Gotham_ A History of New York City to 1898 - Edwin G. Burrows [102]
No less momentous was the parallel Africanization of the West Indian populations. Between 1678 and 1745 the number of whites living on the Leeward Islands declined from 10,400 to 9,500 while the number of African slaves rose from 8,500 to 59,500. In the half century from 1651 to 1700 some 78,000 slaves had been brought to Jamaica; between 1701 and 1750 imports ballooned to 339,000. All told, between 1700 and 1775 the West Indies absorbed 1.2 million slaves.
After 1713, when Britain was awarded the asiento—the coveted exclusive right to supply Spanish America with slaves—the business was almost entirely in British hands. When Parliament broke the Royal African Company’s monopoly two years later, independent slavers raced in to open new markets as well as new sources of supply. A report of 1753 said that British captains purchased 34,250 slaves every year from Africa; a second report, fifteen years later, put the figure at 53,100.
THE WEST INDIAN CONNECTION
It became so profitable to raise sugar that West Indian planters, preferring to cover their land in cane rather than waste it growing food or raising stock, turned to New England and the Middle Colonies for essential supplies. New York merchants had traded in the islands for a long time, of course; some, like Colonel Lewis Morris, maintained extensive business and family connections there. But in the opening years of the eighteenth century the West Indian market became a cornerstone of the city’s economy. By 1720 or so half the ships entering or leaving the port were on their way to or from the Caribbean; another one-quarter to one-third were on their way to or from other North American colonies, moving goods often as not destined for reexport to the Caribbean.
Outward bound, New Yorkers hauled the flour, corn, pork, beef, and naval stores (tar, pitch, turpentine, lumber, and the like) without which the West Indian plantations couldn’t survive (New York flour, in particular, was regarded as the finest available). They returned with bills of exchange, bills of credit, warehouse certificates, and (infrequently) specie—plus sugar, rum, molasses, cotton, indigo, lime juice, salt, cocoa, pimento, ginger, and other tropical commodities for which there were markets in the city itself, elsewhere on the North American mainland, or in London.
It wasn’t specialized work. Most merchants were jacks-of-all-trades who dealt in whatever goods came their way and almost always functioned as both wholesalers and retailers. The typical vessel was a modest, all-purpose sloop or brig with a single deck, a few hands, and multiple owners (who often as not held “eights,” or one-eighth shares). Its cargo represented the combined “ventures” of several traders, including members of the crew, who trusted the ability of the master or captain (who not only ran the ship but also served as the business agent of its owners) to find the best market for their goods and return with something of value. Prevailing winds and currents dictated a standard route that looped down to Barbados, swung up into the Leewards, crossed over to Jamaica, then pointed for home through either the Gulf Passage (between Florida and Cuba) or the Windward Passage (between Cuba and Santo Domingo). In practice, such a voyage would ordinarily be broken by frequent return visits to this port or that as the captain hunted among the islands to find the most favorable prices for his wares or to assemble a cargo for the homeward voyage.
Success was never a foregone conclusion. Pirates ceased to plague the Caribbean after a British expedition ran down Edward