Title of Primary Source: ACCOUNT OF THE SLAVE TRADE ON THE COAST OF AFRICA by ALEXANDER FALCONBRIDGE
The book was published in 1788 -- substantially after the events described took place. The time gap did not seriously affect the main content of the material because the events he describes were very serious and unforgettable ones. He wrote the material at the time he had already been a member of the Anti- Slavery Society leaving room for a little suspicion of his tendency to exaggerate some descriptions in his narrative. This been said, it is pertinent to note that it is unequivocally clear that the events he describes in this book are those he witnessed firsthand and they made a lasting impression on him. Consequently, this impression motivated him to not only join the Anti-Slavery Society, but to be actively involved as well.
The author Alexander Falconbridge, from the accounts in the book, is a British surgeon who wrote about (against) the slave trade aspect of “British commerce” as found in the preface of his account. He sailed with slave ships from 1780 through 1787 where according to him; he witnessed most of the things he gave account of in the book. He is a very appropriate as well as important source of information because he worked on board slave ships for very close to a decade. He was present from where the slaves are bought from their captors, on the ships used in transporting them through where they get to their final destination. He had the task of taking care and treating of the slaves which afforded him the opportunity of getting close to them and always been aware of the event taking place with them. Furthermore, he was not a merchant and most probably didn’t rely on the profit made on the slaves but on the ...
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...ent have affected the relationship between the European slave traders and the natives?
Social history: Would a more cordial social interaction between the various native tribes in West Africa have prevented the flourish of the Slave trade?
Military History: What effect would have a more advanced military by the natives had on the way the Europeans traded with them?
*History of Education: What effect would have an educated native populace had on the way the Europeans traded with them?
*History of population: What effect would a large population of individual tribes with large lands (rather than the fragmental distribution that was seen) have had on the way the Europeans traded with them?
*History of Language: How would have a common language spoken across most of West Africa as is in Asia have affected the way the Europeans traded with the West African Natives?
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 the mid 1800’s trade with Native Americans in the North West was extremely popular. One of the names associated with early trade in the North West is Hudson’s Bay Company. Hudson’s Bay was an English company that would trade goods to the indigenous people for furs, provisions, and other things. Trade with Native Americans was extremely popular during this time because the Native Americans desperately wanted what the Europeans had. That is why I think that the Europeans were benefited more by this trade agreement then the indigenous people of the North West.
He does this by showing the awful conditions on the transports ships, the savagery of their masters, and the spread of disease on the ships. In an effort to show the terrible conditions of the ships, the author writes,” The fresh air being thus excluded, the Negroes ' rooms soon grow intolerable hot. The confined air, …soon produces fevers and fluxes which generally carries off great numbers of them” (2). The author is directing his document to the general public, as slavery was rampant at this time. He wants to show people that slavery is wrong and inhumane. He writes about how inhumanely the African Americans were selected by the Europeans in order to become slaves for them. The document is a firsthand account, and the author describes being on some on the ships himself while the slaves were being transported. Like the slaves, the author gets sick while he is on the ship. On his time on one of the transports, he writes,”…I nearly fainted, and it was only with assistance I could get back on deck. The consequence was that I soon after fell sick of the same disorder from which I did not recover for several months” (2). This article was written in a time where it was not very popular to be Anti-Slavery, so the author had a lot of courage to do what he did. His neighbors and a few family members were likely utilizing slaves at the time,
Analyze the major similarities and difference among European, Native American and African societies. What was the European impact on the peoples and the environment of the Americas and Africa during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries?
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...
The author, Peter Kolchin, tried to interpret the true history of slavery. He wants the readers to understand the depth to which the slaves lived under bondage. In the book, he describes the history of the Colonial era and how slavery began. He shows us how the eighteenth century progressed and how American slavery developed. Then it moves onto the American Revolution, and how the American slaves were born into class. It was this time that slave population was more than twice it had been. The Revolutionary War had a major impact on slavery and on the slaves.
Klein, Herbert S. The middle passage: Comparative studies in the Atlantic slave trade. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press , 1978. 282. Print.
Reilly, "Captain Thomas Phillips: Buying Slaves in 1693." Worlds of History, Volume Two: Since 1400: A Comparative Reader, July, 2010, [623-629].
As both the narrator and author of “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave, Written by Himself” Frederick Douglass writes about his transition from a slave to a well educated and empowered colored young man. As a skilled and spirited man, he served as both an orator and writer for the abolitionist movement, which was a movement to the abolishment of slavery. At the time of his narrative’s publication, Douglass’s sole goal of his writings was to essentially prove to those in disbelief that an articulate and intelligent man, such as himself, could have,in fact, been enslaved at one point in time. While, Douglass’ narrative was and arguably still is very influential, there are some controversial aspects of of this piece, of which Deborah McDowell mentions in her criticism.
... 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.
Despite each individual having different circumstances in which they experienced regarding the institution of slavery, both were inspired to take part in the abolitionist movement due to the injustices they witnessed. The result is two very compelling and diverse works that attack the institution of slavery and argue against the reasons the pro-slavery individuals use to justify the slavery
Writing around the same time period as Phillips, though from the obverse vantage, was Richard Wright. Wright’s essay, “The Inheritors of Slavery,” was not presented at the American Historical Society’s annual meeting. His piece is not festooned with foot-notes or carefully sourced. It was written only about a decade after Phillips’s, and meant to be published as a complement to a series of Farm Credit Administration photographs of black Americans. Wright was not an academic writing for an audience of his peers; he was a novelist acceding to a request from a publisher. His essay is naturally of a more literary bent than Phillips’s, and, because he was a black man writing ...
The issue of Slavery in the South was an unresolved issue in the United States during the seventeenth and eighteenth century. During these years, the south kept having slavery, even though most states had slavery abolished. Due to the fact that slaves were treated as inferior, they did not have the same rights and their chances of becoming an educated person were almost impossible. However, some information about slavery, from the slaves’ point of view, has been saved. In this essay, we are comparing two different books that show us what being a slave actually was. This will be seen with the help of two different characters: Linda Brent in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Frederick Douglass in The Narrative of the life of Frederick
Lovejoy, Paul E. Transformations in Slavery: A History of Slavery in Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1983. Print.
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...