The triangle trade is a phrase often used to simplify the complex transatlantic trade relations of the eighteenth century and nineteenth century. It typically refers to the three-way trade between Africa, the West Indies, and either North America or Europe, which typically involved rum, molasses, and enslaved human beings.
The North American version of the triangle trade was more narrowly tied to rum. In general outline, it involved traders purchasing men, women, and children on Africa’s west coast, then sailing with their human cargo to the West Indies. At the sugar plantations there, the survivors of the brutal Middle Passage were then traded for molasses, which was shipped to New England. See molasses. There it would be made into rum at one of the dozens of coastal distilleries, which would then be shipped to Africa to trade for more people, perpetuating the cycle.
The European variant was similar, although it more typically involved trading humans for sugar, rum, and coffee in the West Indies, which was then shipped to Europe to trade for manufactured goods, which were in turn shipped to Africa.
The idea of New England rum being traded for slaves has deep roots. Nicholas Cresswell, a young man who kept a detailed journal of his travels in North America between 1774 and 1777, wrote that “[New Englanders] import large quantities of molasses from the West Indies, which they distill and sell to Africa and the other Colonies.”
Two-way trade was common—between, for instance, Gambia and Barbados, or Boston and Jamaica, or Brazil and Angola—hauling rum or cachaça to trade for enslaved workers or molasses to trade for salt pork and lumber.
But the notion of the North American triangle trade took seed in the mid-nineteenth century, well after the trade had ceased. Several historians drew upon scattered examples of three-legged trade to extrapolate more broadly, eventually claiming that it underpinned New England’s economic success. The idea also served politically as the Civil War loomed; Southerners seeking to counteract New Englanders who criticized slavery found it expedient to claim that the north had benefited from slavery early on.
More modern scholarship, however, has found that the North American triangle trade was an idea that was largely overblown. While each leg of the trade could been seen in aggregate, the idea of individual businesses making a fortune running the cycles of the trade as described above—or the region becoming enriched—is more spurious.
Historian Clifford Shipton examined hundreds of New England shipping records yet failed to find “a single example of a ship engaged in such a triangular trade.” Another historian looking at the transatlantic trade found eighteen Rhode Island boats involved in the slave trade, compared to 352 involved in the coastal trade and 150 in the two-way trade with the West Indies, suggesting it was a relatively small part of the regional economy. Rum historian John McCusker has concluded that “the involvement of the Continental Colonies in the slave trade [during the later colonial period] was insignificant by every measure we can apply but a human one.”
The triangle trade has persisted in many history books and popular culture. The Dictionary of American History (1940) called triangular trade “the backbone of New England prosperity.” The trade was featured most notably in the 1969 Broadway hit musical 1776, which featured the musical number “Molasses to Rum.” (“Molasses to rum to slaves / Oh what a beautiful waltz / You dance with us / We dance with you / Molasses and rum and slaves …”)
See also Caribbean; North Africa; and rum.
McCusker, John. Rum and the American Revolution: The Rum Trade and the Balance of Payments of the Thirteen Continental Colonies. New York: Garland, 1989.
Rawley, James A. The Transatlantic Slave Trade: A History. New York & London: W. W. Norton, 1981.
Smith, Frederick H. Caribbean Rum: A Social and Economic History. Gainesville, University Press of Florida, 2005.
By: Wayne Curtis
The bar at the original Trader Vic’s, Emeryville, California.
Courtesy of Jeff Berry.
The bar at the original Trader Vic’s, Emeryville, California. Source: Courtesy of Jeff Berry.