THE ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE ESSAY
During the 16th to 19th century Europeans transported a colossal amount of slaves to the New World from Africa. In the Atlantic a vast amount of slaver ships journeyed to the New World now known as South America, bringing with them a boatload of slaves. The conditions these slaves had to endure were anything but hospitable. Either sold into slavery by their own people or captured by merchants these slaves were about to face 3 centuries worth of torture.
The slaves were taken to either South America or very few into Northern America. Many started off their trip on the coast of West Africa, bought by merchants and sold at markets and by the boatload to investors in South America looking
…show more content…
Therefor , nine out of ten of the slaves in the New World were Africans. First, they would be captured or sold to English, Spanish or Portuguese. Then, traded across South America to work the crops. Such as sugar. The trade led to the destruction of African life and their cultures, Forms of slavery differed in both Africa and in the South America. In general, slavery in Africa was not heritable (that is, the children of slaves were most of the time free) while in the Americas, children of slave mothers were considered born into slavery. Families had a hard time sticking together since they could be sold to different buyers at the market any given day. All slaves were expected to be good at farming, building and mining occasionally. But a large amount of the slaves died from foreign diseases, overwork, malnutrition and by their owners for fun or punishment. Nevertheless, for a variety of reasons, Africans replaced Native Americans as the main population of enslaved people in the …show more content…
In the Americas, slaves were denied the right to marry their family members and the masters did not generally accept them as equal members of the family. Therefore, slaves that were convicted of revolt or murder were executed without remorse. The days where lasting as well as tiring, with no end to the work in sight. Some slaves dropped dead in the fields from the exhaustion of work or just being plain undernourished. Almost every free European immigrant had slaves whose days were not short of this. With this monumental part of land found and it is a steal to buy, slaves were needed to work it. As it was too hot for the Europeans, they had figured since Africans were used to the heat and seen as stupid people with a different skin color, this was an ideal purpose for them. If you were African and had a child their life would remain the same as yours when they came to an age to work, However ,sometimes Africans were forced to have children by the plantation owner that way they could make money for them, regardless of your feeling they would be sold or worked. But this might not be a matter considering the death rate was higher that the birth rate. Consequently, the Europeans just shipped more of them from
The origin tale of the African American population in the American soil reveals a narrative of a diasporic faction that endeavored brutal sufferings to attain fundamental human rights. Captured and forcefully transported in unbearable conditions over the Atlantic Ocean to the New World, a staggering number of Africans were destined to barbaric slavery as a result of the increasing demand of labor in Brazil and the Caribbean. African slaves endured abominable conditions, merged various cultures to construct a blended society that pillared them through the physical and psychological hardships, and hungered for their freedom and recognition.
African slaves were brought to the America’s by the millions in the 17th and 18th century. The Spanish and British established lucrative slave trades within Africa and populated their new territories with captured and then enslaved Africans. The British brought the slaves to their new colonies in North America to work on the large plantations and the Spanish and Portuguese brought the slaves to South America. Slavery within North and South America had many commonalities yet at the same time differences between the two institutions.
The Atlantic Slave Trade was one of, if not the largest scale movements of human beings from one part of the world to another by sea and could have been considered a mobile killing machine because of the horrible conditions. The numbers were so large that the slaves who came by slave trade were the most Old-World immigrants in the world. Even though there were only races of people enslaved during the Atlantic Slave Trade, African Americans were the most numerous. Records show 34,941 voyages during the time of the slave trade. The Transatlantic Slave Trade took place across the Atlantic Ocean in the 16th century and lasted till the 19th centuries. The way that the Atlantic Slave Trade came about was cruel but not unthinkable. The capture and enslavement of African Americans was inevitable, the only question was when. A lot more slaves were taken to the South America than to the North America because the South “needed” them more. The South Atlantic economic system was based on producing crops, making goods and other things to sell. The enslaved people didn’t just skip into the ship with smiles on their faces. The Spanish colonists asked the King of Spain for permission to bring slaves to The New World to provide for them. Spanish Colonists were currently forcing Native Americans to do their labor for them but they were dying in large numbers because of diseases and lack of care from the colonists. The King of Spain gave approval to the colonists to import Africans and from then on Africans were transported there for use and labor and other needs of the Spanish colonists. During this time many African American slaves were transported. An estimated twelve to fifteen million African Americans were shipped throughout the world includ...
