What if American Slavery Never Existed?

[Music] you [Music] slavery has existed since the dawn of humanity but when I mentioned the word slavery I'm sure you don't think of the Spartans and their slaves one specific era probably pops into your mind American slavery and even deeper American southern slavery but American southern slavery was just a tiny piece in a vast puzzle Atlantic American slavery was not something just brought up in the 19th century slavery was the bedrock for major European empires for hundreds of years it kick-started the economic ventures into a new world enslavement of Africans was for a specific reason a financial reason millions of slaves provided the labor force to harvest the new gold of the world cash crops sugar tobacco cotton these were goods the world craved and centuries ago those that created plantations to harvest such crops latched onto the most lucrative business of its time so I an idea an idea that took me way too long to think about what if that slave institution never existed the colonization of the Americas never involved bringing slaves to farm the land no Atlantic slave trade no African slavery what would the past few centuries look like in a world where African slaves never came to American shores I can just imagine the lovely happy Commons YouTube is known for whenever slavery is discussed at least in America it focuses on the human element Kody you say how are you even going to tackle such a controversial and dark topic in world history well Jimmy I'd say you take a month to think it through the plight of the slave the brutality of the journey all are discussed in other sources that can teach the damage of slavery for me I don't want to focus on the brutality of the system what I'm fascinated by is the effects those emotionless bottom-line profits from slave harvested sugar had on the world slave based plantations dominated the economies of major empires that soon span the globe the Confederates are pointed to as clinging on to slavery but for far longer it was the Portuguese Spanish French and English that built their wealth off of sugar colonies in the West Indies it was how they could afford those fancy ships that blew each other up I just find it fascinating such a controversial topic and history rarely has this aspect discussed the financial cold calculating part that was the whole reason slavery was even a thing and is never really talked about sugar profits fueled the foreign policy of the 17th century world and kick-started economic ventures that led to countries we know today and events so important to our modern identities so what if that was gone using my best historical knowledge I've crafted a scenario detailing an alternate timeline this is simply a brain exercise a start to a conversation I'm not acting like I'm some all-knowing person this is simply one possible scenario out of the countless that could happen so before discussing the actual scenario let's discuss some historical context just for those that don't know much if anything about this entire topic centuries ago sugar was the oil of the 16th century as any Walmart shopper can tell you sugar is addictive this too was the story hundreds of years ago the world market craves sugar it's processed using a crop called sugar cane a crop that can only be grown in tropical climates due to geography sugar was rare in Europe by act of the perfect storm it's a prime real estate shown up in the tropical region of the West Indies the thing about sugar production however was that it was very labor-intensive that's an understatement it was like a factory the production of sugar was the equivalent of oil refining it required a large workforce to do specific production line tasks to get an efficient product the crystallized sugar it was a hot and dangerous process it started with the Portuguese in Brazil who worked countless Africans to death in the mills like the secret little sociopath that was the Portuguese had been building a coastal Empire along the African Shores they tapped into a rich trade network in Africa who were gold ivory and most importantly slaves were plenty Europeans didn't go around kidnapping Africans African kingdoms sold slaves to Europeans West Africans had always practiced slavery in some form slaves were usually war prisoners from people more inland those slaves interested Europeans who needed a new labor force to cultivate their crops eventually other Europeans like the English and French discovered Portugal's secret and began trading in Africa as well a triangular trade system began to develop while this is mentioned in history classes it's very understated slaves worked the land to farm products those products would then be sold to markets around the globe and those profits buy more slaves from Africans and the cycle continues when imagining a different world in alternate history there's something that always has to be worried about the butterfly effect where one event affects another which affects another like without World War 1 World War 2 when it have happened when imagining a world without African slavery it's more like a house of cards the use of slave labor was the bottom set of cards remove that and all the profits from that labor which light - most historical events of the last few centuries is entirely changed leading to a history pretty much alien to what we'd imagined events like the war of Austrian secession 7 Years War American Revolution French Revolution the centuries of complicated monarchies which don't seem to matter at all all changed by this one event never occurring now you know why this took so long so let's begin to imagine this alternate scenario there's only one thing