Brazil’s slaves were deliberately worked to death and replaced

Evidence

The slave population of Brazil required regular replenishment through the transatlantic slave trade. One reason for this was the very high slave mortality rate. Many slaves never survived their initial acclimatization and training; others died as a result of poor diet, insanitary living conditions and disease… . More important, since it was considered most economic to “work out” slaves … and then to replace them with others, a great many Africans died from ill-treatment and sheer exhaustion. At the same time, the rate of natural reproduction amongst slaves was extremely low. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 751

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

Related

• Slaves were deliberately worked to death because replacement was cheaper than upkeep (similarity 0.94)
• Severe sex imbalance and infant mortality drove Brazil’s slave decline (similarity 0.88)
• Brazilian slaves functioned as social dress as well as labor (similarity 0.82)
• African slaves replaced decimated Indians and colonial policy shifted to importing bozales only (similarity 0.81)
• Labeling a slave population naturally decreasing masks economic extermination as biology (similarity 0.81)
• Transported African consciousness infected the slave system with contradiction (similarity 0.80)
• Planters found it more profitable to work slaves to death than to sustain them. (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Half of newly arrived African slaves died within a few years. #corroborates (0.60)
• Severe sex imbalance and infant mortality drove Brazil’s slave decline #contradicts (0.45) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 752