Since the beginning of slavery in the America, Africans have been deemed inferior to the whites whom exploited the Atlantic slave trade. Africans were exported and shipped in droves to the Americas for the sole purpose of enriching the lives of other races with slave labor. These Africans were sold like livestock and forced into a life of servitude once they became the “property” of others. As the United States expanded westward, the desire to cultivate new land increased the need for more slaves. The treatment of slaves was dependent upon the region because different crops required differing needs for cultivation. Slaves in the Cotton South, concluded traveler Frederick Law Olmsted, worked “much harder and more unremittingly” than those in the tobacco regions.1 Since the birth of America and throughout its expansion, African Americans have been fighting an uphill battle to achieve freedom and some semblance of equality. While African Americans were confronted with their inferior status during the domestic slave trade, when performing their tasks, and even after they were set free, they still made great strides in their quest for equality during the nineteenth century.
The Transatlantic Slave Trade was a service that transported around twelve and a half million men, women, and children to be bought and sold as slaves by countries mostly in the New World, like the United States of America. (The Transatlantic Slave Trade) The Portuguese were the first to bring African slaves over to the new world, but it quickly caught on over the years. Around 80% of the slaves that came across the Atlantic ended up in Brazil or the Caribbean Islands while only 7% wound up in the United States.(Ross) With the climate being completely different in South America, Europeans found it extremely hard to work and were not used to the living conditions so they contracted diseases. Unlike Europeans, the African slaves were capable of handling the climate and were used to working hard. (How Many Slaves Came to America? Fact vs. Fiction.) The reason the Transatlantic Slave Trade worked for many years was because it had a triangular trade form where Africa would send slaves over to America who would send the products of the slave labor over to Europe who would send ammunition and weapons back to Africa. There have been over 30,000 documented trips from Africa to the Americas. The trip from Africa to America lasted about three months by ships. This was called the middle passage, where a large amount of slaves died from malnutrition
The Africans slaves were treated just as badly as the Native Americans if not worse. They were forced to work hard gruesome hours in a fields, never feed or kept in good health, they were branded like common farm animals and brutally tortured at any signs of disobedience and resistance. As European crops and materials grew in demand, more African slaves were brought to the New World for work, thus beginning the Atlantic slave trade Europeans justified the Atlantic slave trade, which was the buying and selling of African slaves, in different ways. Three commonly used excuses being one: “ Apologist for the African slave trade long argued that European traders purchased African who had already been enslaved and who otherwise would have been put to death.Thus, apologists claimed the slave trade actually saved lives.” As well as two: “ In the Christian world, the most important rationalization for slavery was the so called ‘Curse of Ham’ According to the doctrine, the Bible figure Noah had cursed his son Ham with blackness and the condition slavery.” The last justification was that Europeans, full of greed and power, needed more people that weren't of European descendent to do all the dirty, hard and dangerous work for them. All of
Most of them were forced to do hard labor in mines, while others were taken to large homes and they worked as servants. They were fed and housed poorly. There were many slaves who tried to resist slavery and run away. Sometimes the enslaved Africans would rebel. In order to prevent retaliation, the Spanish government passed slave codes and laws in order to regulate the treatment of the slaves. Some of the laws tried to soften harsh conditions the slaves had to face, however most of them were created to punish them and keep them in bondage. Over time, Europeans had associated slavery with black Africans. Having a dark skin tone eventually became a sign of inferiority to many Europeans. Slavery which was originally created in order to prove labor force, led to racism. The slave trade lasted for about 400 years. From as early as the 1500’s to the mid 1800’s. This contact between the Americas and Africa had also formed part of the Columbian Exchange . Africans suffered tremendously in slavery, being separated from their families, whipped, and
On the third leg of the journey slaves were traded for sugar, molasses and other products. Those products were shipped to Europe or other European colonies in the Americas. The slaves in the West Indies were then sold to whomever wanted to buy some.
I want to start with the history of slavery in America. For most African Americans, the journey America began with African ancestors that were kidnapped and forced into slavery. In America, this event was first recorded in 1619. The first documented African slaves that were brought to America were through Jamestown, Virginia. This is historically considered as the Colonial America. In Colonial America, African slaves were held as indentured servants. At this time, the African slaves were released from slavery after a certain number of years of being held in captivity. This period lasted until 1776, when history records the beginning of the Middle Passage. The Middle Passage showed the increased of African slaves were bought into America. The increase demand for slaves was because of the increased production of cotton in the south. So, plantation owners demanded more African slaves for purchas...
