Historian Dale Tomich coined the term “the second slavery” to address a new phase of plantation slavery that emerged especially in the United States, Cuba, and Brazil during the nineteenth century. The combination of technological innovations and slave labor increased the production of cotton, sugar, and coffee by ultimately supporting the rise of industrial capitalism in the Americas and Europe. Historians who embrace the second slavery as a framework argue that industrial capitalism and plantation slavery were not incompatible but rather fueled each other during the nineteenth century. In Reconstructing the Landscapes of Slavery, Dale W. Tomich, Rafael de Bivar Marquese, Reinaldo Funes Monzote, and Carlos Venegas Fornias propose a visual history of how the organization of plantation and production zones was dramatically transformed in the nineteenth century.
Organized in two parts of three chapters each, the book provides an overview of the second slavery in cotton, sugar, and...
