Triangular slave trade
Also known as: Transatlantic slave trade
The Atlantic slave trade
​Three stages
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Arms, textiles, and wine were shipped from Europe to Africa
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Enslaved people were shipped from Africa to the Americas along the Middle Passage
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Sugar, tobacco, and other products were shipped from the Americas to Europe
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From the 16th to the 19th century, between 10 million and 12 million enslaved Black Africans were transported across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas.​​​
First, Middle, and Final Passage
The passages
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First Passage: The forced march of African slaves from their inland homes, where they had often been captured by other tribes or by other members of their own tribe, to African ports where they were imprisoned until they were sold and loaded onto a ship
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Middle Passage: The journey from Africa, across the Atlantic Ocean, to the Americas.
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Final Passage: The journey from the port of disembarkation in the Americas to the plantation or other destination where the enslaved people would be put to work.​​
How enslaved people were squeezed onto a ship — creating tight, insufferable conditions.
Middle Passage
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Lasted roughly 80 days on ships ranging from small schooners to massive, purpose-built "slave ships"
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Ship crews packed humans together on or below decks without space to sit up or move around
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Without ventilation or sufficient water, about 15% grew sick and died
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Slave ships were so notorious for their stench of bodily fluids, excrement, and human waste, that sailors often detected nearby vessels not from sight but from their odor, which the Atlantic winds carried for miles
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Olaudah Equiano's description of the journey:
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​"I was soon put down under the decks, and here I received such a salutation in my nostrils as I had never experienced in my life: so that, with the loathsomeness of the stench, and crying together, I became so sick and low that I was not able to eat, nor had I the least desire to taste anything."
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Colonial molasses trade
​Molasses was a major trading product in the Americas:
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Produced by enslaved Africans on sugar plantations on European colonies
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The American colonies used molasses to produce rum, and so imported a lot of it; especially popular with distilleries in New England
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The resultant rum was then exported to Europe as part of the triangular trade​
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Rum and molasses in the triangular trade:
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Slave traders from New England would bring rum to Africa, and in return, they would purchase enslaved Africans
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The enslaved cargo was then brought to the West Indies and sold to sugarcane plantations to harvest the sugar for molasses
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Molasses was then brought from the West Indies to the colonies and sold to rum producers
​​Molasses Act of 1733
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When the trading of molasses first began, it was unrestrained, apart from small local taxes. The colonies began to prefer French molasses to British because of the price difference
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British Parliament imposed a fee of six pence per gallon on foreign molasses
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​Force the colonies into buying molasses from the British or stop producing rum in North America
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Destroy New England's rum industry
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The colonies soon realized that instead of complying with the new Molasses Act, it would be much easier for them to just ignore the new prohibitive taxes and smuggle molasses from the West Indies
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Intended to revive what the Molasses Act had failed to do
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The colonies once again protested the act, and smuggling remained common
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Eventually repealed in 1766
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Colonies involved in the rum industry
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By the end of the colonial period, Massachusetts and Rhode Island together made up three-quarters of the mainland's domestic rum exports
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Mid-1700s
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Massachusetts supported sixty-three distilleries, which accounted annually for about 700,000 gallons
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Rhode Island supported around thirty distilleries, and after the Sugar Act was repealed, produced about 500,000 gallons of rum annually.
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Other colonies (like Connecticut, New York, and Pennsylvania) also had rum distilleries, but they operated on local terms and did not participate in the large-scale exportation of rum
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South of Pennsylvania, there was little interest in rum distillation, as distilleries were very expensive and difficult to build
FAQs
Q. Bibles are referenced in the song "Molasses to Rum" — what is the significance?
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The first English language Bible was printed in America in 1782. Prior to this, English language Bibles were often available in the colonies, but they had to be imported from England.
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Not only was it financially more feasible to import English language Bibles rather than produce them, but there was also the legal issue of the fact that the “King James Version” of the Bible was still arguably the “copyright” of the English Crown, since “public domain” laws were not yet commonplace.​
As a result, demand for Bibles was exceeding supply. For one, an overwhelming majority of white colonists identified as Christian across various denominations; for another, England was keeping an import-export embargo against the rebellious colonists due to the Revolutionary War.
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Q. What about cotton?
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Cotton wasn't a viable cash crop in the 1700s because of how labor-intensive it was. This changed in 1793, when Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin.