The Expansion of the Slave Trade
What the CED states
- Europeans expanded the trade of enslaved Africans in response to the establishment of a plantation economy in the Americas and demographic catastrophes among indigenous peoples.
- The CED names two causes and puts them in that order: a plantation economy requiring labour, and demographic catastrophes removing the labour previously coerced.
- The verb is expanded — the CED is describing an increase in scale, and the objective asks for its causes and development.
Select both causes the CED names.
They appear in that order in the CED's sentence.
A plantation is a demand for labour
- A plantation grows one crop for export at scale, which requires far more labour than a smallholding does.
- The crop cannot be grown profitably in Europe, and the demand for it is in Europe — so the labour has to be found where the crop grows.
- So the plantation economy is not a background condition; the CED makes it the first cause.
The CED's verb is expanded, which records that...
What changed was scale, destination and legal form.
Demographic catastrophe
- The CED's second cause is demographic catastrophes among indigenous peoples, which 1.8 explained through the Columbian Exchange.
- So the two subtopics are one chain: disease reduces one population, and the demand for labour is met by enslaving another.
- Stating that chain plainly is what the objective asks for.
Cause, chain link, or what expanded?
Sort each element of the CED's account.
A ____ grows one crop for export at scale, requiring far more labour than a smallholding.
The CED makes it the first cause, not a background condition.
The CED's verb is expanded, which is precise. A trade in enslaved people existed before; what grew was its scale, its Atlantic destination and its legal form in the Americas. Naming what specifically expanded is more accurate than treating the whole institution as newly invented.
Put the CED's chain in order.
Each link is stated in the CED; the objective asks you to state them in order.
Expansion, not invention
- The CED's verb is expanded, which records that a trade in enslaved people existed before and grew.
- What changed was the scale, the destination and the legal form it took in the Americas.
- Naming what specifically expanded is more precise than treating the whole institution as new.
This subtopic and 1.8 form one chain.
Disease reduces one population, and the labour demand is met by enslaving another.
Causes and development
- The objective is the causes for and the development of the slave trade.
- Causes: plantation labour demand and demographic catastrophe, as the CED states.
- Development: growth in volume, the Atlantic route, and the plantation systems that unit 4 of World History described in parallel.
A crop that Europe wants and cannot grow is planted where it will grow, at a scale no local labour force can supply, in a region whose population has just been reduced by disease. Each link is stated in the CED; the objective is asking you to state them in order.
Europeans expanded the trade of enslaved Africans in response to the establishment of a plantation economy in the Americas and demographic catastrophes among indigenous peoples. Two causes, in that order. The verb expanded records growth in scale, destination and legal form, and the chain runs directly from 1.8's Columbian Exchange.