The Atlantic Slave Trade Beginning of the 15th and 16th centuries, Europeans began to explore in the Atlantic Coast of Africa. They were mainly lured into the excessive trade in gold, spices and other goods without knowing about slaves in Africa. Nonetheless, Europeans had no success of taking over these African states to achieve all of these goods but later they did take over various regions in other areas. Africans seems to be willing to sell as many as 11 million people to the Atlantic slave trade to the Europeans. Thus, this makes them the first people to have slaves not the Europeans that forced them into this trade. Furthermore, at the start the Africans seems to have full control of the slave trade, but the Europeans came in and slowly dominated the trade without the Africans knowing. Later on, the trade was overturned and everything went back orderly. In 1732, John Barbot wrote in his writing (Collection of Voyages) that “African canoes carrying slaves on board of ships at Manfroe. Also shows European trading vessels and slave ships in the background and various forts.”(Source 1) This stated that Africans were the ones who started the whole thing and the Europeans didn’t really get into the idea since they were mainly there for gold and silvers. Thus, Africans were the ones who regulated this slave trade during this period. In 1786-1787, Europeans began the “Capture and Coffle of Enslaved Africans, Angola, 1786-87” (Source 10) Europeans began to enslaved Africans to work on the plantations and Africa’s superiority began to decrease. Also, Curtin Phillip D. in The Atlantic Slave Trade; a Census. London: University of Wisconsin Press,1969, “… the transformation of... ... middle of paper ... ... The Economic History Review, by Behrendt, Stephen D. David Eltis, David Richardson that stated, “…second impact of Africans that goes beyond violence on slave ships followed from the natural Africans assumption of equal status in the trading relationship…came in the wake of holding Europeans…”(Source 9). The result of considering the equal status between the Africans and the Europeans from Africa’s point of view was the Atlantic slave trade which millions of African people’s live had been jeopardized and their fate had been seal to work in the fields for the rest of their lives. In conclusion, during the 15th and 16th centuries Europeans visited the Atlantic Coast in the African states to observe for gold and silvers. They took advantage of the Africans to get their desires when the Africans acknowledged them to be equal which drove into Africa’s downfall.
From 1754-1763, Britain fought the French and Indian war. Although Britain had won the war, they still had a lot of war debts to pay off. Britain turned to the colonies to pay off their debts by taxing them. The taxes angered the colonists because they believed it violated their rights. Benjamin Franklin had initially proposed the Albany plan of Union to unite the colonies, however this law was rejected by all of the colonial governments. It wasn't until after all of the British laws and taxes that the colonies would unite and write the Declaration of Independence.
Ever since there has been humanity, slavery has been a mechanism used by people in order to subjugate and dehumanize other individuals. Abina and the Important Men is a book that illustrates how slavery was still able to manifest, even after it had been abolished within British society. By enslaving young women under the false pretense that the individuals were wards, powerful African leaders and British rulers were able to maintain a social hierarchy where African women occupied the lowest rung. The trafficking of Africans through the Transatlantic Slave Trade, brought wealth to European and other western nations as well as African leaders who were willing to cooperate. Europeans, such as the Portuguese, British, and French, first began arriving to Africa in the 16th century since they were drawn by the valuable resources that could be found in coastal, African societies. Early on, African leaders were able to maintain power over the Europeans and prevented the foreigners
The first African slaves were brought to the colony of Jamestown, Virginia in 1619. They were brought over so that they could aid the production of crops. Caucasians believed they were superior then the Africans thus making them slaves. Many believed they could profit from having slaves. Example: instead of paying someone to work the filed or do any hard labor whites used Africans as slaves. The Africans would work for free and the slave owners would save money. Realistically speaking the treatments of slaves varied from a mild mistreatment to a sadist horrific torture.
