Historian Marcus Rediker has a book called The Slave Ship in which he says the creation and use of the slave ship marked the emergence of capitalism. It was a ship designed and used for maximum profit with no other considerations.

"The ship was thus central to a profound, interrelated set of economic changes essential to the rise of capitalism: the seizure of new lands, the expropriation of millions of people and their redeployment in growing market-oriented sectors of the economy; the mining of gold and silver, the cultivating of tobacco and sugar; the concomitant rise of long-distance commerce; and finally a planned accumulation of wealth and capital beyond anything the world had ever witnessed."