changed Europeans simply never consider Africa as a viable source of slave labour there is no trade of blacks to colonies we have to start off somewhere so let's start off in an alternate 1640 by this point it's been more than a hundred years since Columbus sailed to the New World the Portuguese and Spanish have empires spanning across Latin America the English and French have some too the Spanish and Portuguese got a head start the natural resources and people of the Caribbean was running dry and so they began to grow crops like sugarcane and tobacco because you have to do something with the land at first these plantations used native labor but there wasn't enough natives on the island to be a reliable source of labor to build a vast colonial economy on in our timeline the Empire solved this labor shortage by trading with Africans for Africans without any Africans who will be the labor force the only choice was between two groups natives or colonial Europeans natives were dead and going to foreign lands to farm wasn't the most attractive offer to Europeans even if it was there wasn't enough Spanish British or Portuguese to make up the millions of African slaves that populated these lands in our timeline mostly Brazil Oh Portugal in this alternate world colonies have to deal with something we wouldn't have imagined a labor shortage see when companies look to invest in new lands they want to maintain a profit well if there is a lack of people to work the venture is riskier sugar mills are expensive and sugar prices are risky but that risk is balanced out by free slave labor to cut costs colonies were an investment in sugar production or payoffs Cody you say why are you focusing so much on sugar well Jimmy or Billy whatever 75 percent of African slaves that went to the Caribbean went to sugar mills so for centuries it was the crucial profit maker for pretty much everybody in this alternate timeline without slaves sugar production could not reach the heights of our own timeline it is simply too labor-intensive it still exists rest assured but the cost of production means it certainly wouldn't dominate the market this would bring the land value on these islands down kind of like Kuwait without oil and if Kuwait didn't have oil would Saddam have invaded it without all those slaves the new world has a far smaller population islands like Jamaica has been Yola and Cuba see their populations be made up of Spanish British and French colonists who willingly made the journey to these lands they'd remain culturally connected to their home empires and even the states across the Narrow Sea if we had to imagine them today the Caribbean would be like a collection of European like States slavery was a social force that reinforced ideals that whites were natural owners over blacks this persisted for centuries so the conclusion is in this alternate world the social relations between blacks and whites would obviously be better in this alternate world while yes there is no popular idea about how enslaving Africans was a natural good this doesn't mean that there would be tolerance and sunshine writing this part of the video was basically like going through a minefield even if I missed a mine I'd still step on the ground and probably explode after researching and theorizing my conclusion is even if African slavery and other race policies never happened human society is actually even more split by race it's a trade while in this alternate world there isn't a policy that Africans should be viewed as subservient like in the pre Civil War South instead in this world Africans are simply not thought about at all slavery introduced blacks into the social caste of European society without it there is no region where both races in Iraq daily except maybe in Africa now this needs to be explained slavery occurred because Africans were already viewed as lesser as not fully human in fact in medieval times Africans were one of those mysterious species who couldn't be Christian blacks were just as human in satanic as the mythical Cyclops men or blue skinned people of faraway lands people wouldn't believe that Africans were a mythical species forever but the shows that channel slavery wasn't the genesis of racial tension it was only a byproduct this alternate timeline sees race relations simply go from one extreme to a board exclusion now why would this happen when Africans be eventually included into European society well know in the 19th century even though blacks were in the United States they were still considered foreigners of a kind and even abolitionists Abe Lincoln before the Civil War believed after slavery ended blacks would need to leave America for Africa as they would always be foreigners if even in our world were blacks out populated whites in some areas and they were still viewed as foreigners this would even be more prevalent when Africans don't even populate America the only reason this inclusion occurred at all was because of the interaction between different races and the civil rights movement it changed the way races were viewed across the West the civil rights movement used this connection to the land to show that blacks had been in America for centuries and were just as American as whites now this didn't end racism or anything but it represented a precedent that blacks had connection to the land why is this important in this alternate world the only people settling North America maybe even an independent United States is Europeans in some form British Irish Germans poles Russians you get the point even with all these new immigrants the one immigrant Americans would never see an actual African what this creates isn't a culture of institutional