Slavery in Africa, Europe, and Jamaica

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Slavery in Africa, Europe, and Jamaica

Traders, businessmen, African slavers and slaves each had a unique experience and involvement in the business of the transatlantic slave trade. This lucrative process, that lasted between 1500 to 1870 AD included three different hemispheres: Europe, Africa, and the Americas, specifically Jamaica.

In Africa slavery existed long before European exposure, however, over time the motivation for slavery changed. Originally slavery existed because of the expanding of African territories or the need to pay off debts. Europeans, during their attempts to make a shorter trade route to India and Asia, encountered the African custom and adopted it. Therefore, the Europeans filled their pockets with goods from West Coast Africa, including human cargo. Those persons who were captured were auctioned to other Europeans in Western Africa, and then shipped to European colonial lands including Jamaica. The slaves were then put to work on a plantation-based colony, whose goods were sent back to its mother country. The triangular system perpetuated the demand for slaves by Europeans in order to increase their country’s wealth. Throughout all of the shipping of goods, including human cargo, individual people were involved in the evolution of the transatlantic trade. The main focus of this paper is to see the overall dynamics of the system, and involvement of individuals and countries, like Jamaica. The evolution and immersion of the transatlantic slave trade not only strengthened capitalism for individuals and their countries, but in turn it weakened Africa and Jamaica by making it dependent economically on outside nations.

The slave trade in Africa began long before the introduction of Europeans. Africa...

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Unwritten History of Slavery: Autobiographical Accounts of Negro Ex-Slaves. Tennessee: Fisk University, 1968.

Walvin, James. Slavery and the Slave Trade: a short illustrated history. Hong Kong: University Press of Mississippi, 1983.

Whitford, John. Trading Life in Western and Central Africa. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1967.

http://www.eb.com:180/bol/topic?artcl=43286&seq_nbr=1&page=n&isctn=2&pm=1 (An On-line Enclypedia), visited: April 14, 2000.

African Origins of some Jamaican Slaves: 1764-88 http://www.whc.neu.edu/protptype/Dbases/br3el_2d.html

http://www.ireggae.com/remember.html

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