Before the 1700s, life was mostly farming.
Slow work. Small tools. Local trade.
Then came the Industrial Revolution—a complete game-changer.

Machines replaced hands.
Factories popped up.
Trains moved goods across countries.

Britain was one of forerunners—and it got rich.

But these factories didn’t build themselves.
They needed serious money.
So… where did the money come from?

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The Triangular Trade:

In the 1600s, Britain entered the global slave trade.

Ships left Europe with goods.
They traded them in Africa for enslaved people.
Then sailed to the Americas to sell those people into slavery.

This trade loop became known as the Triangular Trade.

What came back?
Sugar. Cocoa. Spices.

All grown by enslaved labor—and extremely profitable.

And it made many Brits very rich.

Follow the Money—What the Data Shows

By the 1800s, slavery was widespread.
Enslaved people were treated as “property.”

It created a paper trail—a list of who profited from slavery.

Those names and places were mapped. Researchers discovered:

Liverpool, Bristol, and London held the most slaveholder wealth—these were Britain’s major ports in the slave trade.

Later, the same cities lit up the Industrial Revolution with booming factories.

Coincidence? Not likely.

The researchers estimated that slave profits accelerated industrial growth by about 10 years.

A formidable head start.

Fun Fact: When slavery was abolished in 1833, the British government compensated slaveholders with a sum worth over £2 billion in today’s money!