The slave trade advanced European capitalism while underdeveloping Africa’s economies.

Evidence

From whatever vantage point one chooses, the relationship between slave labor, the slave trade, and the weaving of the early capitalist economies is apparent. Whatever were the alternatives, the point remains: historically, slavery was a critical foundation for capitalism. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 584 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Labor shortages and Atlantic commerce drove West African slavery’s expansion. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 111; Slave trading rescued the Mediterranean bourgeoisie from eclipse by northern merchants; Slave labor sustained the extra-European market that industrial capitalism built on (+10 more)

Related

• Africa supplied slave labor because its region lay outside Europe’s world-economy (similarity 0.90)
• Slave labor sustained the extra-European market that industrial capitalism built on (similarity 0.89)
• The slave trade financed Britain’s industrial revolution while underdeveloping Africa’s economies (similarity 0.87)
• Slavery’s advantage, not intrinsic superiority, let European nations become capitalist superpowers. (similarity 0.87)
• Slavery was a critical foundation for early capitalism (similarity 0.87)
• Slave labor was integral to modern capitalism, not a pre-capitalist stage (similarity 0.86)
• European colonization employed slave labor as its foundational institution, not incidentally (similarity 0.86)
• Capitalists extracted Black labor while letting African social formations reproduce the supply (similarity 0.86)
• The link between capitalism’s growth and slave labor remains historically contested. (similarity 0.86)
• Africa was selected for slave labor because it sat outside Europe’s world-economy. (similarity 0.85)
• Slave-created colonial wealth financed British commercial and industrial growth (similarity 0.85)
• Plantation slavery combined capitalist and non-capitalist modes in dominance (similarity 0.85)
• European capitalist hegemony reduced African labor to pawning across the world system (similarity 0.85)
• Ottoman expansion, sugar cultivation, and Genoese-Iberian alliance made slave labor central to capitalism (similarity 0.84)
• Marx held slavery as central to capitalism’s primitive accumulation (similarity 0.84)

Broader Connections

• European capitalist hegemony reduced African labor to pawning across the world system #expands (0.70)
• Capitalists extracted Black labor while letting African social formations reproduce the supply #expands (0.70)
• Slavery was a critical foundation for early capitalism #expands (0.60) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 584
• Slave-created colonial wealth financed British commercial and industrial growth #corroborates (0.60)
• Africa supplied slave labor because its region lay outside Europe’s world-economy #qualifies (0.55)
• Africa was selected for slave labor because it sat outside Europe’s world-economy. #qualifies (0.55)
• Historians dispute whether slave labor drove capitalist growth #responds-to (0.50)