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===The Question of Political Economy===
[[File:Cotton_gin_harpers.jpg|thumbnail|left|250px300px|Slaves using the first cotton gin - Drawn by William Sheppard in 1869]]
One does not need to be a historical materialist to recognize the ways that economics shapes decision-making. Such was especially the case in the modern world. The argument advanced by many was that the Age of Europe created rationales for exploration that were lodged in the acquisition of land and thus of wealth. The enslavement of Africans was part of this matrix and it is crucial to make those connections. While moral arguments about abolition were critical, it is unlikely, as Eric Williams argued, that enslavement would have been abolished without the shift in the industrial and imperial ambitions of one of the major powers: Great Britain.
