9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This is the story of a world whose borders 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and territories were drawn [br]by the slave trade, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 where violence, subjugation [br]and profit imposed their own routes. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This criminal system shaped our history[br]and our world. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 On São Tomé, the Portuguese[br]invented an economic model 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 with unprecedented profitability:[br]the sugar plantation. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This was the first black colony,[br]the first slave society. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 We witnessed the marriage of the black men[br]with sugar cane. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In the 16th century, other European powers[br]were eager to follow their model. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Their greed would plunge[br]an entire continent into caos and violence 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Nearly 13 million Africans were cast onto[br]new slavery routes to the new world 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 where the English, the French[br]and the Dutch hoped to become wealthy, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 immeasurably wealthy. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Because the Caribbean[br]has similar climatic features to São Tomé, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it eventually became[br]the principal crossroad of the slave trader's route 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 For people on the western world, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 these islands are today[br]associated with vacation. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Guadeloupe offers tourists[br]a dream destination. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Sunshine and pristine nature 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Rekindling myths of a lost paradise 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Holidaymakers tend to confine themselves to[br]the beaches of (foreign names) 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But as this sign indicates they are all too close[br]to another side of the islands heritage 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 That was anything but a paradise 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Just a few meters away from the bay there is[br]a burial site where countless skeletons were discovered 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Between 501,000 graves are still buried beneath the sand 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The (foreign name) beach is 1 of 15 cemetaries that[br]have been excavated 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 15 among the 1,000 that exist in the Caribbean 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 89 skeletons have been exumed by French archaeological[br]research experts 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Judging by the state of the bones, they concluded that[br]these men and women had not reached the age of 30 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 By the time of their death the toll from working on[br]the plantations had so deformed their bodies 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that they seemed more like 75 year olds 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 These people were human guinea pigs for the[br]sugar expirament 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The collateral damage of an unprecedented[br]trade war, The Sugar War 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 74% of all slaves carried off, were carried[br]off because of sugar 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 If you want to understand the slave trade you[br]just need to know about sugar 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Sugar proved more addicitve than pepper or cinnamon 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 From the 17th century onward Europeans craved[br]this rare and expensive commodity 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In London, Amsterdam and Paris sugar fever was rampant 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Prompting a new generation of adventurers to go[br]to any extremes to get it 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Shipowners and fitters, merchants and pirates all knew[br]that to produce sugar you need a lot of slaves 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 John Hawkins was one of these new entrepreneurs[br]for whom profit reigned supreme 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The English privateer was a pioneer in understanding[br]that fortune could be made by shipping black captives to the new world 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In the mid 16th century he convinced Queen Elizabeth the 1st[br]to lend him a ship, The Jesus of Lubec 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 For the expedition Hawkins conspicuously set the tone[br]by choosing a trussed up black man on his emblem 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "I do confirm to your highness that I will bring home 40,000 marks[br]without any offense of the least to any of your highnesses, allies or friends 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I will conduct this enterprise and turn it to the benefit[br]of your whole realm with your highnesses consent 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the voyage I propose is to load negroes in Guinea[br]and sell them in the West Indies 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in truck of pearls, gold and emeralds that I will bring back in abundance" 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 1620, a century after sugar plantations were introduced[br]in Brazil 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The Atlantic became the battleground for the sugar war 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 England, The Netherlands and France wanted[br]to break Spain and Portugals hegemony 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In the Caribbean the Dutch took control Coracao, Sint Eustatius and Samata[br]The French, Guadelupe, Martinique, Granada and Santo Mal 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The English occupied The Bahamas, Jamaica, Antigua, Barbados and Dominica 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Only Cuba and Puerto Rico remainded under Spanish rule 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 After the extermination of the native Arawak people[br]the first sugar canes flourished on this fertile land 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The Caribbean became a space of conquest[br]for the Europeans very early on really 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It was the first place that Columbus landed in the new world 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Um, the first place that the Spanish began to search for gold[br]and the first place they began to enslave the Indians 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So they were thoroughgoing[br]Konya spaces created by design 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of European planters and Imprial policy makers[br]and for their profit right 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 There arent so many places where you can[br]completely overlay a territory like that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So there, in some ways, the Caribbean is the space[br]where you find the purest of Colonial territories 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Where the masters of the space actually get to[br]create the space to suit their own needs 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In Guadalupe every plot of land, every single square inch of ground,[br]is connected to this violent and deeply rooted history 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Today all that is left of sugar war is a field of ruins 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Of the 250 sugar refineries active in the late[br]19th century only two remain in operation 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In 2017, experts from France's national institute of[br]preventive archeological research 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 exhumed the remains of the (foreign name)[br]residents and sugar refinery in (foreign place) 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 A mill, stock rooms and three rows of so-called negro huts,[br]where hundreds of slaves were penned up together 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In this brutal work camp human beings were but one tool among others 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Each became a mechanized emaciated body[br]consumed by work until their final breath 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Both the time in which the slaves were digging the[br]cane holes and the times in which their harvesting 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 are really the peak of the labor on a plantation 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You could almost see the slaves wasting away[br]when they were digging these cane holes 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 because the work was so strenuous and[br]they were getting fed so poorly 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You found women in all of the gangs often times[br]doing the hardest, dirtiest labor on the plantation 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Alongside the men or even before the men[br]and one of the things that means when 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 you find young women doing this quite debilitating labor[br]is that the birth rates are very low 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and the mortality rates, the infant mortality[br]rate is shockingly high 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In the mid 18th century people talked about[br]9 out of 10 infants born 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to enslaved Jamaican women dying, right,[br]within the first year 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So, there's no way in which the plantation can[br]reproduce itself under those kinds of conditions 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The plantations were managed by overseers who[br]saw the slaves in purely functional terms 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This was an absolute exploitation of the workforce[br]It was a very particular society 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Because the average rate of life expectancy[br]on a plantation was extremely low 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 About 8 to 10 years after arriving 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The logic of the slave system was one where the[br]availability of the workforce had to be absolute 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and for this man was conceived as an accessory of the land 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 He appeared as such in house inventories 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Slaves are listed next to records for livestock[br]or manufacturing implements 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 That's the archaic aspect which was put[br]to use by a capitalist system and which largely 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 met market supply and demand with[br]its fluctuations needs and competition, free competition 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The sugar plantations saw slavery enter a new era 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The stronger the demand for sugar[br]the more the slave trade expanded 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and the more the slave traders sought support from banks[br]to finance there expeditions 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 London is one of the oldest centers[br]of global finance 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The city of London was the first to create commodities exchange[br]to develop credit markets and to issue banknotes on a massive scale 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Without the invention of a centralized banking system[br]the explosion of the slave trade in the 17th century 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Would not have been possible 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Preparing for a slave expedition was expensive and[br]having a financial arsenal 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 gave England a decisive advantage over its competitors