Abstract
In the early nineteenth century the major economic players of the Atlantic trade lanes -- the United States, Brazil, and Cuba -- witnessed explosive commercial growth. Commodities like cotton, coffee, and sugar contributed to the fantastic wealth of an elite few and the enslavement of many. As a result of an increased population and concurrent economic expansion, the United States widened its trade relationship with Cuba and Brazil, importing half of Brazil's coffee exports and 82 percent of Cuba's total exports by 1877. Disease, Resistance, and Lies examines the impact of these burgeoning markets on the Atlantic slave trade between these countries from 1808 -- when the U.S. government outlawed American involvement in the slave trade to Cuba and Brazil -- to 1867, when slave traffic to Cuba ceased.