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The impact of the slave trade
The impact of the slave trade
The impact of the slave trade
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Innocent Africans went from free civilians to slaves in a matter of seconds when they got kidnapped by other countries. The slave trade started in the 1500’s. The people from Portuguese were exploring Africa and they kidnapped innocent Africans. As time went on they would keep acquiring people which is why they kept building plantations and getting free labor. The slave trade was one of the biggest deportations in history. The Atlantic Slave Trade was a turning point in history because of the mass European exploitation of Africans. Slaves experienced death and had PTSD due to the very harsh ways they were sent over to where they would perform rigorous labor. Due to this, the labor force completely changed, for example, the encomienda system in South America.
Africa was composed of many
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small tribes. Many tribes would invade each other and they would become each other's slaves. Other countries thought this was a good idea and kidnapped Africans to make them their slaves. They would also buy them and sell them. Once they had many slaves they would trade them for cigars and liquor. This happened during the 15th century-18th century. The places they would bring the slaves (Slave Path) were to North America, South America, and Europe. When the countries would have more jobs they would need to be done, they would need more workers to perform labor but, they were costly so they used slaves. Other countries saw potential in having slaves. It was free labor and they could do whatever they wanted to them. “3.5 million Africans crossed the Atlantic in the 19th century.” (Grolier) In order to get the serfs to places, they would put them on huge boats that were overpacked and couldn't even sit up because there was no room not even a foot apart from each other. The countries would want healthy slaves that were male. They didn't want many infants or women. But, they wouldn't always arrive healthily. There were many diseases that spread due to the filthy conditions. Once they step foot onto the boat they become property. They would do many horrible things to the slaves. They would make them work rigorous hours without stopping through heat, sickness, weather there was no excuses. The slaves could not rebel because they were the owner’s legal property. If they did rebel the owners would whip them, starve them, rape them or put them to death. “Slaves had no say in what task they were required to do and no control over the length of their working day which was usually from sunup in the morning to sunset in the evening (“can see to can’t see” in the slaves language).” (historyonthenet) The slaves would have to do things such as weaving, washing clothes, cooking, butchering, carpentry, picking cotton, harvesting tobacco etc. The slaves would be lucky if they had a shack with there family or if they knew their families. Most people were separated from family, friends, and tribes when they were put on the slave boats so if they saw a familiar face it would be very fulfilling. They lived a very minimalistic life with not many things or companions. The slaves had a very hard life that was far from enjoyable. They would be alone with no one to have there back. It would be them against the world. If they were lucky they would have a companion through the journey but, there is a very high chance that they could die before your eyes. Also, they could get traded for another slave that was cable of doing more things. Most slaves had to face their lives with very bad PTSD. For example, if there master was a Hispanic person every time they see a Hispanic person they might have a panic attack or have flashbacks to the bad times. Unfortunately, many Africans ended their lives because of the PTSD. “Of all ethnic backgrounds have been inculcated and immersed in a fabricated (but effective) system of race "hierarchy," where light-skin privilege still dramatically affects the likelihood of succeeding.” (Interview: Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome) Many people don't think that white privilege is real but, Africans were treated very differently than white people. It would get out of control and the only way they felt they could handle it was by ending their lives. Many women would get raped by their masters and they couldn't do anything about it because they were the man's property. If she got pregnant her baby could get taken away regardless of if it was the man's baby or if she was sent over the Atlantic pregnant. This slave trade affected the world in many ways. One main reason is something we still deal with two centuries after this was over. It showed that Africans were worth an amount of money which made them property. “So we are all black people, so-called Negroes, second-class citizens, ex-slaves. You are nothing but an ex-slave. You don't like to be told that. But what else are you? You are ex-slaves. You didn't come here on the Mayflower. You came here on a slave ship -- in chains, like a horse, or a cow, or a chicken. And you were brought here by the people who came here on the Mayflower. You were brought here by the so-called Pilgrims or Founding Fathers. They were the ones who brought you here.” (Malcolm X) White people felt of more importance than the African people and they wouldn't understand the things the slaves would go through. People got used to having free labor which, when slavery ended became a big issue. They would have to start to pay and turn them from slaves to employees. The Atlantic Slave Trade was a turning point in history because of the mass European exploitation of Africans.
