Talk:Triangular trade

What about England in the triangle?

The triangle trade is 1. Europe 2. Africa 3 America (North, Caribbean, South). The map is wrong because it use 2 points in America and does not include Europe.

In the Henrietta Marie article, I found a reference to "triangle trade", but this one referred to a pattern involving England, Africa and the Caribbean. I seem to have heard that name used in that context before, but that triangle is not reflected in this article. Perhaps someone else can comment? --Alvestrand 06:28, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

If England is a corner of the trade cycle, then it would be a Quadrilateral Trade, with points in West Africa, Brazil (and later the Caribbean), North America, and England.

Cotton was not part of the Triangular Trade. By the time cotton became a significant cash crop, slavery and the slave-trade had been outlawed by the European powers and was thus controlled by North American shippers. Further, rum was indeed distilled in New England and slaves were brought mainly to Brazil. Before cotton was "king" in North America, slavery was disappearing whereas it was growing in South America. North American destinations and Brazil were separated by some 5000 miles. They were by no means a single corner of the Triangular Trade. Thus to add England to the trade cycle would be a Quadrilateral Trade -- with one side curved around the bulge of Africa. Wyeson 18:52, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Interestingly enough, the Norwegian Wikipedia has the "triangular trade" as involving manufactured/trade goods from Europe to Africa, slaves from Africa to the Americas, and American raw materials to Europe - and dates it to the 1700s. New England is not mentioned as a "corner" of the trade at all. Which fits with what I remember of my history books. Different historians anchoring the Northern corner of the triangle close to where they themselves stand? --Alvestrand 19:51, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

-- Just a note (sorry, I am not registered) - according to most books and all history courses I have taken, the above is correct - the Triangle Trade is between America -> Europe -> Africa -> America.

I have also been taught in school that the triangular trade was Europe -> West Africa -> East Indies. Can anyone find a reliable source on this? --Snarfoogle 13:11, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

In various Dutch sources, the triangle trade refers to Rotterdam->Gold Coast(Ghana)->Port Royal(Jamaica)->Boston. The triangle is I believe the fact that all European ports tapped into exactly the same triangular route (African slaves/West Indian sugar, rum & tea/Colonial tobacco & furs), with slaves being the major accelerator to trade growth along the route. Depending on the nationality of the captain and the current war of the period, looting and piracy abounded. The triangle trade enabled all of those Dutch pipe holders to have their share of Virginia tobacco by trading cheap glass beads manufactured in Amsterdam for slaves, that then were turned into sugar, tea and rum in Port Royal, and turned into tobacco in Boston. The major player that legalized this early 'money laundering' in Holland was the WIC (Dutch West India Company).Jane 10:46, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Between c. 1652 and 1783, this trade would have been illegal under the British Navigation Acts, which reserved most trade with British colonies for British vessels. British Trade to the East Indies was the monopoly of the East India Company, which only traded to India etc, not Africa. Peterkingiron 17:00, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Also, Middle Passage refers to the Triangle Trade as Europe - Africa - Caribbean as well --Snarfoogle 13:14, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

The article is inconsistent - it first defines the trade as being between Africa, the Caribbean and North America, including the picture, then switches to England further down. Both of these trade routes were used, but are both acceptable as the 'Triangular trade'? I've linked here from Sacred Hunger and I'm unsure if this term accurately describes the route in the book, a triangle between Africa, the Caribbean and Liverpool. Richard001 02:01, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I've looked up and corrected the information in the article. The trade refers to ships originating in both British and American ports. The Encyclopedia of American History has a page describing the trade. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Richard001 (talk • contribs) 02:47, 24 January 2007 (UTC).

The standard definition of the triangular trade is Europe > Africa > Caribbean or America > Europe, with cargoes of trade goods > slaves > sugar, tobacco etc. However there were other triangles, such as that on the map, also Europe > New England > West Indies > Europe with manufactured goods > foodstuffs > sugar. In addition there were direct sailings between Europe and its colonies. Atlantic trade was much more complicated than some history books would lead one to believe. Peterkingiron 16:53, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Agree with Peterkingiron. The image doesn't show the "traditional" meaning of the term, which includes Europe. Both the NE-centered image and concentrating on England as somewhat identical with Europe is far from being a worldwide view on the subject. If no one disagrees I will delete the image in a few days. It would be very helpful if anybody could point out an alternative one. Malc82 21:35, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I would be happy with the deletion of the map. I am fairly certain that both the French and Dutch were involved, in the same way as the British (a better term here than English. By all means alter the article, but make sure you cite your sources. Peterkingiron 21:35, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Replaced the image with a former (much better) version of itself. Malc82 22:30, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

What about the role of weapons in the trade?

