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In high school, when discussing the use of slavery through different historical eras, it is always described in negative (and often revisionist) terms that ignore the importance of slavery in maintaining the civilization’s regime. David Davis’ Inhuman Bondage ignores this narrative in favour of a more realistic approach that acknowledges the importance of slavery in the development of the New World. In Chapter 4, Davis describes the use of plantation slavery as “highly productive,” and describes it as the logical successor to the “efficiency, organization, and global interconnectedness of industrial capitalism.” Unlike historians I have been previously exposed to who only address slavery in comparison to the lack-their-of in modern society, Davis uses statistics to support his argument that slavery was essential to the rise of the New World.
As Caitlin identified, Davis’ stress of how the European colonizers viewed Africans as black slaves and themselves as white slave-owners is an important aspect of the master-servant relationship that kept the slave-trade active. These racial tensions and the fact that white Europeans automatically assumed themselves to be intellectually and culturally superior amazed me. I had read about the white European’s inflated view of themselves, especially in comparison to black Africans, but was unaware of the degree to which this existed. What struck out to me most about this issue was the fact that the Europeans were unable to differentiate between different African tribes, seeing them all universally as “black” (described as a complete lack of “pan-African consciousness”).
One interesting section of Chapter 5 was when Davis described in great length the process that went into the harvesting, manufacturing and distribution of the sugar trade. Minute details referring to the “drying of the “heads”” and “crushing of the easily perishable crops” gave me a more complete look into the final product and the labour that was required to achieve this final product (which Davis described as a far more challenging process than the Virginian tobacco farmers).
I was, however, unclear as to why (outside of geographical reasons) that the Portuguese essentially held a monopoly over the Spanish in regards to the sugarcane industry. Davis attempted to explain this, but I was still not certain as to why this was the case by the end of the readings. From previous chapters (especially in regards to other nations’ desires to emulate the Spanish accumulation of precious metals), it seemed as though colonial empires were learning from one another as to how to best sustain their territory. Since the sugarcane industry appeared to be highly lucrative, I thought it would make sense for other nations to attempt the trade.