Reborn As a Pirate

"It turns out that the plantation is like this..."

Standing on the high sentry tower, little Pierce let out a long sigh with his big curious eyes.

They are in the plantation village owned by the Drake estate.

The village is adjacent to agricultural land, including a sunny hillside and a large piece of flat land connected to it, with a total area of ​​more than 300 mu. There lived 22 black slaves, 3 Indian managers and about 20 farm laborers of all colors.

All these people and things are the assets of Lorraine.

Speaking of which, Lorraine and his group visited the plantation town in Bashiba, and Karen and Pierce also temporarily stayed near the plantation in the Delta of Mississippi, but seeing the scene of the plantation with their own eyes was nothing to this group of Europeans. For those who know the city, this is really the first time.

The scene here is very different from the farmsteads in Europe.

In Europe, farmers' houses are mostly built on the edge of the farmland, with auxiliary buildings such as warehouses and warehouses nearby, and poultry and livestock raised in front of and behind the house.

None of these are found on plantations.

In order to save land as much as possible, the labor force of the plantation is concentrated in the fence and barbed wire, and the living environment is small and cramped.

Moreover, slaves are not allowed to own private property, so poultry and livestock must be raised uniformly.

In addition to the farm, Lorraine also has a small pasture, which is built in a corner of the manor and stretches continuously with the pasture in front of the villa. The output is basically enough to meet the demand for poultry eggs and meat inside the manor.

Plantations do not have this requirement.

The staple food of black slaves and farm laborers is black bread baked with wheat bran and sawdust mixed with soil. The food of Indian managers is relatively delicate, but it is not supplied to the village, but delivered from the manor every day by a special person.

The work is heavy, the environment is harsh, and the food is rough. All these aspects are combined together to create black people who work in the fields. They are often skinny, with slender limbs, cloudy eyes, and lifeless.

This brought a huge psychological shock to Lorraine and his party.

They've obviously seen a lot of black people.

European blacks are mostly used as slaves, like Friday when Lorraine met as a fledgling, or like Al who was hanged in Kent Manor. excessive scarcity.

The health of those black people represents the wealth of the master, even if it is for his own face, the master will not allow them to weaken and become inhuman.

The other type of blacks are the freedmen of New Orleans. They work hard for their livelihoods. A few people stand out, while most people struggle at the bottom of the society. God is almost exactly the same.

However, the black people in front of them are the true appearance of black slaves in this era, like walking corpses, like skeleton zombies, just one glance makes people lose the desire to take a second glance.

Sighing, Lorraine left Pierce, who was asking questions excitedly, and stepped down the sentry tower alone.

He was strolling in the small and crude plantation village, and after a while he heard footsteps behind him.

Miss Offee caught up and opened her arms in front of Lorraine: "Master, you don't plan to break the slave contract with the black slaves, do you?"

Lorraine was stunned for a while: "Do you think I'm crazy?"

"I think you seem to be moved with compassion.

"

"Opheus, you are indeed a competent housekeeper." Lorraine shook her head and smiled, "Don't worry, I'm not a saint, and I never thought of liberating black slaves from the beginning to the end. I know, that would make me a The target of public criticism."

"It's good that you know that." Miss Offey breathed a long sigh of relief.

Lorraine picked a chair with great interest and sat down: "Speaking of which, why do you think I want to free the black slaves?"

"Because there are black people on your boat, Ms. Yesra, it seems that you have a special relationship."

"So it's because of Henna..." Lorraine couldn't help but feel dumbfounded, "You urgently need to supplement your knowledge of history and geography. Henna is an Egyptian. In terms of race, it originated in Arabia and is related to the Moors. It's not the same race as African slaves."

"Is not it?"

“Although they are darker, they can’t be confused with black people. If you have to say, they have to be counted as brown people.”

"So it's like this..." Miss Offee completely let go of her worries, and bowed deeply to Lorraine, "Now that the misunderstanding has been resolved, I have to go back and explain the history of the plantation to Mr. Artis. Been preparing all night. So, goodbye."

"goodbye."

Miss Offee disappeared at the end of the road in a hurry, until she was no longer seen, and a shadow silently enveloped Lorraine from behind.

"Hina?"

"It's me." Henna stepped forward and stood by Lorraine, "You are not a soft-hearted person, how could you react so strongly to black slaves?"

"How should I say it?" Lorraine scratched his hair in embarrassment, "You know what we do, right?"

"The main job is business, and the part-time job is robbery." Haina thought for a while, "Smuggling is very profitable. If it goes well, the proportion of illegal business in business will increase."

"I'm a serious privateer, what do you say..." Lorraine moved his butt to the side to make room for Hannah, "As you said, we are businessmen, Maritime merchants, to put it more broadly, are transporters."

"We don't make commodities, but we rely on producers, including these planters and, increasingly, mill owners."

"Commodity is everything." He drew a big circle in the void, cut out half, and put it aside, "At this stage, the profits of rough processed products such as sugar, tobacco, indigo, and coffee are higher, so we also pay more Dependent on the plantation owner."

"But you also saw those black slaves today. Do you think it is possible to continue to expand the production capacity of the plantation with such labor?"

Haina tilted her head and thought for a long time: "You can catch more."

"African blacks will catch them all. When I was in Kingston, I chatted with Lieutenant Colonel Nelson. I heard that there are about 200 British slave ships at sea. They go back and forth every three months and can transport 50,000 slaves to the New World. France is slightly less than England, thirty thousand, Portugal third, ten thousand, plus other odds and ends of small traffic, nearly half a million black slaves are sent to the New World every year."

"so much?"

"Half a million people a year, that's the population of Great Britain in twenty years. Can Africa produce such a large population? More importantly, according to the consumption of plantations, how many people will die every year?"

"The value of labor!" Lorraine crossed his fingers together and covered his mouth, as if he wanted to deceive the gods in the sky, so that they would not know whose mouth the next words came from, "Black slaves need more protection, and other labor forces also need more protection." , this is not for hypocritical fairness and justice, human rights civilization, but to better squeeze out the value of their labor force."

"Slave owners can't do this, so they will definitely lose to capitalists, and manor owners will definitely lose to workshop owners. This is a historical inevitability."

Hana looked at Lorraine quietly, and suddenly stretched out her hand to embrace him: "What are you going to do?"

"I don't plan to do anything except clarify the future direction of the chamber of commerce. Children shouldn't think about the world of adults, and the weak don't need to worry about the order of the world."

"What about after that?"

"In the future? Who knows the future world?" Lorraine smiled sassyly, and looked up, just in time to see the starry black slaves and farm laborers dragging their tired bodies back to the village under the escort of the manager.

There was a white figure in the crowd that was particularly conspicuous. Lorraine rubbed his eyes several times before shouting out in disbelief.

"Student Judea?"

"Drake..." Bell stood there dumbfounded, with trembling lips and tears in his eyes, "Lorraine, I have found you!"