From Coloniarl Rule to Civil War: Angola

As we already noted – in the 1800s expediency of slavery was disputed. While industrial North almost abandoned bondage, by the early 19th century, slavery was almost exclusively confined to the South, home to more than 90 percent of American blacks (Barney W., p. 61). Agrarian South needed free labor force in order to stimulate economic growth. In particular, whites exploited blacks in textile production. This conditioned the differences in economic and social development of the North and South, and opposing viewpoints on the social structure. “Northerners now saw slavery as a barbaric relic from the past, a barrier to secular and Christian progress that contradicted the ideals of the Declaration of Independence and degraded the free-labor aspirations of Northern society” (Barney W., p. 63).

The author also explores the profitability of slavery as an institution, as while the tendency of slave owners to keep their capital invested in slaves rather than industry resulted in a lack of economic diversification in the South, it also resulted in great profits during times of high demand for agricultural products. Phillips states that more research is required in this area.

The crops grown on plantations and the slavery system changed significantly between 1800-1860. In the early 1800s, plantation owners grew a variety of crops – cotton, sugar, rice, tobacco, hemp, and wheat. Cotton had the potential to be profitable, but there was wasn’t much area where cotton could be grown. However, the invention of the cotton gin changed this - the cotton gin was a machine that made it much easier to separate the seeds from cotton. Plantation owners could now grow lots of cotton; this would make them a lot of money. As a result, slavery became more important because the demand for cotton was high worldwide. By 1860, cotton was the main export of the south. The invention of the cotton gin and high demand for cotton changed

The antebellum era (also referred to as the plantation era) between 1800’s to 1860 was a period of slave driven farming, marking the economic growth of the south. During this period in 1815, cotton was the most valuable traded produce in the United States and by 1840, it was more valuable compared to all other imported and exported goods combined. In 1860, one year before the Civil War, the South was predominantly reliant on the sale of agricultural products, such as tobacco, rice, sugar, and cotton estimated at 5,344,000 bales, to a worldwide market. while the southern states generated two-thirds of the world's cotton supply, the South had little industrial capability (manufactured good estimated to the value of$156,000,000), consisting of an estimated 29 percent of the railroad tracks or 14484.1km, and only 13 percent of the nation's banks. The South attempted slave labour in manufacturing, but were mainly content with their agricultural economy. Their delay in industrial expansion was not the result of any integral economic disadvantages, there was a vast amount of wealth in the South, but it was mainly bound to slave labour. In 1860, the financial value of slaves in the United States surpassed the participated value of all of the land's railroads, factories, and banks combined. the day before the Civil War, the value of cotton was at its peak, the Confederate aristocrats were confident that the significance of cotton on the world market, especially in England and France,

There is no doubt that the United States was built upon the hard work of Black-American slaves, referred to at the time as bondpeople, who were the main labor force in producing important American exports, such as cotton or tobacco, which were, in fact, the backbone of the American economy during that time. Due to bondpeople’s overall importance in keeping the United States the powerhouse that it was, the domestic slave trade was a value market that “‘was roughly three times greater than the total amount of all capital, North and South combined, invested in manufacturing, almost three times the amount invested in railroads, and seven times the amount invested in banks’”(23). In “‘In Pressing Need of Cash,’” Daina Ramey Berry, a professor for the Departments of History and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas, looks at a fifteen year period, from 1850-1865, of the economic factors of the domestic slave trade. Berry uses Steven Deyle’s findings in his study, "Carry Me Back: The Domestic Slave Trade in American Life” which examined both the "long-distance interstate trade" and the extensive local or "intrastate" trade of enslaved males and females, who were priced differently depending on their perceived market value (23). With Deyle’s findings, Berry specifically discusses the relationships among gender, age, skill, or type of sale and how those factors, generally, determined the priced paid of enslaved workers.

