The African Slave Trade

951 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Effects of african slavery on america

Identify and Explain the Causes and Effects of the African Slave Trade in the Atlantic World.

During the 1500-1800’s, African Slave Trade became huge in the America’s. When the idea was put into motion, thousands of slaves began to be traded from their homeland, Africa, their previous life, culture, and society, to the America’s, where they would be put into forced labor and worked as slaves for the rest of their lives, and their children's lives, and their children's children's lives, and so on. The African Slave Trade, during the period of the Atlantic World, had many causes leading up to it, and greatly affected the future of America, America's culture and society, Africa, and the African Slaves. Before the African Slave Trade was put …show more content…

To start, during the time of slavery, many Africans died and/or were worked to death. Since they were considered property, not humans, they could be killed in broad daylight and the owner would not be charged with murder. Also, at the time, the trade of so many Africans, and the need for trade of them, lead to the makings of the Triangular Trade system, the Middle Passage, and numerous new, and different trade routes. Furthermore, many cultures in Africa lost many of their fittest, (young and able), members to plantation owners and European traders. The Europeans also introduced guns the the African continent, which devastated African societies. Not only that, but the African Slave Trade, and the enslavement of Africans caused the idea of racism. Putting Africans into slavery was O.K. for the Europeans because the Africans were not, (at the time), Christians. Problems occurred shortly after this idea was made known to the slaves, and when the Africans became Christian, and believed in Christianity, Europeans had to find a solution to not lose their slaves due to the rising of Christianity, since they themselves said enslaving a Christian is wrong. Because of this, they came up with the idea of racism, this fixed the problem of Africans becoming Christian and wanting to be free because racism implied that colored …show more content…

The African Slave trade was caused by the need of labor, and previous slaves not working out for the Europeans, and it affected the lives of the Africans forced oversea to America, their homeland Africa, and the future of America. The period of the Atlantic world caused many problems we have today, it makes you wonder what would have happened if slavery never

Show More
Related

  • 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

  • Summary Of Ira Berlin, Generations Of Captivity?

    1823 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Tran-Atlantic slave exchange established the framework for present day entrepreneurship, creating riches for business endeavors in American and Europe society. The exchange added to the industrialization of a numerous continents’ surrounding the Atlantic area. Several of the areas where located in northwestern Europe, also the western part of Europe, the North, and South, and the Caribbean Islands. According to assign readings and observing other resources providing, the slave trade revealed deceptive inequity toward the people in America and European. There was other culture considered besides black that was residing within the domains of these state and continents. If an individual was not considering white, it is believed that the

    Read More

  • Equiano Dbq

    881 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Atlantic Slave Trade affected millions of lives throughout the centuries that it existed and now many years later. It was so widely and easily spread throughout four continents and with these documents we get to read about three different people with three different point of views. A story of the life as a slave from an African American slave himself, how the slave trade was just a business from the point of view from merchants and kings, and letter from King Affonso I referring to the slave trade to King Jiao of Portugal.

    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

  • The Slave Trade: The Two Princes Of Calabar

    567 Words  | 2 Pages

    The transatlantic slave trade was one of the most important factors in how the world came to be the way it is today. This trade led to the economic prosperity and political development in European countries and the population decline on the African continent. It was the catalyst for the development of both rich and poor societies today. The Two Princes of Calabar is a prime example of how this trade affected the economic growth of the countries and civilizations involved.

    Read More

  • Essay On Slave Trade

    1329 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Impact of Foreign Aid on African Democracy and Economy

    932 Words  | 2 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Slavery throughout the african disporia

    1769 Words  | 4 Pages

    This view of race during and after slavery led to the idea of racism. In both Spanish America and North America racism was fairly prominent, mainly focused on one’s skin color and hair. Most Africans in the Americas faced racism and oppression. In Spanish America racial and ethnic differences were used to divide and control the African Americans and Native Americas. In the United States even freed slaves were segregated in society. Slavery was used as a controlling form of segregation, with African Americans being separated in society by attitudes, behavior and sometimes even expectations of them. Slavery in its entirety ended up affecting Africa and African Americans for centuries.

