant before 1820. Over 8.5m Africans (compared to 2.5m Europeans) crossed the Atlantic in this period. Most were put to work in the sugar fields of the Caribbean and Brazil. There, horrendous conditions meant whole populations of slaves died and had to be replaced every decade.

Slaves not only worked in plantation fields, but also as domestic servants and in trades that supported the plantation. Their various tasks and skills meant their owners valued them differently. On an Antiguan plantation in 1782, Prince a boiler in the sugar factory was valued at £150, Toby a carter and field worker at £130 and field hands such as Robin or Stepney, at £90 and £85 respectively. Even "ruptured" slaves had their price Jacob at £25 and the pensioned off Jupiter at £6.

Those who defended the slave plantation economy described how owners had to feed, clothe and shelter their slaves and how this made the slaves better off than labourers in the factories in Europe since the factory workers' very small wages hardly kept them in food and clothes and shelter.

However, slave narratives told a completely different story. They showed how food and clothing were inadequate on the plantation, particularly for the old and the infirm and violence was widespread. Both free and slave labourers from the 17th to the 19th century were often subject to extreme disciplinary punishments that exemplify the brutality of early capitalism. This is best illustrated on the slave ships themselves where punishment irons and whippings were used on the sailors as well as the enslaved Africans and in early factories in Britain where long hours and physical abuse mimicked the harsh conditions on the plantations.

When Britain brought slavery to an end in the Caribbean in 1838, they ironically returned to the system of indentured labour to work the plantations. This time they used an Asian workforce. By the end of the First World War Britain had transported over 1.5m Asian workers to plantations. Working conditions were hardly better than under a slave-regime.

Unfortunately, even in the modern age, slave-like conditions continue for many people - such as the bonded workers in South Asian textile mills and African cocoa plantations. Some of these workers ‘bonds' or debts to their bosses mean they effectively work for no pay whatsoever.

"(In Brazil) purchasing slaves was much the cheapest method of keeping up their numbers; for...the mother of a bred slave was taken from the field labour for three years, which labour was of more value than the cost of a prime slave or New Negro." George Young 1790