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Along with a poster called chiatldal who provided some very good numbers.
I will admit I have lost patience with you, go back to the beginning of the thread have a read before posting again..
I'll admit that I did miss these posts and some of these were pretty convincing. I'll just note that 1. a lot of these were only about Britain 2. the numbers about exports were about "colonial and African" markets so we didn't know Africa's share and 3. some of these numbers didn't have much to do with Africa.
My main beef had to do with how some of the posts were worded. They seemed to suggest that Europe's prosperity was solely, or mainly derived from exploiting Africans. Few people are contending that Europe did not benefit from slavery or colonialism.
Portugal on the other hand imported more African slaves to Brazil than any other country, yet it remains one of the poorest countries in Europe.
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Portugal, being a small nation, didn't dominate Brazil as Britain dominated its Caribbean colonies. The wealth generated in Brazil's sugar and gold, both of which had extensive use of slaves, wasn't remitted back to Portugal as was the case with the UK.
As with Spain, the failure of Portugal to develop an industrial base meant that those profits which were remitted didn't benefit Spain.
Germany was NOT a world power in the 18th century as Britain and France were. Clearly both France and Britain invested highly in their navies, much of which was to defend their Caribbean interests. Why if such colonies were peripheral to the prosperity of those nations.
Why did France mount a very expensive effort to squash the Haitian Revolution if that colony wasn't key to France?
It is really difficult to prove that the development of the UK/France in the 18th century wasn't highly correlated to their massive involvement in the slave trade or sugar.
Portugal, being a small nation, didn't dominate Brazil as Britain dominated its Caribbean colonies. The wealth generated in Brazil's sugar and gold, both of which had extensive use of slaves, wasn't remitted back to Portugal as was the case with the UK.
As with Spain, the failure of Portugal to develop an industrial base meant that those profits which were remitted didn't benefit Spain.
Germany was NOT a world power in the 18th century as Britain and France were. Clearly both France and Britain invested highly in their navies, much of which was to defend their Caribbean interests. Why if such colonies were peripheral to the prosperity of those nations.
Why did France mount a very expensive effort to squash the Haitian Revolution if that colony wasn't key to France?
It is really difficult to prove that the development of the UK/France in the 18th century wasn't highly correlated to their massive involvement in the slave trade or sugar.
Remained in Brazil, or it was frittered away in buying industrial goods from northern Europe.
Turns out that the UK and France not only benefitted from their own involvement in slavery (both the trade itself and wealth generated from the Caribbean slave societies), but also from purchases made by Spain/Portugal, neither of which developed manufacturing sectors so bought industrial goods from northern Europe.
Portugal, being a small nation, didn't dominate Brazil as Britain dominated its Caribbean colonies. The wealth generated in Brazil's sugar and gold, both of which had extensive use of slaves, wasn't remitted back to Portugal as was the case with the UK.
As with Spain, the failure of Portugal to develop an industrial base meant that those profits which were remitted didn't benefit Spain.
Germany was NOT a world power in the 18th century as Britain and France were. Clearly both France and Britain invested highly in their navies, much of which was to defend their Caribbean interests. Why if such colonies were peripheral to the prosperity of those nations.
Why did France mount a very expensive effort to squash the Haitian Revolution if that colony wasn't key to France?
It is really difficult to prove that the development of the UK/France in the 18th century wasn't highly correlated to their massive involvement in the slave trade or sugar.
I didn't think your point about Portuguese remittance being lower than Britain's was supported by anything I came across. After all British colonists aren't really known for being particularly happy about paying taxes to the mother country. However this is not an important part of my point.
Germany was not a great power in the 18th century because it was not unified until the 19th century. However you cannot plausibly claim that those small German principalities were not wealthy by the standard of that century. Northern Italy was also known to be prosperous at that time. Whether these countries are powerful in those period is not really relevant since we're mostly talking about wealth.
Your comments about Portugal and Spain helped illustrate my point, which was that it is really easy to pour a lot of money down the drain. Just look at the kind of money the US is spending in Afghanistan now. Unlike Portugal and Spain, however, England, France and the prosperous parts of Europe developed institutions to invest the money in a way that brought spectacular returns. So even though some of the seed money that accounted for their current prosperity did come from slavery and colonialism it is disingenuous to claim that these countries are so successful solely, or mainly because they exploited Africans.
I'll admit that I did miss these posts and some of these were pretty convincing. I'll just note that 1. a lot of these were only about Britain 2. the numbers about exports were about "colonial and African" markets so we didn't know Africa's share and 3. some of these numbers didn't have much to do with Africa.
My main beef had to do with how some of the posts were worded. They seemed to suggest that Europe's prosperity was solely, or mainly derived from exploiting Africans. Few people are contending that Europe did not benefit from slavery or colonialism.
No one said that, what everyone is saying is that the proceeds from slavery and colonialism were a massive boon to development in Britain and France.
I didn't think your point about Portuguese remittance being lower than Britain's was supported by anything I came across. After all British colonists aren't really known for being particularly happy about paying taxes to the mother country. However this is not an important part of my point.
Germany was not a great power in the 18th century because it was not unified until the 19th century. However you cannot plausibly claim that those small German principalities were not wealthy by the standard of that century. Northern Italy was also known to be prosperous at that time. Whether these countries are powerful in those period is not really relevant since we're mostly talking about wealth.
Your comments about Portugal and Spain helped illustrate my point, which was that it is really easy to pour a lot of money down the drain. Just look at the kind of money the US is spending in Afghanistan now. Unlike Portugal and Spain, however, England, France and the prosperous parts of Europe developed institutions to invest the money in a way that brought spectacular returns. So even though some of the seed money that accounted for their current prosperity did come from slavery and colonialism it is disingenuous to claim that these countries are so successful solely, or mainly because they exploited Africans.
Whether Spain squandered its money when compared to Britain or France who invested theirs is largely moot. The point is a whole host of institutions derived either the majority or a significant amount of initial funding from a morally questionable source (slavery and colonialism). I already know why you find it hard to acknowledge this point..
You understand the term "proceeds of crime". If I accrued the majority of my wealth from say "money laundering", I can't get off a charge in court by citing the fact that say 30% of my wealth came from legitimate sources..
. After all British colonists aren't really known for being particularly happy about paying taxes to the mother country.
Your comments about Portugal and Spain helped illustrate my point, which was that it is really easy to pour a lot of money down the drain. .
OK so here you are talking about the British colonists living in the North American colonies, which generated way less wealth than did the British West Indian colonies. Evidence of this was the frequent invasions of these islands by various colonial powers seeking to weaken the wealth of each other by depriving themselves of its source.
FACT. The wealth of France and the UK was generated from the CARIBBEAN, not North America. When France lost Haiti it gave away their North American territories to the USA. Without the wealth generated in Ste Domingue (Haiti), these territories were not worth anything to France.
I don't know what inferences you draw from a comparison of Spain/Portugal when compared with UK/France, except that the former squandered their wealth on wars, so remained poor. The latter used their wealth to develop their industrial base, so emerged as world powers. Germany was NOT a world power in the 18th century.
In fact Brazil achieved its independence without firing one bullet against Portugal. In fact when one looked at the slave trade of the UK, France and the Netherlands, it was a triangle. Industrial products to Africa, slaves to the Caribbean/North America, agricultural products back to Europe.
For Brazil it was Brazil to Angola and back. Portugal was cut out of the loop. Portugal wasn't even a market to any degree for Brazilian exports. It was Brazilian interests and not Portuguese, who dominated that exchange.
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