racial hierarchy it just creates a nation which really never thinks about minorities at all because there isn't any if anything the only thing that would continue is the tension between Catholics and Protestants or Germans Irish or Anglos that be the ethnic tension in the u.s. the African who never had a sizable minority in any European nation is just never considered a citizen like the Chinese in California a perpetual foreigner a tribalistic view of the world involving the European realms of North America the coast of Brazil Australia the Caribbean in Europe with no civil rights movement of the 1960s this idea never goes away if we were to look at an alternate 2017 the u.s. is pretty much entirely European descendents this lack of Africans means the concept of the 18th and 19th century of race and country doesn't leave white man's burden still exist in some form as colonization occurs throughout the world for resources and that really just stays the same so it's a weird limbo where downright institutional racism doesn't exist but instead it's just apathy and maybe scientific racism in eugenics to god this video is not gonna be popular now while the Caribbean doesn't grow much without slavery the American South doesn't have this issue the 13 colonies were a much more appealing destination to colonist than a random island so while there is never these sprawling plantations the South is populated by smaller tobacco and cotton farms worked by indentured servants or paid white laborers in this alternate world without much going for other than agriculture the power dynamic between north and south is entirely imbalanced before the railroad the North frankly got the better real estate the Great Lakes and so they were able to industrialize faster without the finances for cotton the south is left in the dust as the North outcompetes in finances population and technology Europe Cody why you sighing well Jimmy the issue when talking about slavery is those profits and what those profits helped to build was European empires those empires weren't simply across the world but wars against one another including the Seven Years War war of Austrian secession Napoleonic Wars you get the point going back to my house of card statement it really is like pulling the rug from all of these events because so much changes I can only theorize in very broad terms since European attention shifts from the Caribbean to the continent it also shifts from North America to the rest of the world sugar forced Europe to focus on a very small section the West Indies instead of simply spreading out to other richer areas like India for the next few centuries European empires are focused on the much more profitable Asian trade than American colonies this is reflective in their foreign policy the Dutch would have to compete for the East Indies since France and Britain aren't fighting each other over the West Indies yet since we're talking about African slavery well what happens to Africa the slave trade was a double-edged sword it made coastal kingdoms who captured slaves extremely wealthy but it also depleted the continent of ten million people short term slavery was fine for Africa but long term it brought on an apocalypse in this alternate timeline without slavery Europeans trade with Africans but just not as much as there is no slaves this doesn't mean that these African kingdoms would still survive though frankly even without slavery the Industrial Revolution still would have occurred even if it was just centuries later than in our timeline Africa would then be colonized just like in our own west coast African kingdoms would then become client states to industrial era Europeans in a world without the African slave trade that centuries of forced human migration and trade one happened the European empires never would have made immense profits from their sugar colonies instead would have focused on old-world lands for investment the issue of race is never really brought up because there was never a sizeable minority of any race to bring that to attention instead the world is divided among nationalistic in racial bubbles the reason why this video took so long to make was because of one thing I do I even tackle a topic like this when you talk about slavery or any race-based content it's a firestorm what do you think would happen in a world where the Atlantic slave trade never happened I'm sure you all will display your opinions in the comments next up southern victory part 3 perfect timing America [Music] you [Music]

Channel: AlternateHistoryHub

Views: 2,784,980

Rating: 4.8138137 out of 5

Keywords: AlternateHistoryHub, alternate history, Slavery, what if slavery never happened, southern slavery, what if america never had slavery, what if slavery never existed, what if american slavery never existed?, slavery alternatehistoryhub, slavery alternate history, confederate alternate history, civil war alternate history, slavery history, slave, racism

Id: Y9P_-eC76lk

Length: 19min 25sec (1165 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 17 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

Honestly this video makes no sense. If there was no slavery, why wouldn't they just bring in cheap labor ala chinese railroad workers? The idea that they'd just give up on sugar and industrialization and the acquisition of new land without the option of buying and selling people is frankly ridiculous. One could just as easily think the US would have become the "melting pot" much quicker and we wouldn't be dealing with this huge black/white divide today.

Overall poorly researched, and the dude presenting seems to almost admire all that slavery accomplished. Gross.