8 Invisible Products of Slavery: American Medicinals and Dyestuffs in the Holy Roman Empire

Abstract

When thinking about the early modern American plantation complex, an image of African slaves working sugar mills or harvesting cotton balls, coffee or cocoa beans, or tobacco leaves comes to mind for most people. Far less likely are associations with slaves cultivating ginger, planting indigo seedlings, scraping pulp from the cassia fistula husks, or grating annatto. It may surprise some readers to learn that African slaves not only did such work on American plantations but that the medicinals and dyestuffs their labor produced were sought-after products that were cultivated in large quantities and sold for considerable profit in Europe. The following contribution uses the Holy Roman Empire as a case study to tackle the question why certain products have been less thoroughly researched than others. In pursuing this issue, I will also show that Central Europe was well-integrated into the Atlantic and global economy both on the economic and on the discursive level. The same American plantation products that were shipped to French, English, or Portuguese