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Some historians have argued that the freedom and prosperity of the British Empire were all based on slavery. Examine this statement using specific examples.

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One of the most famous historians to make this observation was Eric Williams, the former prime minister of Trinidad and a historian of European slavery. In his magnum opus, Capitalism and Slavery, Williams makes the argument that it was not capitalism that gave rise to slavery, but rather slavery that gave rise to capitalism. What he means by this is that without the transport of millions of enslaved Africans to the New World, and the labor power they provided for the extraction of raw materials like sugar and tobacco, eighteenth and nineteenth-century Europe, and especially Great Britain, would never have reached the level of capital gain and material wealth necessary for capitalism as an economic system to flourish.
On the one hand, there is a great deal of logic in William's argument. The slave economy was incredibly lucrative, given the cheapness of purchasing slave labor and the absolutely inhumane conditions in which colonial slaveowners were willing to maintain their slaves. One point Williams makes is that it was actually cheaper for slave-owners to simply work their slaves to death rather than invest any amount of money into the provision of their basic human needs. Thus, it was not unusual for white landowners in South Africa or India to live in colonial palaces and enjoy the riches of a huge plantation economy while their servile class perished.
On the other hand, more recent historians have begun to push back against the argument that British colonialism was as lucrative as has been typically thought. One of the leading historians of British colonial history, Antoinette Burton, has made such an argument in her recent book, The Trouble with Empire. Britain, she argues, had to spend almost an equivalent amount of money in funding the constant presence of British troops overseas, and in putting down colonial revolts, as it ever actually received as a result of its overseas expansion. The Indian Mutiny of 1857, the Santhal Rebellion in eastern India, the "Xhosaland" mutiny in Southeast Africa that happened at the same time as the Indian Mutiny, and others were just some of the examples of the persistent conflicts that British colonial authorities had to invest money and resources into alleviating. As a result, Burton concludes, the empire (and the slavery it was built on) was not as profitable as historians have previously believed.

Colonialism

Some historians have argued that the freedom and prosperity of the British Empire were all based on slavery. Examine this statement using specific examples.

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