Caribbean and the Slave Trade

This entry examines the origins of modern Western consumer culture in the consumption of Caribbean plantation commodities within a slavery-based transatlantic economy. It encompasses the sixteenth to twentieth centuries, but places the main emphasis on British consumer culture in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It seeks to redress the absence of the Caribbean in histories of European consumer culture, including aspects of the slave trade and the antislavery movement, and to show its relevance for contemporary debates around fair trade and ethical consumption.