I agree that the article as it stands under-represents the impact of the Triangular Trade that had an apex in England; but also, there is an undue emphasis on the role of rum. It would be far more significant to bring into the description a discussion of the role of weapons in the triangular trade.

A number of sources (example: the UNESCO General History of Africa) point out that it was very rare for Europeans to themselves raid and kidnap slaves; the local African aristocracies were involved in warfare and raiding against their neighbors and those captured in raids were sold into slavery. Among the trade goods desired by these rulers were guns, gunpowder and lead shot which they themselves could not manufacture, but which gave them a decisive edge in local conflicts. Certainly English slavers on the West African coast traded large numbers of guns. I can return with sources, when I have the time.

This element of the trade had also be credited with far-reaching consequences for Africa. Firstly, the large number of deaths caused by internal wars of conquest; secondly, the entrenching of the power of armed aristocracies in African societies.

ConradTaylor 08:57, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Profitability

I have removed the following sentence, as I believe it to be misleading:

The trade brought much wealth to the ship owners and the profits ultimately became one of the foundations of capitalism, though a free-market economy continued to thrive long after the abolition of slavery in the U.S.

The trade was certainly profitable, otherwise merchants would not have engaged in it. The view expressed is that of Eric Williams, but is no longer accepted by most modern economic historians. It is true that a significant part of British overseas trade was with its colonies. It is also true that the economy of some of those colonies was based on slavery. However overseas trade was only a modest proportion of the British economy as a whole. Colonial trade was particularly important to certain British ports. Nevertheless, the profits from exploiting slaves, and certainly the slave trade itself did not amount to a substantial part of the British economy. The domestic economy was much larger than earlier historians thought. Peterkingiron 17:39, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I found that a claim that slavery was the basis of capitalism still appeared as part of a reference to an external website, when the statement was not supported by the alleged source. I have amended that. Peterkingiron 20:52, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

An authority for this is digital history. The question is discussed in detail in Atlantic slave tradePeterkingiron 19:43, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Slavery

I have removed the following section:

It is estimated that around 11 million people North America imported 500,000 were shipped to the Western Hemisphere during the slave trade. That number excludes those captured and put on ships who did not make the voyage to America alive. Some estimate that 15 to 25 of every 100 slavery-bound persons died on the voyage. Fact|date=February 2007. In the early 1800's, the slave trade began to diminish, due partly to rising sentiments opposing human trafficking and partly to decreasing need for labor with the rise of the industrial revolution. In 1807, the slave trade was made illegal in the United States and British colonies. In 1833, Parliament passed a law making the slave trade illegal in all its territories. An example of one such slave trader who practiced this, was the little known Pablo Cortés.

Clearly, the article needs a section on the slave trade. But this paragraph is so unclear and poorly written, not to mention completely outsourced, that I felt I had to remove it until it can be improved. For example, in the first sentence: 1) who estimates? 2)which number is correct? BrainyBabe 10:25, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I do not know whether the figure is right, but they are not wholly incredible. I would however discourage the appearance of too much on slavery here, when there are separate articles on the Atlantic Slave Trade and the Middle Passage. Having parallel articles is liable to result in Wiki having conflicting articles, something that is in principle to be avoided. Peterkingiron 21:00, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

A note about the 11 million figure, if it ever goes back in the article: that's an approximate number of slaves shipped to the New World, not to North America. The considerable majority of those slaves went to the Caribbean and Brazil; fewer than 2 million went to the North American colonies. Pirate Dan (talk) 16:04, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

I wonder. The Texas BOE removed "slavery" from the reasons for the civil war and added "Atlantic Triangular Trade", seemingly to remove the idea that slavery was a contributing factor for the civil war, as well as reduces the humans that were shipped to North America to "just cargo". Minimizing or removing the facts about slavery in this article helps their cause and denies a truth. Thoughts? Seer (talk) 18:41, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Fur and lumber

I have removed fur from the text as I do not think these are likely to have gone to Africa or the West Indies. However, I do not have the luxury to having read Kurlansky's book. Peterkingiron 20:33, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I've returned it to the library, but to my recollection he doesn't mention fur, or if he does, only in passing. I counted four legs to his analysis of the triangle: manufactured goods from Britain, slaves from West Africa, sugar from the Caribbean, and salt fish from New England or Newfoundland. An extension to the article, mentioning how the triangle can be extended, would be welcome, if you feel it appropriate. BrainyBabe 23:02, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your efforts! BrainyBabe 18:32, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

