The East Indies Case Study

1508 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Slavery and the slave trade

The Europeans came to the East Indies and took over the land and the resources; this was wrong because it was unreasonable to use the wealth of the East Indies to purchase slaves. It was also wrong to enslave women and children.
II. Introduction
“The East Indies, or Indonesia, are a chain of islands numbering in the thousands and extending 3,000 miles along the Equator from their western extremity at the northern tip of Sumatra to their eastern limit in New Guinea. Today the population of the Indies is about 70 million. It is the most densely populated country in the world.”(Kennedy, p. 1)
The Europeans were the largest group of slave owners. There are no statistics recording how many slaves there were per household. In 1694, 70 percent of the slaves were owned by Europeans, with an average of almost 11 slaves per household. There appears to have been a great demand for slaves. The slaves also provided easy sexual contacts for their owner. Presumably, sexual relations between masters and their slaves were so common, and so much a matter of course, that they were seldom given special mention.
The purpose of this paper is to look at slavery in The East Indies from a female’s point of view. The Europeans came to the East Indies and took over the land and its resources. I believe that this was wrong because it was unreasonable to use the wealth of the East Indies to purchase slaves. In addition, I believe that women and children in particular should have been allowed to have their freedom.
A. The Beginning of Slavery
Slavery in the Transatlantic began in the late 1400s to the mid-1800s. “The Transatlantic Slave Trade was known as the most horrendous and traumatic event ever to occur in the Western hemisphere. It is believed that...

... middle of paper ...

...he end of the eastern slave trade began when the British ended slavery in India in 1843. Throughout much of the area, though, slavery remained legal until a country came under European rule or until the country tried to join the League of Nations after the 1st World War.
Although the slave trade was very profitable for the Dutch who led the slave trade, many felt that it was unethical. In particular enslaving women and children was cruel, because women were often raped and beaten. One of the reasons why slavery was abolished was because a campaign was launched by a small group of Protestant sects in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. This group was not the only group that fought against slavery however the Protestants condemned the institution of slavery as immoral.

Show More
Related

  • Reversing Sail Sparknotes

    431 Words  | 1 Pages

    Chapter six of “Reversing Sail: A History of the African Diaspora” is entitled “Asserting the Right to Be”. This chapter explores the rebellion of enslaved Africans and their descendants. It stresses that fact resistance against slavery and oppression have been present from the very beginning of the slavery and it has grown and evolved over time. One point in particular that the chapter discusses is the rise in the number of slave revolts in the early 1500’s. Another important topic that is discussed is the fact that people of African descent not only had to fight against slavery but they also had to fight the concept that an african ancestry was a mark of inferiority.

    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

  • DBQ ESSAY

    920 Words  | 2 Pages

    In 1732, John Barbot wrote in his writing (Collection of Voyages) that “African canoes carrying slaves on board of ships at Manfroe. Also shows European trading vessels and slave ships in the background and various forts.”(Source 1) This stated that Africans were the ones who started the whole thing and the Europeans didn’t really get into the idea since they were mainly there for gold and silvers. Thus, Africans were the ones who regulated this slave trade during this period. In 1786-1787, Europeans began the “Capture and Coffle of Enslaved Africans, Angola, 1786-87” (Source 10) Europeans began to enslaved Africans to work on the plantations and Africa’s superiority began to decrease. Also, Curtin Phillip D. in The Atlantic Slave Trade; a Census. London: University of Wisconsin Press,1969, “… the transformation of...

    Read More

  • The Devastation of the Indies

    287 Words  | 1 Pages

    The discovery and conquest of American Indians inspired efforts to develop an ideology that could justify why they needed to enslave the Indians. The Spanish monarch wanted an ideal empire. "A universal empire, of which all their subjects were but servants. Charles V remained for them the dominus mundi, the legitimate and God-ordained lord of the world." (Weckmann, The Transit of Civilization, 23) Gold and religious conversion was the two most important inspirations for conquistadors in conquering America. Father Bartolome De Las Casas was a Dominican priest who came to the New World to convert the Indians to become Christians. He spent forty years on Hispanolia and nearby islands, and saw how the Spaniards brutally treated the Indians and sympathized with them. The Devastation of the Indies was an actual eyewitness account of the genocide by Las Casas, and his group of Dominican friars in which he demonizes the Spanish colonists and praises the Indians. Father Las Casas returned to Seville, where he published his book that caused an on going debate on whether the suppression of the Indians corrupted the Spaniards' values. What Las Casas was trying to achieve was the notion of human rights, that human beings are free and cogent by nature without the interference of others.

    Read More

  • How Slavery Replaced Indentured Servitude

    1265 Words  | 3 Pages

    Chambers, Glenn A. . "From Slavery to Servitude: The African and Asian Struggle for Freedom in Latin America and the Caribbean." Herbert S. Klein and Ben Vinson III. 36.

