Transatlantic Slave Trade Research Paper

The transatlantic slave trade was one of the most well-known trade routes from east to the west known today. Aiding the formation of the United States of America, and aiding the European conquest of the western hemisphere it was a crucial point in time when this route was established. The trade route started the mass migration to the New World as it opened an easy path to it. But what was the effect the transatlantic had on slavery within Africa at the time of its development? Some may agree with the claim in question, however it easy to make arguments for both sides.

Everyone knows that slaves were African Americans. As Africans were forced to the Americas we saw that the foundation of slavery itself already existed on the continent of Africa.

Before the transatlantic route had been established a form of slavery existed within Africa. From “Slavery in Africa and the Transatlantic Slave Trade” by Joseph E. Inikori he points out that “there were certainly more slaves in Africa in the nineteenth century than there were in the Americas at anytime.” (1) This is good evidence to support the claim that the transatlantic slave trade was based on the pre-existing forms of slavery in Africa. As one can expect that the origin of something must have more of it then where it is spreading to. If you looked at the concept of slavery as a form of expansion of a society you would see that when countries expand, they keep the majority home while slowly spreading out. This is exactly what was happening with the transatlantic slave trade during this time. This concept of slavery being formed, was a mimic to what was practiced within Africa immediately before the establishment of the transatlantic trade route.
Joseph E. Inikori also talks about this pre-existing form of slavery, before the term became what we know of it today. There was “bovarii” and these were serfs. These bovarii possessed rights which immediately distinguished them from being considered slaves. They were not owned and had rights unlike slaves in slavery. Working on the Postan’s estate they cultivated the land. They did not directly serve the Postan, yet reported to those that Postan placed in charge. So, we can see that there was a slight difference between the form of slavery that existed in Africa vs. the New World. While originally, he had supported the claim he later begins to establish the boundaries of what was slavery and what was freedom. While overall the entire concept of serfdom, and slavery has a very thin line of a boundary, you can not completely argue that these two terms are the same.
From history, we see that slavery was a cruel concept where people had no rights and were owned. While serfs were not owned, they had several rights. Serfs also worked on large estates. This working on estates created a common ground between the terms of serf and slave. In Africa, we saw that serfs were widely used to work vast amounts of land, while having the choice of freedom. This was not the case with slavery. If we look at the claim that the transatlantic slave trade was based on the pre-existing slavery, and look at how Inikori defines each term used, we would see that while upon close examination they are different things; to other societies not knowing much about it, it creates the image of the idea of slavery. This misunderstanding of what serfs were and what they did was created due to that thin line boundary between these two concepts.