Who gained the most economic profit from slavery?

Correct answer: Merchants and plantation owners

The direct answer is option A: merchants and plantation owners. Slavery was maintained as an economic system because merchants, traders and plantation owners earned large profits from forced labour and the trade in plantation products. Step 1: enslaved people were forced to work without fair wages. Step 2: plantations produced valuable export crops such as sugar, coffee and tobacco at low labour cost. Step 3: merchants transported and sold enslaved people and plantation goods, while owners received the plantation income. Therefore, the main economic beneficiaries named here were merchants and plantation owners. Option B, enslaved people, suffered loss of freedom, unpaid labour and violence, so they were not the profit-makers. Option C, poor peasants, were not the principal owners or traders in this system. Option D, schools, were not the economic beneficiaries of slave labour and trade. This answer identifies who gained financially, not who suffered most. Memory cue: forced labour created profits for owners and merchants, never for the enslaved workers.