Marchandises de traite et développement industriel dans la France et l'Angleterre du XVIIIe siècle

Abstract

Did the slave trade, by the quantity of finished goods it required, generate industrial growth ? In Nantes, the middle of the eighteenth century witnessed a burst of industrial activity linked to the slave trade. But the Seven Years' War put an end to this period. The Le Havre-Rouen complex also witnessed an era of industrial growth in the last third of the century, when each town rationalized its activities in relationship to the trade. In that case too, international factors (Treaty of 1786, slave revolt in Saint-Domingue, revolutionary wars) put an end to the experiment. England offers an altogether different picture. There the impact of the slave trade was reduced by the much wider economic framework in which it was integrated. Manchester experienced a brief increase in the of cotton checks, similar in character to the bursts in French production. This represents, however, only an incident within a wider development independent of the slave trade, and it is not possible to isolate the latter as an essential precondition of the Industrial Revolution. Rather, the key to the success of England is found in the multiple markets it dominated and the intégration of its economic sectors which provided that country with the means of sustaining its industrial development.

Profits du commerce intercontinental et croissance dans la France du xviiie siècle

“…Mais ils ne représentaient pas un groupe d'investisseurs particulièrement important pour l'industrie, et notamment pas dans les secteurs centraux de la Révolution industrielle (Bairoch [1973]). Au Havre, le capital se déplaçait plutôt des industries vers le commerce que le contraire (Boulle [1975], p. 320-321). Dans le cas de Nantes, Pétré-Grenouilleau résume l'attitude des négociants ainsi : « Au total, deux phases peuvent être dégagées.…”

French Merchant Capital and Slavery in Saint-Domingue

“…As the debate on the &dquo;Williams thesis&dquo; has shown, the slave trade cannot be treated as an independent or exogenous generator of industrial development. This is demonstrated by the failures of most of the western European powers involved in the colonial trades to industrialize during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, such as Portugal, Spain, France, and Holland (Engerman, 1975;Anstey, 1975;Boulle, 1975;Richardson, 1975). England, therefore, is the exception that proves the rule.…”