• Mardoniush [she/her]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Sure, but it's more complex than that.

      You have to get slaves (who are usually not too keen on the idea), you have to ship them (once you've genocided the locals), distribute them, house and feed slaves, and you need to make sure that you put them on viable land rather than just selling or leasing it to some poor farmer who is paying you back for the transit with half his profits for 14 years and seeing if he dies or not. Slaves are more profitable in the long (well medium-long, since tenant farmers tend to improve the land on their own dime.) run, but the initial capital costs are way higher.

      In fact a pattern you see a lot is, run off the First Nations, occupy with tenant farmers, press them until they go out of business, and then buy the successful plots, turn into slave plantations. Happened in the US, Happened in Australia too.

          • MazovianThought [he/him]
            ·
            3 years ago

            I mean, the fourth map shows slave distribution. But I think people are just being overly critical of this meme, like it's supposed to contain all the nuance of a history textbook.