From the sixteenth century to the nineteenth century from across the Atlantic came the largest forced migration in the world's history. This became known as the Atlantic slave trade or transatlantic slave trade. The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade truly began when the Portuguese interests in Africa moved away from their cherished and beloved deposits of gold and moved towards something they found much more readily available than minerals, slaves. Europeans saw Africans as a source of inexpensive labor for their American colonies. European planters established large farms and plantations in the America's to grow tobacco, sugar and many other cash crops. As the plantations grew, the amount of people needed to tend them grew as well. Thus their demand for more slaves. By the seventeenth century the trade was no longer a game but actually in full effect, reaching a peak towards the end of the eighteenth century. It was a trade which was very precise due to the fact that each stage of the trade were extremely profitable for merchants. This came to known as the infamous triangular trade.
The first stage of the trade was the shipment of manufactured goods from Europe to Africa. Some of these goods included beads, cowries shells, cloth, spirit, tobacco, metal goods, and guns. They used guns to aid in the expansion of empires and also found it was useful in obtaining more slaves by force. These goods were exchanged for African slaves. Slave ships from Britain left ports from places such as London, Liverpool and Bristol for West Africa transporting these goods. Merchants from all over Europe brung in refined goods to Africa to trade for slaves. The merchants traded with chiefs and high authority leaders.
The second stage of the Triangular Tr...
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...he main export was tobacco and hemp. The ship then returned to Europe to complete the triangle. After this whole process the cycle repeated itself over and over, and this system was used for awhile before it was put to an end in the early 1800's.
The struggle to end the transatlantic slave trade and slavery was achieved by African resistance and economic factors as well as through humanitarian campaigns. The Slave Trade Act of 1807 and many other acts and treaties were signed to end slavery. Despite the abolition of slave trading by Britain and efforts to stop it from 1807 onwards, illegal trading continued for a further 60 years. Slavery still exists today in things such as bonded labor, child slavery, forced marriages, forced labor and most of all human trafficking. Slavery is something us humans, do to one another meaning it won’t change until society does.
The trans-Atlantic trade of African slaves contributed to maintaining progression of labor systems as well as promoting change in the British North American colonies. The slaves provided labor and helped produce the cash crops that were then exported to Europe where they traded the goods to trade with Africans for more slaves. The Africans enslaved each other and sold more slaves to be sent to the colonies in
Following the success of Christopher Columbus’ voyage to the Americas in the early16th century, the Spaniards, French and Europeans alike made it their number one priority to sail the open seas of the Atlantic with hopes of catching a glimpse of the new territory. Once there, they immediately fell in love the land, the Americas would be the one place in the world where a poor man would be able to come and create a wealthy living for himself despite his upbringing. Its rich grounds were perfect for farming popular crops such as tobacco, sugarcane, and cotton. However, there was only one problem; it would require an abundant amount of manpower to work these vast lands but the funding for these farming projects was very scarce in fact it was just about nonexistent. In order to combat this issue commoners back in Europe developed a system of trade, the Triangle Trade, a trade route that began in Europe and ended in the Americas. Ships leaving Europe first stopped in West Africa where they traded weapons, metal, liquor, and cloth in exchange for captives that were imprisoned as a result of war. The ships then traveled to America, where the slaves themselves were exchanged for goods such as, sugar, rum and salt. The ships returned home loaded with products popular with the European people, and ready to begin their journey again.
The Transatlantic Slave Trade started out as merchant trading of different materials for slaves. With obtaining a controllable form of labor being their main focus, the Europeans began to move to Africa and take over their land. The natives had to work on the newly stolen land to have a source of income to provide for their families.Soon others Europeans began to look for free labor by scouring the continent of Africa. Because Europeans were not familiar with the environment, Africans were employed to kidnap other Africans for the Transatlantic Slave Trade. After trade routes were established, different economies began to link together, and various items were exchanged across the world. As the Atlantic Slave Trade grew larger, problems began
Cotton, spices, silk, and tea from Asia mingled in European markets with ivory, gold, and palm oil from Africa; furs, fish, and timber from North America; and cotton, sugar, and tobacco from both North and South America. The lucra¬tive trade in enslaved human beings provided cheap labor where it was lacking. The profits accrued in Europe, increasingly in France and Britain as the Portuguese, Spanish, and then Dutch declined in relative power. It was a global network, made possible by the advancing tech¬nology of the colonialists.
