1086
TRIANGULAR TRADE
Stringent factory inspections in New York and
elsewhere.
See also Slavery.
See also Labor.
TRUMAN, HARRY S.
TRIANGULAR TRADE
Triangular trade is a simplified term for the trading patterns that developed among the American
colonies, the West Indies, the coast of Africa,
and the British Isles during the eighteenth century. One triangle began with New England
merchants transporting flour, meat, and other
provisions to the West Indies, whose commitment to staple crops required them to import
food; the food would be exchanged in the West
Indies for sugar, which the New Englanders
would carry to England and exchange for manufactured goods to be brought back to the colonies. The advantage of this triangle was that it
permitted the American traders to obtain English goods without spending their precious supplies of hard currency. Another triangle took the
New Englanders first to the coast of Africa,
where simple manufactured goods from America
were exchanged for slaves. The slaves were then
transported over the terrible Middle Passage to
the West Indies, where they were traded for rum
and molasses to be sold at home.
After the Seven Years' War, however, Britain's effort to reassert control of American trade
somewhat constrained the colonies' international commerce, and after the Revolution, the
United States had less access to British West Indian ports. The prohibition of slave imports after 1808 eliminated that element of the triangular trade.
In actuality, patterns of commerce were
much more complicated than the term triangular
trade suggests. Many trading voyages involved
more than three exchanges of goods, and others
were limited to two ports. Often the ships used
for slaving were inappropriate for other ventures. In addition, European ports as well as
other colonies frequently featured in the merchants' itineraries. The term triangular trade is
most helpful, then, in suggesting the international and interactive character of American
commerce at the time rather than describing a
specific route.
(1884-1972), thirty-third president of the
United States, remembered for his genial common touch and outspoken bluntness. Truman
rose in politics as the result of an alliance v^dth
the notorious Pendergast machine of Kansas
City. A failure in various business ventures, he
was notably successful in other endeavors — as
a combat artillery captain in World War I, a rising figure in the Reserve Officers Corps (19201939), an effective county administrator (19231924, 1927-1934), and a popular and industrious U.S. senator (1935-1945). Beneath a usually
friendly manner, he harbored a thick layer of aggressiveness that occasionally discharged itself
in angry outbursts.
Achieving the vice presidency in 1944 because of his acceptability to all wings of the
Democratic party, he became president upon the
death of Franklin D. Roosevelt, April 12, 1945.
As a party leader, he hoped to maintain a grand
coalition that would have room for all the diverse elements of Roosevelt's political coalition.
Personally, however, he considered himself a bit
to the left of center and possessed roots in the
tradition of western and midwestern insurgency. As president, therefore, he pursued an aggressively liberal program (the Fair Deal) that
roused the Democratic presidential party and
helped him v^dn election in 1948. Its major elements, however, were defeated by a conservative
Congress and an indifferent postwar public concerned primarily with preserving the New Deal
rather than with achieving new liberal breakthroughs.
In foreign policy, Truman had long been an
aggressive internationalist who envisioned the
United States as a world leader with the mission
of spreading democratic political institutions
and capitalist prosperity. As president, he
adopted epochal measures (the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, the North Atlantic
Treaty) designed to block Soviet expansion into
Western Europe. Neither original nor subtle as a
diplomatist, he nevertheless displayed good judgment in selecting his lieutenants, followed their