The Origins and History of the Commonwealth
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- Some people sailed to the new lands because they wanted the freedom to worship God as they wished. This was a powerful motive for settlement on the eastern coasts of North America.
- In 1688 King Charles II gave the Hudson Bay Company the right to trade in a large part of Canada - it amounted to about 40% of the land area. It was the trade in furs which was the driving force of this company.
There were others who were given no choice in the matter but who were taken to the new lands as a punishment. In the 18th century, about 30,000 people were 'transported' to North America, having been convicted of crimes. Transportation was an alternative to hanging - and was a standard punishment for even small offences, such as stealing a loaf of bread. Thus by 1700, Britain had colonies in North America and the West Indies, and its trading companies were busy exploiting the riches of India and the frozen wastes of Canada.
The slave trade
It was in the 17th century that this terrible trade began. The plantation owners of the West Indies had realised that sugar was more suited to their climate than tobacco. The cultivation of sugar, however, needed many workers. The indigenous people of the West Indies (the Amerindians) were not considered suitable for such work and their numbers anyway had been reduced by diseases brought by the Europeans. So the plantation owners looked overseas.
During the 17th century European traders began doing business with the people on the coasts of West and Central Africa. These traders started to transport people from Africa across the Atlantic to work in the sugar plantations. The people that were taken, however, had no choice in the matter - they were slaves who were bought and sold like any other items of trade. The British established what became known as the triangular trade. The ships carried their sick and unhappy cargoes across the Atlantic. Many died in the wretched conditions on the slave ships. Once arrived in the West Indies, they were sold to plantation owners. The ships then carried sugar back across the Atlantic to be sold in Europe.
In Britain the ships would load up with the guns, metal goods and textiles which were taken to West Africa to exchange for the slaves. The whole business was highly profitable and many British fortunes were made.
By the mid-1700s, about 70,000 slaves a year were being taken across the Atlantic, half of them in British ships. It is estimated that in total some 4 million Africans were sold into slavery by British traders. They were either sold to British colonies in the West Indies or were sold to other colonies in North America.
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