    Read More

  • Abraham Lincoln and The Voice of The Abolitionists

    878 Words  | 2 Pages

    Slaves had an expanding economic force for the Europeans. “Trade between the Europeans and Africans created the first route of the triangular slave trade”. African citizens were “forcibly removed from their homes to never return”. Sales of Africans were classified as having the full cooperation of the “African kings” in return for various trade and goods. Africans who were exchanged were forced to walk chained to the coast of the Indian Ocean. Once at the coast they were stripped of all their clothes, men, women and children all alike with just a loincloth, or strips of blue tap for women to cover their chest area. Once the Africans boarded the ship they were divided by sex, males in the bowel of the ship and the women on the upper deck. The men would be chained side by side by their necks with barely enough room to move. African women were forced to do the “unmentionable acts”. Neither were fed or watered well, and the men would be forced to sit in their own “excrement, and vomit”. Once in awhile the men would be brought to the deck and rinsed off with cold water. While on deck they would be forced to dance to “entertain the ships crew”. Many Africans would try to “revolt” or commit “suicide”, when revolting against their captors many Africans would die. For as much as “3- 6 months” the Africans would endure these torments. Once the ship ported in the America’s shore, all the Africans would be “cleaned up and stripped naked to be sold”. Once the Africans were sold they were no longer Africans to the Merchants, they were product, and, no longer having rights as humans; they were caught into what is called chattel slavery. For approximately “246 years” African Americans would endure such bondage.

    Read More

  • African American Hardships

    1290 Words  | 3 Pages

    Africa is considered to be a multi-lingual country. There are eleven officially recognized languages their, many of which are often spoken but not widespread. English is generally understood across the country. It is one of the eleven common spoken languages but it only ranks 5th out of the eleven spoken languages. During the 15th and the 19th century, major changes had happened to the African and North American continents. Europeans ventured to Africa where they began a trans-Atlantic slave trade. Many Africans were taken as free people and then forced into slavery in South America, the Caribbean and North America. This slave trade had brought about a different type of racism. It was the color of your skin that determined whether a person would be a free citizen or be enslaved for life. This slave trade also devastated African lives and their heritage.

    Read More

  • Triangular Trade Essay

    1283 Words  | 3 Pages

    The slaves and slave owners in the Americas resulted in the concept of white supremacy, consequently causing vast social divisions among the wealthy Caucasians and poor Africans. These seemingly trivial actions to obtain affluence led America into the national issues that still patronize the United States to this day. Furthermore, “The plight and problems of workers today , black and white, may be directly traceable to African slavery in the United States” (Diggs 157). Even though, slavery was legalized during the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, they were eventually slavery becomes a major rationale of the Civil War. Although, through this conflict and the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, blacks in the United States allowed us to free the slaves they did not gain human rights until after the Civil Rights Act, thirteenth amendment, and the Voting Rights Act in the 1960s were established. The social repercussions of bringing slavery in the United States via Triangular Trade needs to remain heavily embedded in our history courses in order to prevent recurrences of social oppression for future

    Read More

  • DBQ ESSAY

    920 Words  | 2 Pages

    ... 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.

    Read More

  • Slave Trade In West Africa

    958 Words  | 2 Pages

    West Africa was greatly impacted by the Atlantic Slave Trade. Though there were countless negative effects, some short-term positive effects did occur. First off, the slave trade directly correlated with the number of wars in Africa. As demand for slaves increased, so did the quantity of wars to capture them. African kingdoms would wage war and go on raids in order to supply prisoners of war to sell. This was a start of a domino effect, in which kingdoms and tribes would capture slaves, trade them for guns to become more powerful, and then use said power to enslave even more people. A vicious cycle was created in Africa as a result of the slave trade. In spite of these negative effects, it is arguable that it was slightly beneficial for a

    Read More

  • The Impact of the Transatlantic Slave Trade on Ghana: A Violent Legacy

    2407 Words  | 5 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Scramble for Africa

    1166 Words  | 3 Pages

    There are a lot of causes of the scramble for Africa, and one of them was to ‘liberate’ the slaves in Africa after the slave trade ended. The slave trade was a time during the age of colonization when the Europeans, American and African traded with each oth...

    Read More

More about The African Slave Trade

Open Document