Abolishing slave trade
Slave trade was abolished in 1808 with the major source of the slavery expansion activities being in the Southern states of the U.S. The northern states had little farming economic activities as they complied with laws. It was because the northern states were less reliant on agriculture, leading to them seeing no need to continue with the trade. Most of the Caribbean nations were still under Spanish control also continued practicing the trade, as they also lacked the required labor to support their industries (Eagle 139). The southern American states, Caribbean nations, and the South American nations still supporting the illegal trade did so out of economic survival. Agriculture was the main economic stay of these nations as they exported most of their raw materials to Western Europe that was experiencing industrialization processes.
The western European nations needed raw materials for their industries while the nations in the Western hemisphere and the southern U.S relied on the export of raw materials to sustain their economies. In the southern American states, over two million Africans were working in the plantations for free labor (Eagle 139). Some of them worked as farmhands, waiters, domestics, stable boys, and seamstresses. The others in the plantations were carpenters, artisans, hostlers, millers, blacksmiths, coopers, weavers, and stone smiths.
The contribution of the slaves was influential in the growth of the southern states American cities, as they contributed a lot to the growth and development of these cities through them providing free labor. The slaves’ contribution to the development of cities included them working in public projects and industrial enterprises. The slave trade was also crucial in supporting the shipping and financial industries in the slave dependent states and countries (Levine et al 2018). Abolishing the slave trade would result in the plantations in those American states and Caribbean nations suffering huge economic losses. Britain was enforcing the ban as the major navy power of the time, but still the slave merchants found a way of evading the system.
The rogue elements in those countries with the support of the plantation owners continued with the trade, as they fully relied on the slaves for their businesses. The trade could flourish also because politicians were held hostage by the plantation owners, as they relied on their votes to win elections. Politicians were always against the abolishing slave trade and even passed laws in the southern American states that protected plantation owners from any form of arrest. The American ban on slave trade had left it to the states to each individually implement the law according to its timelines and requirements. It made harder for the worldwide ban on the trade as it was difficult to implement as some nations were still colonies of European nations that did not fully believe in the ban (Huzzey 1). The reason was that the ban would have resulted in the economic losses of their colonies, which was important in providing the required revenues to support the colonies and their industries back in Western Europe.