From the mid 15th century through the majority of the 19th century, slave trade was used to supply laborers to the Americas. The ways used to bring these forced laborers to the Americas lacked humane treatment of them as slaves. Overall the neglect of humanitarian concerns had a violent and inhumane impact on the treatment of the slaves throughout their capture, trade, transportation, and continued life as a slave. Throughout the slave trade, from 1450 to 1870, many Africans were kidnapped from their homes by both fellow Africans and Europeans who treated these prospective slaves in a similar manner. Document 3 is a piece of artwork that demonstrates how Africans were treated by their captors, who are also of African descent. Even though those …show more content…
Conditions aboard the ships were horrendous and very inhumane. The following documents describe these horrors though different types of documents. Document 4 is a picture that depicts the treatment of slaves aboard the ships. This image entitled “Living Africans Thrown Overboard,” delivers a straightforward meaning to what the image portrays. This title fully expresses the torture that was placed on them. Document 6 is the personal surveyance of Robert Walsh, describing the cruel things these people were forced to endure; often driving them to insanity. The author of this passage, Robert Walsh, did not personally encounter these cruel happenings for himself, but did witness them. He seemed to sympathize with those enslaved and realized what the circumstances were which produced unhealthy results for the enslaved. Document 5 is an image that describes the layout of the slave ship. This image truly shows how the captors had no regard for the comfort of the captives, but rather were concerned with how many bodies could fit. The space each slave was given was not nearly enough, making them more susceptible to diseases. Diseases often spread rapidly, killing many of the slaves aboard. While these enslaved men and women suffered in these ships, the captors lived more comfortably with room to roam and food to eat. An additional document that would help to prove the horrible treatment of slaves due to transportation would be a record of the cargo aboard the ship. This would tell the initial amount of slaves that were taken, allowing the determination of how many slaves were lost throughout their transport. Knowing this would allow one to understand how horrific the travel had actually been due how the slaves were dealt with. Documents 4, 5, and 6 portray the awful treatment of slaves during their transportation across the ocean and how the way they were
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.
In Africans In America Terrible Transformation written by PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) writes an article stating the historical background of African Americans that were captured and enslaved from Western Africa from 1450-1750. About 200,000 Africans were transported to Europe Islands in the Atlantic. But after Columbus excursion, Slave traders found a new market for slaves: New World plantations. From this, they were used for the planting crops for the Europeans that were uneducated how farm such as, rice, cotton, tobacco, and sugar in the south. It wasn’t till the American Revolution where they protest against “enslavement” from the British and demands from American “liberty” for some hope of being free from bondage . After reading
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. Some were also forced into life of captivity. It was common for young individuals to be kidnapped and taken to a home of a common family to work and serve them. Many owners would treat their slaves fairly. The masters would own a piece of property and have an apartment for their own personal family along with a home for the enslaved family. Equiano talks about how many slaves owned their own slaves in some cases. If a family was wealthy enough, they would accommodate their property, meaning the slaves. They were a part of the owner’s family and were as brutally treated comparing to slaves of the Colonial U.S.
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.
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.
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
There are three things in the article that is very compelling to me as a reader, the living conditions of the slaves in the ships, the rape the women faced, and the punishment styles the rebellious slaves had to endure. What they endured was almost like hell on earth, it was almost genocide, but without the intention of genocide.
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.
All were subject to harsh circumstances and the relentless fears of shipwreck and disease outbreaks. It took as long as five to twelve weeks, depending on the weather circumstances and point of departure. The captain and the crew workers treated the slaves like wild animals, giving them barely enough food to survive and leaving them to suffer with lice, fleas, and rats, which led to many diseases (“Middle Passage”). The records stated that about two –thirds of the fatalities were caused by malaria, yellow fever, and intestinal disorders (Postma 25). The enslaved Africans were linked with heavy iron chains around their hands and feet with barely enough room to lie down (Howarth). Constant odors of urine, vomit...
Also, the ship’s crew often treated the Africans badly; they often whipped them because many of the people resisted and tried to escape from the cargo ship.
It is prudent to speak here to the inhumane way in which the slaves were transported during this first leg of the journey. The trading of slaves was very lucrative for the Europeans. As it goes in business, the higher the demand, the larger the quantities supplied. All the slaves were branded to show to whom they belonged, and the male slaves were shackled together and packed in the hole like sardines, while the women and children were sometimes allowed to stay on deck. Any acts of aggression by the men or women resulted in severe beatings to discourage the behavior. Imagine being beaten and shackled with a rival tribe man or not being able to communicate with the person beside you because you both spoke different languages!
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.
conditions aboard ship were dreadful. The maximum number of slaves was jammed into the hull, chained to forestall revolts or suicides by drowning. Food, ventilation, light, and sanitatio...
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, slavery connected the world. Slaves were present on almost every continent and were traded frequently across the Atlantic Ocean. Various countries influenced their allies, persuading others to join the chaotic process of selling human lives. Slaves were taken from their native homeland in Africa, sold to plantation owners in the West Indies, and then shipped to their final destination: the United States of America. This was not just a bad habit or business tactic; slavery became a cruel lifestyle. Thousands of lives were altered, leaving a considerable impact on the physical, emotional, and social aspects of society. Many causes attributed to American
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.