Coffee & Slavery
Coffee plantation slaves in Vale do Paraiba, Brazil c. 1885
Since the agricultural revolution, humans have worked harder and longer hours for survival. As food collection intensified, civilizations developed hierarchies, usually creating a class of enslaved laborers. David Christian mentions in Maps of Time that globalization, modernization, and especially industrialization post-French-Revolution further deepened inequality, not just between individuals but between entire states. He writes, "The twentieth-century term the third world could have made no sense in 1750" (Christian 435). Mass consumption of coffee evolved with these global changes, marrying slave labor, inequality, and coffee. As Professor Jones explained, the Atlantic Slave Trade was an attempt by Europeans and even Africans to dehumanize people into commodities that could be justifiably bought and sold. In a further interview with Jones, she agreed that slavery and inequality are inevitable human conditions “because I’m a historian and I can’t point to any epoch in human history that was not premised on the exploitation of some human beings for the benefit of other human beings. I just cannot.”
Professor Jones disclosed, “I think of coffee as one of those luxury commodities like sugar that illustrates the deep, profound juxtapositions of slave trade: human labor to exploit the possibility of human luxury.” Jones claims that “war is one long-invoked justification for slavery,” but as Enlightenment ideals emerged, “you now have a problem with reckoning the natural philosophy that posits ‘all men are created equal’” with enslavement."
Jones emphasizes religion’s role in African enslavement. There is a tension built into the project of slavery in conjunction with Christian missionary goals. She asks, “Must you bring [Africans] into Christianity once they become slaves? Doesn’t their status as Christians make them ineligible?” Christianity and slavery were decoupled in the the seventeenth century; baptism was no longer a way to freedom, and slave-owners overcame the assumption that Christians couldn’t enslave Christians. While racism influenced the treatment of Africans, debate continues as to whether anti-black racism allowed for transatlantic slavery, or if, as Jones puts it, “racism only becomes necessary in a post-slavery world where status no longer neatly orders human hierarchy.”
Christianity also contributed to the end of slavery, which upset many capitalists. An 1833 article from The Bristol Mercury indicated that some Europeans were more disturbed by the unfair advantage of slave-holding nations than by slavery itself. The article passionately supported the proposal of “making Slavery legal twelve years longer” to remain in competition with Brazil ("West-Indian). “In other words, the West-Indians command the market and regulate the price” ("West-Indian").
By 1820, there were an estimated two million slaves in Portuguese-controlled Brazil, whose average life expectancy once arriving was seven years (Wild). Under the colono system, coffee production in Brazil exploded – Brazilian coffee exports nearly tripled between 1890 and 1901. Interestingly, the Brazilian coffee farmers thought of themselves as modern, progressive industrialists, not oppressors. There was only one exception of colonization that did not spell disaster for indigenous people and create a coffee oligarchy: Costa Rica, “where coffee paired with a more egalitarian ethos” (Pendergrast).
Professor Jones disclosed, “I think of coffee as one of those luxury commodities like sugar that illustrates the deep, profound juxtapositions of slave trade: human labor to exploit the possibility of human luxury.” Jones claims that “war is one long-invoked justification for slavery,” but as Enlightenment ideals emerged, “you now have a problem with reckoning the natural philosophy that posits ‘all men are created equal’” with enslavement."
Jones emphasizes religion’s role in African enslavement. There is a tension built into the project of slavery in conjunction with Christian missionary goals. She asks, “Must you bring [Africans] into Christianity once they become slaves? Doesn’t their status as Christians make them ineligible?” Christianity and slavery were decoupled in the the seventeenth century; baptism was no longer a way to freedom, and slave-owners overcame the assumption that Christians couldn’t enslave Christians. While racism influenced the treatment of Africans, debate continues as to whether anti-black racism allowed for transatlantic slavery, or if, as Jones puts it, “racism only becomes necessary in a post-slavery world where status no longer neatly orders human hierarchy.”
Christianity also contributed to the end of slavery, which upset many capitalists. An 1833 article from The Bristol Mercury indicated that some Europeans were more disturbed by the unfair advantage of slave-holding nations than by slavery itself. The article passionately supported the proposal of “making Slavery legal twelve years longer” to remain in competition with Brazil ("West-Indian). “In other words, the West-Indians command the market and regulate the price” ("West-Indian").
By 1820, there were an estimated two million slaves in Portuguese-controlled Brazil, whose average life expectancy once arriving was seven years (Wild). Under the colono system, coffee production in Brazil exploded – Brazilian coffee exports nearly tripled between 1890 and 1901. Interestingly, the Brazilian coffee farmers thought of themselves as modern, progressive industrialists, not oppressors. There was only one exception of colonization that did not spell disaster for indigenous people and create a coffee oligarchy: Costa Rica, “where coffee paired with a more egalitarian ethos” (Pendergrast).
Works Cited:
"Article Maps & Charts." Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective. The Ohio State University, College of Arts and Sciences, n.d. Web.
16 Apr. 2015.
Christian, David. Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History. Berkeley: U of California, 2004. Print.
"Map of Cuba." Map of Cuba. Lonely Planet, n.d. Web. 16 Apr. 2015.
Pendergrast, Mark. Uncommon Grounds – The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World. New York: Basic Books, 1999.
Polacek, Jeremy. "Seeking Humanity in the Barbarity of Brazil's Slave Past." Hyperallergic RSS. HyperAllergic Media Inc., 18 Nov. 2013. Web.
17 Apr. 2015.
“West-Indian Monopoly, Slavery, and Compensation.” The Bristol Mercury, June 22, 1833, accessed March 18, 2015, British Newspapers
1600-1950.
"Article Maps & Charts." Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective. The Ohio State University, College of Arts and Sciences, n.d. Web.
16 Apr. 2015.
Christian, David. Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History. Berkeley: U of California, 2004. Print.
"Map of Cuba." Map of Cuba. Lonely Planet, n.d. Web. 16 Apr. 2015.
Pendergrast, Mark. Uncommon Grounds – The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World. New York: Basic Books, 1999.
Polacek, Jeremy. "Seeking Humanity in the Barbarity of Brazil's Slave Past." Hyperallergic RSS. HyperAllergic Media Inc., 18 Nov. 2013. Web.
17 Apr. 2015.
“West-Indian Monopoly, Slavery, and Compensation.” The Bristol Mercury, June 22, 1833, accessed March 18, 2015, British Newspapers
1600-1950.