You describe a quadralateral trade, not triangular. No doubt such trades did occur, but there were also a lot of triangular ones. Peterkingiron 22:45, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I have seen sources (e.g. Barbara Tuchman's The First Salute) mentioning fur: this fits the Europe>Africa>Americas>Europe triangle, in which the fur would go from North-America to Europe. --Radioflux 19:46, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Fur was mostly exported from North America to Europe. More or less independent from that fact, New England traders participated in basically the same triangular trade, taking the manufacturing role of Europe (so it was still a triangular trade, only with N.E. instead of Europe). While of course some of the N.E. traders exporting fur have used their gains to take part in the triangular trade, this would be true of a lot of trades (Nova Scotia fish to New England; manufactured N.E. goods to the West Indies in exchange for cash crops etc.), so fur may better not be mentioned. Malc82 21:18, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Keep in mind the triangular trade is a scholarly construct that ties three trades together, rather seldom did a ship cover every part of triangle, so to discuss if something was a triangular or quadrilateral trade doesn't seem too relevant to me. Malc82 21:24, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Modern examples

Any modern examples of this sort of trade setup? Article currently gives impression its only occurred in the past.--LukeSurl ^{t c} 19:04, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

In history, the term only refers to the topic of this article. In another context, the words could be used for pretty much any trade with 3 partners, but I don't think such an article would be very relevant. Malc82 01:54, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Can someone change the references?

There seems to be that someone added an unnecessary line/phrase at the end of the references. It reads "Morgan, Kenneth. Bristol and the Atlantic Trade in the Eighteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. ISBN 0521330173. And everyone died. Wooohooo.Pages 64–77." I tried changing it, but I was unable to edit the list. 209.50.138.253 (talk) 17:11, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Correction made: you need to look at the section to which the footnote relates. Peterkingiron (talk)

moderness is like the sex trade in America we still have other very inhuman trades and we are repeating history. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.229.26.159 (talk) 17:47, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Sunk, cleaned, and drained

I have removed the "fact" tag. This addition was by me, and I think I had it from the work now cited (by A. P. Middleton), but I do not have a copy of this to hand, and may not have got it from elsewhere. Cleaning was very necessary, because the slave deck was almost inevitably in a highly unhygienic condition as a result of slaves having to perform their bodily functions where they were chained up. This would pollute the cargo laden for the final stage of the voyage. Peterkingiron (talk) 00:38, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Picture

The picture on the english Wikipedia seems to be improved, but on commons the picture exist with the same name, but with the wrong image. Can someone update the picture on commons? 57.67.146.66 (talk) 12:48, 4 March 2008 (UTC) I am not sure whether you are referring to the picture showing how slaves were stowed, which I believe to derive from pamphlet literature from the period of the abolition campaign at the beginning of the 19th century. However I am must disappointed to find that we have gone back to a map which shows the northern apex of the triangle in New England, rather than western Europe. Earlier discussions decided that the map should show Europe-Africa-West Indies/America-Europe as the triangle and at one point that was the map shown. Can some one restore that? Perhaps the other should should be retained, but it should be further down the page. This article has been subject to repeated vandalism. Peterkingiron (talk) 22:47, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I have uploaded the old version as a separate image, so both are available. If I interpret it correctly, the image wasn't changed on purpose but because the WP-image was deleted and redirects to the commons image by the same name now. Malc82 (talk) 11:27, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Triangular trade is a myth

I'm astonished this article even exists. Historians have known for decades that colonial triangular trade is a myth, which unfortunately still lingers in school textbooks. For heaven's sake, don't write a history encyclopedia article based on recollections of school texts. Read a real book on economic history, or see the works of Ostrander and later authors on the subject. To put it succinctly, the ships that brought slaves did not, in any great numbers, swap their cargo's for rum to complete the next leg of this supposed triangle. There was certainly no continuous triangle, and even if each of the legs is considered independently, the volume of trade is generally no more significant than for many other commodities you might choose. JoeFink (talk) 14:09, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Agreed in principle, and have added reference to documentation of same, but note that the reference I use refers to other books which I have myself not seen.--Dumarest (talk) 17:34, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Which triangular trade are you talking about. A year or two back this article focused (or appeared to focus) on trade between the northern colonies in America, Africa and the West Indies. This was altered, partly by me and partly as a result of my objections to what was then said. However, some of the trade between Britain, Africa and the West Indies did indeed involve a triangular trade, including the notorious Middle Passage when the cargo was slaves. Nevertheless, there was considerable bilateral trade between Britain and the West Indies; Britain and American colonies etc., not to mention some quadrilateral trade. Triangular trades tend to develop wherever there are trade imbalances between countries, and other examples could no doubt be foudn and quoted. The caricature found in school textbooks is just that, but does not mean that the whole concept is a myth. Peterkingiron (talk) 21:01, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

