Bury The Chains - Chapter 2 and 4 (summary)

In chapters 2 and 4 of his book Bury the Chains, Adam Hochschild contrasts the lives of slaves and sugar cane planters in the West Indies during the eighteenth century. Using Olaudah Equiano as a historical vehicle, Hochschild explores the life of a slave during the boom years of the Atlantic slave trade. While Equiano's story is a rather unique one, with him being able to escape the horrors of the sugar fields, learning how to read and write, and eventually being able to buy his freedom, Hochschild is still able to use it make a very unique point. While Equiano is able to buy his freedom, he is still not guarenteed his freedom, being forced onto slave ships later in his life. Hochschild make the point that as long as the British empire permitted slavery, no black person in it could ever be truly free. Hochschild also illustrates to his readers how a sugar plantation in the West Indies typically operated during the time period. He describes in great detail the hardship and physical toll that slavery took on the African Americans who were forced to work in those sugar fields. At the end of the 4th chapter, Hochschild takes another stab at Christianity, citing the lack of action by the church in spite of them noticing the incredibly high death rate of slaves in the sugar fields.

What I found really intersting about the reading is when Hochschild made the point about why it took so long for the anti-slavery movement the begin in the first place. He states that it took so long because of how central the West Indies were the the way that Britons viewed the world. He compares it to the way in which the Middle East and gasoline have driven the geopolitics of our time. In that same way he states that the British desire for sugar and acquisition of territory most suited for sugar growing drove their geopolitics. At the foundation of the drive for sugar was the necessity of slave labor to work the vast plantation fields.

I found this point very interesting because I had never looked at the argument through this lens before. Most of the information I have learned about slavery pertains to the slavery in the American south, where King Cotton was the driving force. I had never even considered the importance of sugar in the delaying of the abolition movement. I find Hochschild's position to be a very intriguing one and think that he does a very good job supporting his claim.