How did the Slave Trade Speed Up the Industrial Revolution?

The slave trade involved traders setting off from Britain with a shipload of manufactured goods, swapping them for slaves in West Africa and sailing to the West Indies. There, the slaves could be swapped for raw materials produced by slaves working in the plantations there, and taken back to Britain to be sold. The slave trade sped up the Industrial Revolution in four main ways: it gave Britain the imports it needed to process, to make money; it created a market for British goods abroad in Africa; it boosted industries such as ports, ship-building and canals; and it brought money into the country which was used by the slave-traders as capital to start up new businesses for themselves or to invest in other people's businesses. However, it wasn't the only cause of the Industrial Revolution. There are some other causes which are worthy to be considered as well.

The first benefit Britain got from the slave trade were raw materials. In the West Indies, slaves were traded for raw materials such as spices, rum, tobacco and coffee. These could only have been produced at an affordable price , and therefore created a mass market, if you had slave labour. So, merchants gave raw material production a boost in exchange for cheap raw materials. These raw materials, in turn, were what British industry needed to produce more goods to be exported to Africa, to be traded for more slaves, which could be traded for more raw materials to boost industry even further. Boosting the industries which used the raw materials also boosted industries which made the equipment to be used in the factories, and the transport industry which had to transport raw materials across the country from the ports to the factories. This was the most important effect of imported raw materials. If only the factories had expanded, they would not have had anywhere to sell to apart from the surrounding area because the other industries necessary to sell to a mass market would not have existed. The goods that the slave trade brought in also contributed to the end of the slave trade. The more goods that were imported, the commoner and cheaper they became, and therefore slave traders made less profit. This made them diversify and use their capital to set up new businesses.

The slave trade boosted the Industrial Revolution even further by providing a market abroad in Africa for British manufactured goods. Traders bought textiles, muskets, brass rods, cutlery, copper rods, bronze rings, gunpowder, felt hats, silk pieces, sailcloth, green glass, beads, candles, sugar, tobacco and beer and sold them to the Africans (who thought that these things, fast becoming commodities in Britain, were luxuries) in exchange for slaves. The most important of these exports were muskets because, not only did they help to make money (one slave trader made £8000 on one voyage during the 1730s, a small fortune in those days), but they improved the supply of slaves. This was because some of the slaves were prisoners of war traded for goods by African chieftains. So, the more guns the traders gave the Africans, the more warlike they got, creating more prisoners of war to trade.

The market abroad meant that it became profitable to produce more, so Britain's factories grew. Not only this, but more factories meant more raw materials needed to be imported. So the need for slaves went up. This effect is very important because it shows us that the slave trade not only sped up the Industrial Revolution, but was caused by the Industrial Revolution. Also, other industries, such as the ones producing coal (for smelting), iron (for factories), and the transport industry were boosted by the demand for more exports.

The slave trade boosted other industries, apart from factories. The first one was the transport industry. The increased demand for manufactured goods meant that transport needed to improve to be able to transport the required raw materials around the country. A larger transport industry meant that more bricks and cement were needed for canals, and more iron and wood were needed for railways. As the slave trade grew, so did ship production. This, in turn, boosted the timber, iron (for anchors) and textiles (for sails) industries. Also ships could be insured, so the insurance industry grew. During the Industrial Revolution, the British insurance industry brought money in not only from British shipowners, but shipowners all over the world. This money was then loaned out to new industries as capital, allowing them to start up. Finally, ports grew, requiring more timber, iron (and therefore coal), rope, bricks and cement. The most important of these 'new' industries was transport because Britain pioneered the transport industry and therefore, could trade these new technologies in other countries where it started more Industrial Revolutions. So, the slave trade not only sped up the British Industrial Revolution, but it started Industrial Revolutions in other countries as well.

Finally, the slave trade brought money into Britain. This money was important because it could be invested by the slave traders into either their own businesses or other people's businesses. These new businesses meant that the demand for raw materials went up, so the slave trade expanded. Also, new factories, workshops and offices had to be built, expanding the construction and building materials industries.

The slave trade contributed (along with the abolition of the slave trade in the British Empire in 1807) to it's own downfall. Slave traders now had enough money to turn their attention to other (more ethical!) methods of money production. Also, there was not an infinite market for slaves because, unlike coal or timber which is used up, slaves reproduce, so you do not need to buy more. So when all the plantation owners in the West Indies had enough slaves, the slave trade stopped.

The slave trade was not the only thing that sped up and / or caused the Industrial Revolution. Some factors, such as capital, were not as important as the slave trade because they partly depended on the slave trade. However, fortunate factor endowment and intelligent people being orientated towards research instead of philosophy were more important than the slave trade because they were the basics of the Industrial Revolution. Without coal, rivers, iron and the means to think up ways of using them, the Industrial Revolution would never have happened. Britain wouldn't even have had the technology (eg. ships) to allow the slave trade.

In conclusion, the most important effect of the slave trade which sped up the Industrial Revolution were the non-manufacturing industries which sprang up to facilitate the increased production necessitated by the slave trade because it was these industries which allowed the global British Empire to have Industrial Revolutions as well. This meant that Britain had the technology necessary to be the greatest nation on earth for a while. If the slave trade had not sped up the Industrial Revolution, we could be up to fifty years behind in progress. And who knows? Maybe we would have lost the World Wars!