The New England was the main thrust of that part of the article, and that is what I supplied references for. The British triangle was mentioned, but my material deals with specifically the New England portion. --Dumarest (talk) 11:09, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I cannot calim to be an expert on New England trade. I was to some extent provoked by your heading, which I consider a false statement. I will defer to your (presumably) superior knowledge on New England. As I said the original article was excessively focused on America, and needed "globalising". Peterkingiron (talk) 11:59, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree. That Wiki section was New England, as were my references, which is all the knowledge I have [I have that ref'ed book]. I agree that more on the British triangle would be a good thing --Dumarest (talk) 15:23, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Extremely late entry, but let me add my 2 cents on this discussion: As I've written above on this talk page: The triangular trade is a scholary construct tying several trades together. As such it frequently inspires over-simplification and wrong assumptions, but it's still not entirely false. Slave ships (with the notable exception of most Dutch ships) didn't usually take part in all 3 steps of the model, but that has more to do with the construction of those ships (suited to carry a maximum quantity of humans, rather unsuited to compete with specific crop cargo ships, also note the disadvantage stemming from the huge differences in duration of a Slave trade journey, meaning that slave ships oftenly arrived out-of-season and were hardly able to schedule advance appointments). The point of the Triangular trade concept is that without African slaves the Caribbean plantation economy couldn't have worked anyway close to how it actually worked; that the crops harvested by this economy were overwhelmingly intended for the European (or, alternatively, New England) market; and that only coastal trading in Africa ensured a steady "supply" of slaves. Without large-scale European demand no large-scale Caribbean plantation economy, without large-scale plantation economy no large-scale Atlantic Slave Trade; which demanded paying African chiefs/kings. As such the concept has been discussed and upheld by historians of earlier and current generations, and therefore it is clearly deserving of a WP article. Malc82 (talk) 23:15, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

The article or at least the New England section might nevertheless need a retitling, e.g. 'T.T. theory' or 'T.T. model'. Most of the rum-slaves-molasses trade involved molasses made into rum in the West Indies, not in New England; less than 4% of the New England rum trade from all sources was rum shipped to Africa, and though comprehensive records of the return trade are not available, Rhode Island shippers, the major New England shippers involved in the Africa trade, carried less than 1% of the slaves shipped out of Africa during this period (Curtis, pp. 126-128). In essence, it was a bilateral trade, one that occasionally involved various outsiders who might want slaves or rum or molasses. Scutigera (talk) 21:34, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Edits of 30 Dec 2008

This article has been the subject of a large number of edits by some one not logged in.

• It seems to me that this is POV editing based on a small number of sources. IF UNDERTAKING MAJOR EDITS PLEASE LOG IN, so that every one else knows who you are, and can judge the quality of your work.
• A triangle involving the northern USA has been reinstated, whereas we decided some months ago that this should be removed. *I am not surprised that Americans should have been involved, but did the outward voyage from Rhode Island go straight to Africa, or was the first voyage to Great Britain? How big a proportion of the whole trade did it handle? I have a book on the slave trade from certain minor ports of SW England. I have not sought to add information on this to the article, becasue its scale was small compared to the entirity.
• This is supposed to be a general article on triangular trades, of which there were many. The right place for detail is in the Atlantic slave trade.
• The additional information has been place in the introduction, not in the "Atlantic trade" section, thereby unballancing the article.

If it were not that new sources have been added, I would have immediately reverted the lot, but in the circumstances. Peterkingiron (talk) 11:31, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Maps

I am sorry to find that the map with a triangle with its point in New England has reappeared. Following the discussion above, this was removed and replaced by one with its point in Europe, the main centre of the 18th century slave trade. I suspect vandalism, or possibly the attention of those who are overzealous or lacking in wider perspective on the subject. Possibly it is some one wanting to find a stick with which to beat the US Northeast. I am an Englishman and not fully on top of the academic literature, and therefore hestitate to make changes. Peterkingiron (talk) 21:10, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually, it's worse. I don't have a problem with having the NE-map in the article in addition to the main one, but the real damage here had been done in the caption, which was used to support an entirely different POV from both the article and, well, reality. I've changed that for now.Malc82 (talk) 18:04, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Major Overhaul of the article

I’ve just completed several major changes to the article, a lot of which are actually reversals to former versions of the article. Starting out with a version by Erkan Yilmaz from December 16, I've tried to keep as many of the correct additions and rephrasings as possible, but may have overlooked something. I also slightly restructured the article so as to not let the intro get too long.

