Based on this excerpt, the authors are most likely to attempt to answer which question? How did colonists challenge the rules of crowned kings? How did the Age of Sugar differ from the Age of Revolutions? When did Europeans decide to speak about equality? Why did some Europeans decide they wanted to speak out about slavery?
Answers
Answer:
AN EMPIRE OF SLAVERY
Slavery formed a cornerstone of the British Empire in the 18th century. Every colony had enslaved people, from the southern rice plantations in Charles Town, South Carolina, to the northern wharves of Boston.
Slavery was more than a labor system; it also influenced every aspect of colonial thought and culture. The uneven relationship it engendered gave white colonists an exaggerated sense of their own status. English liberty gained greater meaning and coherence for white people when they contrasted their status to that of the unfree class of enslaved black people in British America. African slavery provided white colonists with a shared racial bond and identity.
Slavery and the British Empire.
The transport of enslaved people to the American colonies accelerated in the second half of the 17th century. In 1660, English monarch Charles II created the Royal African Company to trade in enslaved people and African goods. His brother, James II, led the company before ascending the throne.
Under both these kings, the Royal African Company enjoyed a monopoly to transport enslaved people to the English colonies. Between 1672 and 1713, the company bought 125,000 captives on the African coast, losing 20 percent of them to death on the Middle Passage—the journey from the African coast to the Americas.The Royal African Company’s monopoly ended in 1689. After that date, many more English merchants engaged in the slave trade, greatly increasing the number of enslaved people being transported. Africans who survived the brutal Middle Passage usually arrived in the West Indies, often in Barbados. From there, they were transported to the mainland English colonies on company ships.
While merchants in London, Bristol, and Liverpool lined their pockets, Africans trafficked by the company endured a nightmare of misery, privation, and dislocation.
Enslaved people strove to adapt to their new lives by forming new communities among themselves, often adhering to traditional African customs and healing techniques. The development of families and communities was an important response to the trauma of being enslaved. Other enslaved people dealt with the trauma of their situation by actively resisting their condition—whether by defying their owners or running away.
People who escaped enslavement formed what were called maroon communities; these communities successfully resisted recapture and formed their own autonomous groups. The most prominent maroon communities controlled an interior area of Jamaica, keeping the British away.