Though the Atlantic Slave Trade began in 1441, it wasn’t until nearly a century later that Europeans actually became interested in slave trading on the West African coast. “With no interest in conquering the interior, they concentrated their efforts to obtain human cargo along the West African coast. During the 1590s, the Dutch challenged the Portuguese monopoly to become the main slave trading nation (“Africa and the Atlantic Slave Trade”, NA). Besides the trading of slaves, it was also during this time that political changes were being made. The Europe...
The effects of slavery linger in this country even today. After the Civil War and even the Reconstruction period, racial inequality and
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.
In the “Interpretive Essay”, Kenneth Banks discuses the consequences of the Atlantic slave trade. The negative effects on the Africans due to the Atlantic slave trade range from the influence on Africans societies and warfare, inhumane and atrocious living and working conditions, decrease of their population, and the long-term impact of bigotry. During the Atlantic save trade’s peak, the movement to abolish slavery started because it went against certain religious beliefs, several thinkers saw it as inefficient, and was unethical.
The first leg of this trade was merchants from Europe bringing refined goods to Africa to trade for slaves. The merchants traded with chiefs and high authority leaders. The chiefs pretty much could and would trade whomever they
... market, but demand in continental Europe and the United States grew even faster after 1840. The profitability of slavery ultimately rested on the enormous demand for cotton outside the South. This made slaves the most valuable commodity at the time and most of the profits from slave labor and sales went into purchasing more land and slaves.
Slavery was a problem that had been solved by the end of the Civil War . Slavery abused black people and forced them to work. The Northerners didn’t like this and constantly criticized Southerners causing a fight. On January 1, 1863 the Emancipation Proclamation was signed by Lincoln to free all the slaves in the border states . “...All persons held as slaves within said designated states, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free…” (Lincoln 1862). In 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment was passed which abolished slavery (Thirteenth Amendment 1865).
The British had a triangle of trade with Africa. They would go to Africa trade finished goods and bring them to
...e of Olaudah Equiano. It was published in 1789 and was read by people around the world in several different languages. It opened everyone’s eyes to what the slave trade really was. Another reason for the end of slavery was the successful slave revolt in Haiti from 1801-1803. This showed the Americas that slavery could be defeated. And starting in the 18th century, an Industrial Revolution was sweeping over Europe and North America, and by the 19th century slaves started to become less of an economic profit. Then, in 1807, Britain became the first country in Europe to abolish slavery. Soon after France, Spain, Denmark, and Holland followed suit, and a year later America abolished the trade as well. Over the next eighty years countries began to abolish slavery altogether, and in 1865 (after the Union won the American Civil War), America became one of those countries.
In 1807, the slave trade was abolished by the British Parliament. It became illegal to buy and sell slaves, but people could still own them. In 1833 Parliament finally abolished slavery itself, both in Britain and throughout the British Empire. Why, when the slave trade and the plantations in the West Indies seemed to be making so much money, were they abolished? It was due to a mixture of white campaigners, slaves and economics of the slave trade which finally brought slavery to an end.
The Europeans saw Africa as being a great place to obtain all types of resources, from labor to natural materials. Items such as cotton, coal, rubber, copper, tin, gold, and other metals were considered very valuable and readily available in Africa (Nardo). The industrial revolution had already become a strong influence on the countries that attended the Conference. They had spent the past 400 years gathering slaves from Africa that provided cheap labor for them. ....