Why did Rhode Island's slave population triple in the 1700's?

Answer 1

1. Vast estates of from 5,000 to 17,000 acres in "The Unclaimed Lands", a.k.a. "the Narragansett Country", a.k.a. "the Pettaquamscutt Purchase", a.k.a. "The King's Province", and now known as either "South County", or "Washington County, Rhode Island" were obtained by various means, by new colonial owners who stood to make immense profits if they but had the labor to farm their new holdings.

When that labor was provided in the form of either indentured or enslaved Native Peoples, and as time went on, Afro slaves, principally from the Guinea slave coast, then vast amounts of Cheshire style cheeses, and wool, and other farm products, as well as the specially bred Narragansett Pacer riding horse, were then available for export.

In other words, with seemingly limitless lands and agricultural resources as compared to Mother Country, Rhode Island's Narragansett Planters were able to leverage the economic advantage of free labor to an enormous extent, and once realizing this, they were enormously motivated to get labor to realize it at whatever means might be expedient, so they themselves first sent out Planter family owned ships to not only trade their products, but obtain their slaves, and "once these were on shore", as in Jamaca or the Sugar Islands, or in the Carolina Low Country, "there was no place for them to escape to ", except for those few sheltered by the Native Peoples.

Rhode Island's Narragansett Country's thousands upon thousands of rich, creamy cheeses were the preferred product of their kind up and down the coastline, and rightly so, as the yet still virgin soil and rich grasses produced milk in quantities unheard of anywhere else. Nor were any of station in the Colonies unlikely to use any but the Narragansett Pacer, as did, among others, Washington's mother. "None but a Pacer would do for riding".

Slaves raised these, and slaves made the cheeses, and cared for the sheep, and harvested their rich wool, and all of this made for "fat profits".

It's as simple as that.

2. Further, and as the needs of the Narragansett Planters regarding "unpaid labor", were satisfied, the first experiences of the profits to be had by engaging in the trade became more clear' as the means to double and even triple income to be had from it were made known to Rhode Island Privateers.

Sizable profits could be had simply by importing slaves, or by taking them and exporting them elsewhere, but even more could be made if they were transshipped from their origin in the Guineas, first to the Sugar Islands, and there traded at a premium for hogsheads of molasses, and this in turn, transshipped to Newport, and processed at some 22 or more distilleries, producing yet another substantial profit for resale over the value of the molasses transshipped, (so much so that it was nearly impossible to buy rum from them for other than trade purposes), and finally, yet a third tidy profit could be had by trading that rum, hogshead for hogshead, for yet more slaves in the Guineas.

Slave trading offered the adventurous a triple profit to go along with the local tripling in slave population. Greed took hold, and few could resist it. This, too, is "simple", but "not pleasant to contemplate", and to some extent, the Narragansett Planters, who had largely come from Aquidneck Island and Newport and Portsmouth in the first place, "shifted their center of gravity" back over to the Newport side, where that deepwater harbor provided access to luxurious European goods and community living on a par with Britain's most elite.

3. Ever one to observe in a colonial system, as did other Europeans with one, "a path to profits", the British set up a "board of trade" to exploit colonial shipping, and despite the cleverness of the locals in avoiding the revenue cutters, the British Admiralty soon noticed the vast amounts of excise to be realized from the slave trade in and out of Newport, and thereby became enamored of the revenue whose moral effects were to be viewed, if at all, a long way from both London and Whitehall. Nor did the terms of an early 1700s peace treaty fail in its terms to stimulate the trade, as it granted such rights on the West African Coast as had been the Spaniards, to the British, who were quick to capitalize upon this increasingly profitable venture.

So, put simply, "Great Britain found the Newport slave trade profitable for the Mother Country", and the vast sums earned for Mother Country thereby, postponed the banning of slavery in the British Empire until the 1830s. This is why they failed to stop it, or failed to insist upon Rhode Island's enforcement of its own anti-slavery statute of the last century.

As with so, so many things, "it's all about money".

But then there was, as it were, "a falling-out among thieves".

The British wanted more and more revenue, "to cover their expenses", and these were admittedly heavy, whereas the Rhode Islanders....

....the "Rogue's Islanders", as they were also known, were "wily masters at untaxed trade", finding along the extensive coastline, a number of opportunities for trading in the region, and even internationally, and as their seafaring and trading skills increased, resented more and more the British port taxes imposed.

..and so "each tried the patience of the other"...

....until a Revolution all but destroyed the Newport at the height of Rhode Island's slave trade, and which...."except for yet another vice, tobacco"...would still be on the skids, as it were....

....and the Narragansett Planters....

....had reached their limits in expanding their vast acreages, and instead, found themselves cut off from further slave imports, and by degrees, dividing their vast acreages among sizable families of up to 10 children in a single generation.

Thus, the Rhode Island slave trade died down after the Revolution(but was still quite active offshore and using Rhode Island bottoms), for the simple reason that "it was no longer as obscenely profitable as it had been from 1730 or so to 1765 or so".