The growth of the cotton industry impacted America economically and socially. “The domestic slave trade exploded, providing economic opportunities for whites involved in many aspects of the trade and increasing the possibility of

In the antebellum south, the Large Plantation – agricultural way of life dominated the whole society. Only 25% of white southerners owned slaves and most did not live in mansions but in dark, cramped, two-room cabins. Cotton was the crucial cash crop of the South, but it was not the only crop grown there. Corn, sugar, rice, and tobacco were also grown – but Cotton was king, and the most labor intensive of all these crops. Not only was the South reliant on cotton, but the northern factories relied on the raw material as well as England. The South was the world’s largest producer and from 1815 to 1860 it represented over ½ the U.S. exports.

By 1791, the U.S. was the largest producer of raw material in the world. In the South, cotton was the main exported crop, which of course led to an increasing demand for both slaves and land. But because of this,

With the economic system, the south had a very hard time producing their main source “cotton and tobacco”. “Cotton became commercially significant in the 1790’s after the invention of a new cotton gin by Eli Whitney. (PG 314)” Let

While the slave trade was outlawed early on during the industrial revolution, slavery itself was not. Factories producing goods for world trade grew and shifted the labor force dramatically, but cotton farms were in higher demand than ever. As a result, slave labor was still in demand. The invention of the cotton gin, a machine that facilitated the processing of raw cotton so that it can be made into cloth and threads, helped in the mass production of material that was sold in vast quantities across America and Europe. While factories in America's northern cities, as well as European cities, shifted the labor force there, the southern economy still depended on farms, mostly cotton farms, for prosperity. (Carter and Warren, 182).

What I see is a flawed tactic, which has long-term consequences. We have seen this time and time again, the United States, occasionally stumbles into a country that it does not fully understand the dynamics of, and unleashes a force that it doesn’t control. From arming the rebels in Angola against the pro-Soviet movement, to the Afghan Mujahedeen. In the context of the cold war, the argument could be made that the strategy worked because the Soviet Union collapsed however, the long-term effects were devastating. Angola’s civil war lasted 27 years and we are currently fighting the same thugs we armed in Afghanistan and Iraq. A recent CIA report concluded “ In general, external support for rebels almost always make wars longer, bloodier, and

From the New York Times the Angolan conflict was “a three way tribally based thrash about in which the contenders “became enmeshed in worldwide politics as the competitor superpowers and their proxies rushed to support their chosen factions.”

During the 14th century, with the first contact with Portuguese, there was a main influx of people. The first Portuguese navigator was Diogo Cao in 1482, Angola turned a link in trade with India and Southeast Asia. Then, It was a main source of slaves for Portugal new world colony, Brazil, for the Americans, including the United States. At the end of the 19th century, happened a massive forced labour system had replaced formal slavery and would continue until banned in 1961. During a short period, 1641-1648, Angola was occupied by the Dutch. In fact, Angola was under the control of Portugal until 1975. After the World War 2, political movements began to demand more rights and independence. Portugal refused and fighting broke out. After years

As Eric Williams directly establishes in Capitalism and Slavery, “unfree labor in the New World was brown, white, black, and yellow; Catholic, Protestant, and pagan” . Stimulated by an abundance of cheap land and a dearth of workers, the origin and initial expansion of African slavery in New World plantation economies was not a racially motivated circumstance, but rather an economic phenomenon. Native and European populations in the 16th and 17th centuries were simply not capable of meeting the accumulative labor demands of sugar, tobacco, and cotton plantations, and from a production standpoint, the cost of cultivating these particular crops was appreciably reduced on larger-scale enterprises – the profits

Angola is located in the southern part of Africa, neighboring to Namibia, Zambia and Congo. Estimated of 24.3 million populations today, Angola arose as the upper middle income countries in 2011 due to steady GNI per capita growth. Inherits abundant natural resources mainly oil and diamonds, Angola stands as second largest oil exporter and third biggest economy of Sub Saharan Africa (World Bank Global Economic Prospects June 2015). Oil sector holds the largest share in Angola’s GDP. Angola real GDP was 4.5% in 2014 (African Economic Outlook 2015).