Essay On Atlantic Slavery

When thinking of slavery, especially through an American perspective, plantations, harsh beatings, and runaway slaves are often what comes to the forefront of thought. What is often overlooked when looking at the history of slavery are the slave ships, which transported the enslaved people away from their homes and their freedom. The slave ship was a hell-like environment that was intended to turn the fighting human spirit, which had only known freedom, to a broken and subdued spirit, not even recognized as human. Human beings were turned into a commodity, justified by the idea that they were being done a favor, further justified by the idea that Europe and North America’s economic prosperity were of more importance than human lives. The slave

It was justified at whatever means possible. We see from the slave’s treatment on the slave ships that it was not just their freedom that was taken away from them, but their identity and respect as a human. Slavery stripped a person of their homeland, family, humanity, and hope. Atlantic slavery was a dark time in history when a country’s, as well as an individual’s, economic prosperity was valued over human life. Millions of human lives were lost at the cost of power, prestige, and wealth. While this is a very bleak picture of the past, throughout the existence of Atlantic slavery, we see small glimmers of humanity. The terror and horror of the slave trade and what took place on the slave ships cannot, and should not, be masked by lessening the horror of what happened. However, we must not merely focus on the horror of the slave trade, we must also focus on the humans involved. Taking away the identity of individuals involved, and labeling it as one big horrific event, would hardly do the victims and survivors of this tragedy justice. Atlantic slavery is more than a historical tragedy, it was a time when millions of individual lives were lost, for the sake of another individual’s