Slavery, as an institution, has existed since the dawn of civilization. However, by the fifteenth century, slavery in Northern Europe was almost nonexistent. Nevertheless, with the discovery of the New World, the English experienced a shortage of laborers to work the lands they claimed. The English tried to enslave the natives, but they resisted and were usually successful in escaping. Furthermore, with the decline of indentured servants, the Europeans looked elsewhere for laborers. It is then, within the British colonies, do the colonists turn to the enslavement of Africans. Although Native Americans were readily available and were initially numerous, Africans became the primary slave used in the colonies because the Native American slaves could not fill the colonists' labor needs, while the Africans did.
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...
However, it was not the Portuguese, the Europeans, or even the Caucasians always responsible for enslaving the Africans. Most often it was the Africans themselves who would trade one another into slavery. This arrangement began formally in 1472.The Portuguese would distribute European goods to the Africans in return for slaves. Ottobah Cugoano disgracefully states, “’I must own to the shame of my country- men that I was first kidnapped and betrayed by [those of] my own complexion.’” Although Africans initially resisted selling one another to the outsiders, they did not at the time see the wrong in doing
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...
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.
With Europe in control, “the policies of the governing powers redirected all African trade to the international export market. Thus today, there is little in the way of inter-African trade, and the pattern of economic dependence continues.” Europeans exported most of the resources in Africa cheaply and sold them costly, which benefited them, but many Africans worked overtime and were not treated with care.
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
This class was filled with riveting topics that all had positive and negative impacts on Africa. As in most of the world, slavery, or involuntary human servitude, was practiced across Africa from prehistoric times to the modern era (Wright, 2000). The transatlantic slave trade was beneficial for the Elite Africans that sold the slaves to the Western Europeans because their economy predominantly depended on it. However, this trade left a mark on Africans that no one will ever be able to erase. For many Africans, just remembering that their ancestors were once slaves to another human, is something humiliating and shameful.
The Atlantic Slave Trade that for three centuries caused pain and desolation to the African American people who traveled to the Americas against their own will. Were brought to a land where they would be seen, as slaves. The Atlantic Slave Trade origins and growth were a main part in the building of chattel slavery that was beginning in the United States. Due to Chattel slavery, the American ideologies of white domination and economy were shaped to be one of discrimination and injustice. Ignoring this the Europeans saw this as an expansion of power and meeting the needs of workforce demanded.
Slavery became of fundamental importance in the early modern Atlantic world when Europeans decided to transport thousands of Africans to the Western Hemisphere to provide labor in place of indentured servants and with the rapid expansion of new lands in the mid-west there was increasing need for more laborers. The first Africans to have been imported as laborers to the first thirteen colonies were purchased by English settlers in Jamestown, Virginia in 1619 from a Dutch warship. Later in 1624, the Dutch East India Company brought the first enslaved Africans in Dutch New Amsterdam.
The concept of the slave trade came about in the 1430’s, when the Portuguese came to Africa in search of gold (not slaves). They traded copper ware, cloth, tools, wine, horses and later, guns and ammunition with African kingdoms in exchange for ivory, pepper, and gold (which were prized in Europe). There was not a very large demand for slaves in Europe, but the Portuguese realized that they could get a good profit from transporting slaves along the African coast from trading post to trading post. The slaves were bought greedily by Muslim merchants, who used them on the trans-Sahara trade routes and sold them in the Islamic Empire. The Portuguese continued to collect slaves from the whole west side of Africa, all the way down to the Cape of Good Hope (South Africa), and up the east side, traveling as far as Somalia. Along the way, Portugal established trade relations with many African kingdoms, which later helped begin the Atlantic Slave Trade. Because of Portugal’s good for...
In conclusion, we can find that without the cruelty that African men, women, and children have endured for over four centuries, and that without them the potential of the Caribbean, Brazil and America, we would have never been fully realized as sad as a legacy this leaves on history with all the in-humanity and wrong doing that was performed. In addition, that it did in fact create the world today, where we are globally connected in forms of trade allowing us to buy items that are on the other side of the world, for our world to have such luxurious resources at our dispense would have been unthinkable without all the hardship that was endured by those before us.