Eric Eustace Williams, Capitalism and Slavery

Christian Høgsbjerg (University of Brighton)

Ed. by Grace Moore, University of Otago
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 4.1.1: Anglophone Writing and Culture of Central America and the Caribbean.
Vol. editors: Ronald Cummings (McMaster University), Delphine Munos (Université de Liège), Melanie Otto (Trinity College Dublin), Jak Peake (University of Essex), Abigail Ward (University of Nottingham)

Dates

First circulation or publication Jan 1944 - c.

Places

Caribbean Islands (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Historical representation

Resources

Save to Bookshelf

Capitalism and Slavery

was a seminal and pathbreaking study published in 1944 by the Trinidadian historian and politician Eric Williams (1911-1981). It powerfully elucidated some fundamental truths about the development of capitalism – with a particular focus on British capitalism – and the connection of this new world system to the Atlantic slave trade and the enslavement of workers, particularly in the Caribbean. The work provided detailed records of those British capitalists – not only sugar refiners and cotton manufacturers, but also a wide range of others like ship builders and gun-makers – and British institutions made huge profits from slavery. Williams accumulated a mass of details about the fortunes accrued in the City of London and how port cities like Bristol,…

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

2376 words

Citation: Høgsbjerg, Christian. "Capitalism and Slavery". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 24 June 2024 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=41489, accessed 27 July 2024.]

Save this article