Supplying slavery: Jamaica, North America, and British intra-imperial trade, 1752–1769

Abstract

ABSTRACT Historians have long understood the economic importance of Jamaica to the eighteenth-century British empire, but the vast profits that the island's sugar-slave complexes produced could only have existed with the supplies and provisions provided by mainland colonists in North America. For all the importance of this north–south axis of trade in supporting Jamaica and the West Indies more generally, its quantitative dimensions remain unclear. Based on data extracted from 5,227 entrance and 4,620 clearance records from British naval office shipping lists for Kingston, Jamaica from 1752 to 1769, this article re-assesses the size, nature, and value of trade between North America and the West Indies. The shipping lists reveal not only how deeply committed the mainland was to supplying Jamaican slavery, but also suggests that we reconsider the island as a powerful regional hub within the larger British Atlantic economy, one in which both North America and West Africa figured as important hinterlands. Understanding these interconnections is crucial as we work to more fully uncover the trans-regional interdependencies created by slavery and the slave trade.