Slaves experienced death and had PTSD due to the very harsh ways they were sent over to where they would perform rigorous labor. Due to this the labor force completely changed, for example, the encomienda system in South America. To this day there still is racism and this is the main cause. Many don't think to call someone a “nigger” is offensive but, it is a very racist term and many people find it highly offensive. Also, economic growth went down. The economy went down because they would have to hire people and that costs money. People would earn less because the government wasn't making as much money. This also brought more jobs to people. They would have to employ people Since slavery happened there was even segregation in America and Africa. If the slave trade wouldn't have happened there could be less racism and discrimination. The consequences of the slave trade was rebellions, labor changes, the population went down, tribes and families split. The slave trade ended due to many anti-slavery campaigns. In the 1860’s the last ship of slaves was sent to
Cuba.
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.
Beginning of the 15th and 16th centuries, Europeans began to explore in the Atlantic Coast of Africa. They were mainly lured into the excessive trade in gold, spices and other goods without knowing about slaves in Africa. Nonetheless, Europeans had no success of taking over these African states to achieve all of these goods but later they did take over various regions in other areas. Africans seems to be willing to sell as many as 11 million people to the Atlantic slave trade to the Europeans. Thus, this makes them the first people to have slaves not the Europeans that forced them into this trade. Furthermore, at the start the Africans seems to have full control of the slave trade, but the Europeans came in and slowly dominated the trade without the Africans knowing. Later on, the trade was overturned and everything went back orderly.
“Why were the countries with the most developed institutions of individual freedom also the leaders in establishing the most exploitive system the world has ever seen?” The book, The Rise of African Slavery in the Americas, written by David Eltis, seeks many different types of answers for this question and reviews the actions of slavery, exploring all of the issues that best describe the three decades of progress in the study of the Atlantic Slave Trade and in American slavery. Slavery was an accepted term in human society for many years and Eltis wanted to figure out why bigger and wealthier countries were creating these exploitive systems in the world. He unites the African, European, and American markets with their similar transportation expenses of
The documents of the slave trade case study contains documents, which were authored by individuals closely connected to the slave trade. Gomes Eannes de Azurara was a Portuguese chronicler who provided details about the early voyages on the west coast of Africa and the capture of Africans in the slave trade. The primary source that Azurara wrote was titled The Chronicle of the Discovery and Conquest of Guinea written in 1450. The second primary source titled Practices and Contracts of Merchants was written by Fray Tomas De Mercado in 1587. The third primary source, The Travailes of an English Man, was written by Job Hortop in 1567. These primary sources aid in exemplifying how
The transatlantic slave trade was one of the most important factors in how the world came to be the way it is today. This trade led to the economic prosperity and political development in European countries and the population decline on the African continent. It was the catalyst for the development of both rich and poor societies today. The Two Princes of Calabar is a prime example of how this trade affected the economic growth of the countries and civilizations involved.
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
Becoming a slave was terrible; someone was either born a slave or kidnapped. When slavery first started, white Europeans went into Africa and kidnapped African Americans. As the years went on this process became too difficult for the Europeans, so they established hundred of trading station along Africa’s West Coast. Local African rulers and black merchants delivered the captured people to the posts and them sell as slaves.
The image of American slave traders popularized and ingrained upon the national consciousness is based predominantly upon the character of Mr. Haley in Uncle Tom's Cabin. It is one of brash and opportunistic men of dubious background, character and principles, inherently racist and brutish in nature, motivated solely by profit. Ironically this largely echoed the view depicted publicly in the pro-slavery oratory and writings, which typically minimized the importance of the trade and portrayed the traders as social outcasts from the genteel antebellum culture of the South, thus reinforcing this fictitious version of history. Close scrutiny by many prominent historians has unquestionably shown this image is not historically accurate however. Far from being social outcasts with no community ties, many traders were in fact prominent citizens holding important positions in government and business. The most enterprising and successful of their number took full advantage of the latest innovations in modern transportation and employed effective market and advertising strategies thus introducing a spirit of commercialism which was so prevalent in the North to the South's agrarian culture. While it can not be disputed the most of these men held strongly racist views and many committed appalling acts in the course of the business, most saw themselves as men of vision who were simply pursuing their own American dream of happiness and prosperity. In their estimation their business practices were no more unethical than those of Northern entrepreneurs and served a viable need to the public at large.
History shows that slavery consisted of African Americans being treated inferior to whites. Slaves were mostly African Americans and even though today slavery is over people still look at blacks as less important than whites. Slavery has impacted our society today because people are still prejudice and discriminatory towards African Americans, they are still living in poverty and don’t have proper education and they don’t have an equal opportunity for jobs. Still today African Americans continue to lag behind whites.
