Dehumanization of the Slave Trade

2105 Words5 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Slavery and indentured labour in colonial America

Dehumanization of the Slave Trade

Bare feet walked across the rocky dirt road. Hands, feet, and wrists chained together. A long line of black people, men and women and even young maturing children. Beaded up hair from the water and sweat dripping from their filthy bodies from the hot desert-like sun beaming upon them. Dusty looking skin from the times they fell and tried so hard to get up. Empty stomachs; starving people; black people. Some naked and some clothed. They have been walking for some miles, being pulled along, whipped continuously, and told what to do; by the white man. Flies buzzing around them. Rotten smells of all sorts. Swollen feet and hands from the treacherous journeys and over-bearing labor that they had to endure. They were slaves.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, the labor of African Americans was in higher demand. This was due to the insufficient amounts of white and Indian indentured servants, for the use of agricultural labor. During the 16th and 17th century time periods, Brazilian and Caribbean sugar plantations were very profitable and the use of African Americans as the laborers/workers provided a model for the European colonists in North America. (historychannel.com)

Africans served as guides and soldiers in the journey of Mexico, however when they were brought to North America they were instead used to produce export crops, such as tobacco, rice, indigo, and cotton, which was a major source of wealth. Once this had begun the English settlers gradually begin to turn to black slavery to solve the labor shortage (history channel.com).

Spain and England engaged in the housing of slaves. In the 16th century Spain brought in 100,000 Africans. However England did no...

... middle of paper ...

...nized English, and religion, and the other aspects of the Western civilization, thereby creating their own unique culture that combined African with European elements. They tried to take over our minds, souls, and bodies, but only got what they gave us, nothing in return.

Bibliography

Funk And Wagnalls. "History of the Civil Rights Struggle: The Slave Era." History.com. 2005. World Almanac Education Group, A WRC Media Company. 17 Feb. 2006 http://www.historychannel.com/blackhistory/?page=history2.

Unknown. "People & Events Royal African Company established 1672." Pbs.org. WGBH and PBS online. 17 Feb. 2006 http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/1p269.html.

Gaines, Ernest J. New York: Vintage Books, 1993. 63.

Gaines, Ernest J. New York: Vintage Books, 1993. 167.

Gaines, Ernest J. New York: Vintage Books, 1993. 192.

Show More
Related

  • Olaudah Equiano And Phillis Wheatley's View On Religion

    1464 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Slavery John Barabot Summary

    1272 Words  | 3 Pages

    One of the major questions asked about the slave trade is ‘how could so Europeans enslave so many millions of Africans?” Many documents exist and show historians what the slave trade was like. We use these stories to piece together what it must have been to be a slave or a slaver. John Barbot told the story of the slave trade from the perspective of a slaver in his “A Description of the Coasts of North and South Guinea.” Barbot describes the life of African slaves before they entered the slave trade.

    Read More

  • Upper South Vs Lower South Essay

    1854 Words  | 4 Pages

    During the era of 1789-1850, the South was an agricultural society. This is where tobacco, rice, sugar, cotton, and wheat were grown for economic resources. Because of labor shortage and the upkeeps of the farm to maintain the sale of merchandise property-owners purchased black people as slaves to work their agricultural estate, also low- key sharecroppers often used slave work as their resources as well. As the South developed, profits and businesses grew too, especially those expected to build up the local crops or remove natural resources. Conversely, these trades regularly hire non-landowning whites as well as slaves either claimed or chartered. With that being said, the African culture played a significant role as slaves in the south

    Read More

  • Essay On Trans-Atlantic Interactions

    526 Words  | 2 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • DBQ ESSAY

    920 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Racial Domination, Racial Progress By Matthew Desmond And Mustafa Emirbayer

    1425 Words  | 3 Pages

    For more than two hundred years, a certain group of people lived in misery; conditions so inhumane that the only simile that can compare to such, would be the image of a caged animal dying to live, yet whose live is perished by the awful chains that dragged him back into a dark world of torture and misfortune. Yes, I am referring to African Americans, whose beautiful heritage, one which is full of cultural beauty and extraordinary people, was stained by the privilege given to white men at one point in the history of the United States. Though slavery has been “abolished” for quite some years; or perhaps it is the ideal driven to us by our modern society and the lines that make up our constitution, there is a new kind of slavery. One which in

    Read More

  • What did freedom mean to harriet jacobs

    1325 Words  | 3 Pages

    To understand the desperation of wanting to obtain freedom at any cost, it is necessary to take a look into what the conditions and lives were like of slaves. It is no secret that African-American slaves received cruel and inhumane treatment. Although she wrote of the horrific afflictions experienced by slaves, Linda Brent said, “No pen can give adequate description of the all-pervading corruption produced by slavery." The life of a slave was never a satisfactory one, but it all depended on the plantation that one lived on and the mast...

    Read More

  • Abina Mansha, A Slave

    885 Words  | 2 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • Fences, by August Wilson

    1101 Words  | 3 Pages

    New York, NY: New American Library, 1986. Print. The.

    Read More

  • Sandra Cisneros' Writing

    1289 Words  | 3 Pages

    First Vintage Contemporary Edition. March 1992. 10 Nov 2010. Thomson, Jeff. A.

    Read More

  • Slavery Synthesis Essay

    1347 Words  | 3 Pages

    When one thinks of slavery, they may consider chains holding captives, beaten into submission, and forced to work indefinitely for no money. The other thing that often comes to mind? Stereotypical African slaves, shipped to America in the seventeenth century. The kind of slavery that was outlawed by the 18th amendment, nearly a century and a half ago. As author of Modern Slavery: The Secret World of 27 Million People, Kevin Bales, states, the stereotypes surrounding slavery often confuse and blur the reality of slavery. Although slavery surely consists of physical chains, beatings, and forced labor, there is much more depth to the issue, making slavery much more complex today than ever before.

    Read More

  • should the confederacy won the civil war?

    1407 Words  | 3 Pages

    Slaves produced many good and services that were provided to the benefit of most white Americans absolutely or not absolutely. (1) Slaves were not just used for agriculture. They also were used for forms of production and trade jobs. For parts of the 18th and most of the 19th century, slaves were the true work force of America.

    Read More

  • Frederick Douglass Dehumanization

    1085 Words  | 3 Pages

    Slavery was an accepted way of life in America during the nineteenth century. Public sentiment on the subject formed largely from the writings of southerners who rationalized slavery’s existence. White people enslaved black people and believed the Negro race was naturally inferior and would benefit under the white man’s care. However, as Douglass pointed out in The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American slave, slavery provided no such benefits.

    Read More

  • The Middle Passage

    1234 Words  | 3 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • Why the Rich are Getting Richer and the Poor, Poorer

    1571 Words  | 4 Pages

    New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Print.

    Read More

More about Dehumanization of the Slave Trade

Open Document