    Read More

  • Black Southenrner

    672 Words  | 2 Pages

    Some present-day readers believe slavery began in Jamestown in 1619…if such readers are aware of slavery’s existence in the ancient world, the assume it had become extinct until New World plantations arose with their greed for cheap labor.

    Read More

  • Slavery Injustice Male versus Female

    1079 Words  | 3 Pages

    The practice of slavery for men and women both presented equally sufferings. However, the white planation owners or overseers routinely raped women during this time. Women regularly had their children stripped away from them and sold into slavery. However, ironica...

    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

  • The Economic Causes Of Slavery In Africa By Olaudah Equiano

    1282 Words  | 3 Pages

    Slavery can be found from the beginning of time, and the history of slavery in Africa clearly shows this. It started with Indigenous slavery and then Islamic slavery followed. These two were less harsh than the slavery that surfaced around the 15th century. This new and brutal slavery was never seen before in Africa and it disrupted the society greatly. Humans were thrown into triangular trade like they were nothing more than an animal or piece of property. Many people question why slavery ended, and economical reasons and the morals are the two main causes. It is more pleasing to suggest that it has been ended due to morals, but there is evidence it was ended for economical reasons.

    Read More

  • Evolution of Slavery

    1044 Words  | 3 Pages

    The slave trade into the United States began in 1620 with the sale of nineteen Africans to a colony called “Virginia”. These slaves were brought to America on a Dutch ship and were sold as indentured slaves. An Indentured slave is a person who has an agreement to serve for a specific amount of time and will no longer be a servant once that time has passed, they would be “free”. Some indentured slaves were not only Africans but poor or imprisoned whites from England. The price of their freedom did not come free.

    Read More

  • Uncle Tom's Cabin

    1336 Words  | 3 Pages

    At the one of the earliest points in American history, the roots of slavery began to take hold in Jamestown, Virginia in the year 1619 (“Slavery in America”). The reasoning behind owning slaves was selfish, and simple; slavery provided cheap, dispensable laborers that could survive tremendous amounts of abuse, and needed very little to survive. Before the use of slaves, Europeans relied heavily on indentured servants, individuals who owed a debt and thus traveled to the new world to work off the debt for a certain number of years until they would be freed. This left wealthy individuals who held the servants in a constant struggle of bringing in more workers, but slavery provided a remedy for this issue. For decades, slavery spread and grew throughout the...

    Read More

  • Jazz Music Essay

    1136 Words  | 3 Pages

    Slavery in the United States first began in 1619 when Dutch traders seized a captured Spanish slave ship and brought those aboard to the North American colony of Jamestown, Virginia. When the North American continent was first colonized by Europeans, the vast land proved to be more work than they had anticipated and there was a severe shortage of labor. Land owners needed a solution for cheap and plentiful labor to help with the production of lucrative crops such as tobacco and rice. Although many land owners already made use of indentured servants- poor youth from Britain and Germany who sought passage to America and would be contracted to work a given number of years before they were granted freedom- they soon realized that in order to continue expansion they would need to employ more labor. This meant bringing more people over from Africa against their own will, depriving the African content of its healthiest and most capable men and women. Since individuals with African origins were not English by birth, they were considered foreigners and outside English Common Law and were not granted equal rights. Many slave owners intended to make their slaves completely dependent on them and prohibited them from learning to read or write. The oppression of black slaves was on the rise and many sources estimate that nearly twelve million slaves were brought to the ...

    Read More

  • Why Was Slavery and the Slave Trade Abolished?

    413 Words  | 1 Pages

    In 1807, the slave trade was abolished by the British Parliament. It became illegal to buy and sell slaves, but people could still own them. In 1833 Parliament finally abolished slavery itself, both in Britain and throughout the British Empire. Why, when the slave trade and the plantations in the West Indies seemed to be making so much money, were they abolished? It was due to a mixture of white campaigners, slaves and economics of the slave trade which finally brought slavery to an end.

    Read More

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

    2407 Words  | 5 Pages

    PEABODY, SUE. "Slavery and the Slave Trade." Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. 10 Apr. 2014 .

    Read More

  • Enslave women experiences

    573 Words  | 2 Pages

    After the indigenous people of the Caribbean were terminated by the Spaniards the Europeans needed to find an alternative work force to mine their sugar plantations. The African were seen as the ideal supply of labourers. In Africa, slavery was not a new concept as it was already practiced so because of this the European deemed the Africans suitable for labour on the sugar plantations in the Caribbean. The enslaved people, men and women and children, were taken from their country and exposed to greater degree of slavery than that which they were familiar with. Once captured – these people of dark skin colour – were chained and then journeyed on foot to the coast where the slave forts were located (fig. 1).

    Read More

More about The East Indies Case Study

Open Document