The development of slavery in the Americas began as early as 1500, after the arrival of the Spanish, and first centered around the Caribbean. However, a lucrative triangle trading system between England, Africa and North America greatly increased the slave trade during the 1600’s (Foner, 38). At the time, slavery was driven by market forces, and largely defined by geographical necessity. Landowners had large plantations, located in areas with small populations and did not have access to the cheap labor necessary to cultivate lucrative crops like tobacco and sugar. They needed slaves to economically survive and prosper. Later, in the American colonies of the south, the entire economic and social structure
Once the goods were off loaded in Africa and the slaves loaded, the second leg of the journey carried slaves across the Atlantic Ocean to the North Americas (the new world).
Slave Life The warm climate, boundless fields of fertile soil, long growing seasons, and numerous waterways provided favorable conditions for farming plantations in the South (Foster). The richness of the South depended on the productivity of the plantations (Katz 3-5). With the invention of the cotton gin, expansion of the country occurred. This called for the spread of slavery (Foster). Slaves, owned by one in four families, were controlled from birth to death by their white owners. Black men, women, and children toiled in the fields and houses under horrible conditions (Katz 3-5). The slave system attempted to destroy black family structure and take away human dignity (Starobin 101). Slaves led a hard life on the Southern plantations. Most slaves were brought from Africa, either kidnapped or sold by their tribes to slave catchers for violating a tribal command. Some were even traded for tobacco, sugar, and other useful products (Cowan and Maguire 5:18). Those not killed or lucky enough to escape the slave-catching raids were chained together (Foster). The slaves had no understanding of what was happening to them. They were from different tribes and of different speaking languages. Most captured blacks had never seen the white skinned foreigners who came on long, strange boats to journey them across the ocean. They would never see their families or native lands again. These unfortunate people were shackled and crammed tightly into the holds of ships for weeks. Some refused to eat and others committed suicide by jumping overboard (Foster). When the ships reached American ports, slaves were unloaded into pens to be sold at auctions to the highest bidder. One high-priced slave compared auction prices with another, saying, "You wouldn’t fetch ‘bout fifty dollas, but I’m wuth a thousand" (qtd. in Foster). At the auctions, potential buyers would examine the captives’ muscles and teeth. Men’s and women’s bodies were exposed to look for lash marks. No marks on a body meant that he or she was an obedient person. The slaves were required to dance or jump around to prove their limberness. Young, fair-skinned muttaloes, barely clothed and ready to be sold to brothel owners, were kept in private rooms (Foster). It was profitable to teach the slaves skills so that during the crop off-season they could be hired out to work. Although they were not being paid, some were doing more skilled work than poor whites were.
Since it was becoming a profitable crop in the Americas. The rise of the “demand for African slaves” (Hine 36) grew. Growth of the Atlantic Slave Trade caused for the transformation of a “harsher form of slavery” (Hine 36) were race was the basis of enslavement of people. The ones who suffered out of this form of slavery was the “Africans and American Indians” (Hine 36). Due to their color of skin and culture they were discriminated and seen as chattel to their masters. Losing their rights as human beings and becoming property of
Africans had an assortment of individuals with various societies, ethnicities, yet 10.5 million of them were caught or seized then transported off in a slave exchange inside Europeans, Americans and Africans themselves.90% of them went straightforwardly to ranges of sugar generation—almost half to the Caribbean, and more than 40 percent to Portuguese 1 in each 25 transported Africans were transported to the British settlements ofAmericerica. Slavery was utilized to debilitate their own, however reinforce the proprietors monetarily with large scale manufacturing and reaping with the assistance of them. None of these individuals had a say on themselves or their family and would be isolated from them also for a consultation on Africans sudden shortcoming.
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, slavery connected the world. Slaves were present on almost every continent and were traded frequently across the Atlantic Ocean. Various countries influenced their allies, persuading others to join the chaotic process of selling human lives. Slaves were taken from their native homeland in Africa, sold to plantation owners in the West Indies, and then shipped to their final destination: the United States of America. This was not just a bad habit or business tactic; slavery became a cruel lifestyle. Thousands of lives were altered, leaving a considerable impact on the physical, emotional, and social aspects of society. Many causes attributed to American