Sweden, the Slave Trade and Slavery, 1784-1847
ERNST EKMAN
Introduction
Even compared with the Dutch and the Danes, Sweden's involve- ment in slavery has been very small indeed. That there was any at ail is perhaps the most surprising thing. Yet to some degree Swedish attitudes towards the slave trade, slavery, and émancipation micro- cosmically reflect gênerai European and American feelings and tend to substantiate the notion not of collective guilt but at least of some measure of collective responsibility for an économie, social, and histo- rical phenomenon, the results of which continue to influence the
I. — Early swedish interest in the slave trade
When, in the 17th century, it became clear to the maritime nations of western Europe that domestic demands for colonial goods could best be satisfîed within a closed system by the establishment of colonies in the New World where exotic crops could be cultivated and that such crops, in particular sugar, required a non-voluntary labor force, efforts were made, with varying degrees of success, to establish trading posts on the west coast of Africa in part to obtain that labor force and to transport it, as the Iberians had long done, to the New World 1. Sweden, too, an adolescent among the great powers of Europe, could
1. There is a great literature on thèse subjects which is quite useless to summarize. However, one important work on a commodity is sometimes overlooked : Noël Deerr, The History of Sugar, London, 1949-1950, 2 vol.
— 221 — Rev. franc, d'hist. d'Outre-Mer, t. LXII (1975), n«» 226-227.
