The Atlantic Slave Trade

830 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Impacts of slavery on africans

The Atlantic Slave Trade
Did you know that the African were tricked into slavery? They would cry out to each other in a quiet voice to say “We raise the wheat they give us the corn; we bake the bread, they give us the crust; we peel the meat, they give us the skin, and that’s the way they takes us in.” The Atlantic Slave Trade known as the Middle passage which was the heart of slavery. The slave trade took place between the 1500s through the 1800s across the Atlantic Ocean. During this time the European slave traders bought African slaves, kings, queens and merchants. The Africans suffered negative consequences of the slave trade which affected them emotionally, physically and tore many families and communities apart. It is estimated that the Atlantic Slave Trade brought more than six hundred thousand Africans to the 13 British colonies from the 1700 to 1775, in the worst conditions any persons can imagine.
To begin, the Atlantic Slave Trade was really negative on the lives of Africans. Before the invasion of Europeans, Africa had thousands of languages and their names all meant something. Africa was first own by a black man. It was known as the Gold Coast, the Ivory Coast, the Grain Coast and soon Slave Coast, during the 1500s. The Europeans first entered Africa to trade for gold, then for slaves, at that point this is when the face of Africa changed.
For over 300 years, slaves were captured along the west coast of Africa, often with the help of African kings and merchants. Slaves were traded for beads, textiles, brandy, horses, and guns. When the Europeans arrived the African kings and queens were helping the slaves get on the boat, because they thought the Europeans wanted to borrow the slaves not them. As soon as all the ...

... middle of paper ...

...g the Atlantic Slave Route.
New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007.

Marsico, Katie. Slavery in America. Vero Beach, FL: Rourke Pub., 2010.

"Pedagogy for African Studies." AFRICAN HOLOCAUST. N.p., n.d. Web. 10
Feb. 2013.

Rediker, Marcus. The Slave Ship: A Human History. New York: Viking, 2007.

Rodriguez, Junius P. The Historical Encyclopedia of World Slavery. Vol. 1. Santa
Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 1997.

Rodriguez, Junius P. The Historical Encyclopedia of World Slavery. Vol. 2. Santa
Barbara, Calif. [u.a.: ABC-CLIO, 1997.

St, Clair William. The Door of No Return: The History of Cape Coast Castle and the Atlantic Slave Trade. New York: Blue Bridge, 2007.

Thomas, Hugh. The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1440-
1870. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1997.

Thomas, Velma Maia. Lest We Forget: The Passage from Africa to Slavery and Emancipation

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 Olaundah Equiano

    1246 Words  | 3 Pages

    Servitude is a usual part of African ritual. Tribes would often use trade to obtain slaves by going to the head chief and trading for livestock. Not only did various tribes trade with the people of their countries, but with the Europeans of other nationalities as well. There were times that tribes would go to war and keep chiefs and prisoners of war were kept as slaves, to trade with European countries. Many times slaves were sold due to being punished, or to rape and other various crimes.

    Read More

  • Abolish The Transatlantic Slave Trade

    1642 Words  | 4 Pages

    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

    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

  • Similarities Between North And South American Slavery

    816 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Arguments Against African Slave Trade

    772 Words  | 2 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • The Extreme Cruelty of the Middle Passage

    1719 Words  | 4 Pages

    There is no other experience in history where innocent African Americans encountered such a brutal torment. This infamous ordeal is called the Middle Passage or the “middle leg” of the Triangular Trade, which was the forceful voyage of African Americans from Africa to the New World. The Africans were taken from their homeland, boarded onto the dreadful ships, and scattered into the New World as slaves. 10- 16 million Africans were shipped across the Atlantic during the 1500’s to the 1900’s and 10- 15 percent of them died during the voyage. Millions of men, women, and children left behind their personal possessions and loved ones that will never be seen again. Not only were the Africans limited to freedom, but also lost their identity in the process. Kidnapped from their lives that throbbed with numerous possibilities of greatness were now out of sight and thrown into the never-ending pile of waste. The loathsome and inhuman circumstances that the Africans had to face truly describe the great wrongdoing of the Middle Passage.

    Read More

  • Triangular trade

    346 Words  | 1 Pages

         On the second leg of this trade slaves were transported to the West Indies, this leg was called the middle passage. This part was horrible for the slaves. About 50% of all the slaves on one ship would not make it to the West Indies because of disease or brutal mistreatment. Hundreds of men, women and children were cramped together for most of the journey, occasionally able to move an almost decent amount.      On the third leg of the journey slaves were traded for sugar, molasses and other products.

    Read More

  • Abina And The Important Men Analysis

    1051 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Middle Passage

    1311 Words  | 3 Pages

    First of all it is important to examine how many African slaves were brought to the New World. The Middle Passage is infamous route of the ships that carried slaves to the Americas. After the arrival to the New World, the slaves were sold or exchanged for the valuable goods. The term Middle Passage might sound somewhat romantic, but in reality it stands as a one of the most terrible events in history. The Middle Passage is the passage of bonded slaves from West Africa to the Americas. In the beginning, there was a trade between Europeans and African leaders who sold their enemies and disabled people in exchange for unique gifts such as guns, tobacco, iron bars and etc. But at the later stages of slavery, Europeans often kidnapped Africans at the costal area of Western Africa and then sent to ships that sailed them to the New World where this new free work force was needed to help stabilize the new nation.

    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

  • The Middle Passage

    799 Words  | 2 Pages

    The first leg of the journey was from Europe, mainly Portugal to Africa. Many of the goods produced in Europe were not available in Africa or America. The Europeans traded manufactured goods, including weapons, guns, beads, cowrie shells (used as money), cloth, horses, and rum to the African kings and merchants in return for gold, silver and slaves. Africans were seen as very hard workers who were skilled in the area of agriculture and cattle farming. They were also used to the extreme temperatures that people of lighter complexions could not bear. There had always been slavery in Africa amongst her own people, where men from different tribes/villages would raid other villages to kidnap the women for their pleasures, and the men to use as slaves. To learn that they could actually profit from this activity made the job of getting slaves very easy for the Europeans. Slaves acquired through raids, were transported to the seaports were they were help prisoner in forts until traded.

    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

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

    2407 Words  | 5 Pages

    "Africa Before Transatlantic Slavery: The Abolition of Slavery Project." Africa Before Transatlantic Slavery: The Abolition of Slavery Project. E2BN, 2009. Web. 08 Apr. 2014. .

    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 Atlantic Slave Trade

Open Document