New World slavery was a commercial system driven by global empires and world markets

Evidence

1815, the number of slaves in the Americas doubled from three million in 1800 to six million in 1860. Slavery had existed in precapitalist societies, but the colonial system was new in character. Its motive force was the emergence of global empires, which began to construct a world market, dominated by merchant capital. Slaves were transported great distances by specialized traders, and bought and sold as commodities. Slaves were economic property and were subjected to harsh forms of control to maximize their output. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3847

Categorization

• QUESTION: The claim that slave numbers doubled 1800-1860 — during the era often associated with abolition — is worth chasing: the boom in slave populations peaked precisely as anti-slavery movements rose.
• XREF: connects to: Linnaean botany’s founding collections depended on slave-based world trade — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 766; Racial slavery and indentured labor made metropolitan Europe wealthy long before globalization. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 92