Since the beginning of slavery in the America, Africans have been deemed inferior to the whites whom exploited the Atlantic slave trade. Africans were exported and shipped in droves to the Americas for the sole purpose of enriching the lives of other races with slave labor. These Africans were sold like livestock and forced into a life of servitude once they became the “property” of others. As the United States expanded westward, the desire to cultivate new land increased the need for more slaves. The treatment of slaves was dependent upon the region because different crops required differing needs for cultivation. Slaves in the Cotton South, concluded traveler Frederick Law Olmsted, worked “much harder and more unremittingly” than those in the tobacco regions.1 Since the birth of America and throughout its expansion, African Americans have been fighting an uphill battle to achieve freedom and some semblance of equality. While African Americans were confronted with their inferior status during the domestic slave trade, when performing their tasks, and even after they were set free, they still made great strides in their quest for equality during the nineteenth century.
From the early 17th century Africans were shipped to North America to be sold. as slaves, against their freewill. Slavery continued to expand even after 1808, when it was declared illegal. African slave trading became the main problem dividing Americans, and could even be a factor. of many, which led to the American Civil War.
This slave trade brought about a different type of racism. It was the color of your skin that determined whether a person would be a free citizen or be enslaved for life. This slave trade also devastated African lives and their heritage. Some slaves were sold and traded more than once, often in a slave market. Families were torn apart, children hysterically cried while they said their goodbyes....
The Atlantic Slave Trade was one of, if not the largest scale movements of human beings from one part of the world to another by sea and could have been considered a mobile killing machine because of the horrible conditions. The numbers were so large that the slaves who came by slave trade were the most Old-World immigrants in the world. Even though there were only races of people enslaved during the Atlantic Slave Trade, African Americans were the most numerous. Records show 34,941 voyages during the time of the slave trade. The Transatlantic Slave Trade took place across the Atlantic Ocean in the 16th century and lasted till the 19th centuries. The way that the Atlantic Slave Trade came about was cruel but not unthinkable. The capture and enslavement of African Americans was inevitable, the only question was when. A lot more slaves were taken to the South America than to the North America because the South “needed” them more. The South Atlantic economic system was based on producing crops, making goods and other things to sell. The enslaved people didn’t just skip into the ship with smiles on their faces. The Spanish colonists asked the King of Spain for permission to bring slaves to The New World to provide for them. Spanish Colonists were currently forcing Native Americans to do their labor for them but they were dying in large numbers because of diseases and lack of care from the colonists. The King of Spain gave approval to the colonists to import Africans and from then on Africans were transported there for use and labor and other needs of the Spanish colonists. During this time many African American slaves were transported. An estimated twelve to fifteen million African Americans were shipped throughout the world includ...
Most of them were forced to do hard labor in mines, while others were taken to large homes and they worked as servants. They were fed and housed poorly. There were many slaves who tried to resist slavery and run away. Sometimes the enslaved Africans would rebel. In order to prevent retaliation, the Spanish government passed slave codes and laws in order to regulate the treatment of the slaves. Some of the laws tried to soften harsh conditions the slaves had to face, however most of them were created to punish them and keep them in bondage. Over time, Europeans had associated slavery with black Africans. Having a dark skin tone eventually became a sign of inferiority to many Europeans. Slavery which was originally created in order to prove labor force, led to racism. The slave trade lasted for about 400 years. From as early as the 1500’s to the mid 1800’s. This contact between the Americas and Africa had also formed part of the Columbian Exchange . Africans suffered tremendously in slavery, being separated from their families, whipped, and
Slavery, like many ill-fated and evil inventions reached epidemic levels in early Europe and the American colonies. The history of slavery is documented most acutely during the period when slaves first arrived to the new land and when the colonies had first developed into the fledging United States of America. This would lead us to believe that slavery had not existed before this period or that the consequences and relevance of it had little historical, social, or economical importance. While some of this might be true, the act of enslaving other human being has existed for hundreds of before the Europeans ever reached and explored the continent of Africa. Proponents of slavery could argue that it is just a natural step in the evolution and development of civilized man. Historic data revealed that the African people form of enslavement on one another was drastically different then European and American way. Although slavery as we know it has been abolished, the consequences have had and will surely have everlasting effects on you, me and the future of every child