I’m afraid a lot of the recent additions either lack encyclopedic character or could have it, but lack references. For example, it’s correct that both the scale and number of cash crops increased from the 18th to the 19th century, but neither was sugar the only crop in the 18th, nor would I support adding this without also giving a reference or some context, especially since the population of both Europe and the Americas increased over that time too.

Other points:

• New England didn’t “eventually replace” Europe, it became another competitor but never came close to the scale of the trade to Europe. For the purpose of this subject it can be regarded as practically another European country.
• Rum isn’t brewed
• I’ve re-written the captions of the two main images and shifted them to have the more important one on top. It’s not true that the TT has shifted from New England to Europe.
• When editing an article, please make sure you don’t leave references that don’t represent or even contradict the statements you make. In one instance a reference had been moved to an entirely different part of the article, which it didn’t support at all.
• The triangular trade existed well into the 19th century, somehow i've always overlooked that glitch in the intro. Malc82 (talk) 18:08, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Well done. I have done a little copy-editing, but only that. Between us we missed a significant case of vandalism. However, because new material had been brought in and this is not a subject that I know thoroughly, I was reluctant to interfere. My immediate reaction was to revert a long way (as you did), but that might have wiped out some good edits with the bad ones. Peterkingiron (talk) 13:44, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I don't think it was vandalism though, from the look of things it was likely a well-intended edit. Anyway, re-visiting the article I realized that I actually copied the wrong sentence from my editing file into the article at one point. That's corrected now, but watch out for further mistakes :-|.Malc82 (talk) 00:43, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Around line 8, the text is "African slaves were elementary to run the colonial cash crop economy". I do not feel that the 'elementary' makes sense, but it has been there for some time, following a major rewrite. There ought to be better sense here, but I am not sure how to change it. Any help anybody? --Dumarest (talk) 21:26, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

reworded to remove the difficulty. Peterkingiron (talk) 21:59, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

"not"?

The second sentence, which has been there forever, reads "The trade evolved where a region had an export commodity that was required in the region from which its major imports came." Am I missing something? Surely the whole point of triangular trade is when the export commodity is NOT required in the region from which the imports come. Otherwise, why not use a simple back-and-forth two-way trade? Ifdef (talk) 19:39, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

You are right: probably "... did not come". Peterkingiron (talk) 17:53, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

I vote to designate this article as an "historical fiction"

Economists use highly simplified trade models to illustrate and theorize on trade history, but it’s important that those models not become confused with historical fact. That's what seems to have happened in this article. In sum it’s become a meld between economic trade theory and history, which is confusing to those readers interested in history. Therefore to prevent confusing readers further, I vote to label this article as an "historical fiction.” 72.73.99.251 (talk) 19:15, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

It is NOT a historical fiction. The Atlantic slave trade had to be carried on by this means, because there was no demand for the products of the West Indies in Africa. Other trianglular trades esisted too. This is a legitimate historical subject, and the article should stay. Peterkingiron (talk) 15:35, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

If you are disputing accuracy, you need to cite sources to explain why you think it is wrong. Your prejusices against it are merely original research. Peterkingiron (talk) 22:24, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Other Triangular Trades

A quick search of google and google books has not led me to any information on the "Indian Ocean Triangle" or "Double Triangle". Is there a reliable source that talks about this? I also looked in the references, and could find nothing. Given that, deleting this information seems to be in order. Any objection? Hires an editor (talk) 02:37, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Rum and gold

I have remove the statement that people were traded for rum and gold:

• Since rum was a product of the West Indies, the exchange of slaves for rum would be likely to be a bilaterial trade
• I doubt that gold was exported to West Africa in significant amounts. In fact, gold was an export commodity from the Gold Coast, alongside slaves. Peterkingiron (talk) 17:59, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Leningrad

Under, other triangle trade routes, or what ever it says there is mention of a sugar triangle that claims to have been a trade route from the US, to Cuba, Then Staint Petersburg. The Final city links to the former Capital of the Russian Empire (Aka Petrograd, Leningrad) I'm guessing there is a mistake here somewhere as it seems a weird place to go to trade Rum for Iron. Could someone who knows fix this.(Morcus (talk) 03:04, 24 May 2011 (UTC))