Early Slavery In Africa

Africa was once a thriving and wonderful continent filled with luxurious and wealthy kingdoms, but that had all changed when a new and appalling type of slavery was introduced. Around the 18th century, Africa became an ideal place for Europeans to trade and buy slaves from. The slave trade in Africa seemed to be manageable and somewhat peaceful before the Europeans brought in a new type of slavery. When the Europeans bought slaves from Africans, they kept them as slaves for life which were very different from how long slaves were kept in Africa. Europeans kept slaves in extremely poor conditions and treated them as if they were less than human. These actions caused a great spike in the slave trade all over the world and many

History is taught in every college, because it is a required class. In those classes, every professor uses a book to help teach the students content; however, the students do not remember each fact they read, but the images shown throughout the book. Images are very important to history, they give students mental images that give them a chance to pretend like they were there and witnessed it first hand. Some images can be gruesome and heart-tugging, though they show the truth of what has happened in the past. In Chapter 18, forced labor throughout Africa is discussed. The picture below, Figure One, is of two young boys, perhaps no older than twelve; and each of them have severed hands.

Oftentimes when these small African kingdoms went to war, the defeated kingdom’s people would become enslaved. Land had no value in Africa, yet there was wealth in owning slaves to work. Furthermore, slave labor was usually needed in order to make the land productive. In Africa, however, policies concerning what happened to enslaved people or groups was far less destructive than the slavery that would exist in the Americas years later. Geographic displacement was relatively minimal, and slaves could remain in contact with their friends and families.

The Europeans tried to enslave the Native Americans but found it to be very difficult as it was easy for them to escape and rejoin their tribes and in such a time, there were power in numbers. On the other hand, it was not so easy for Africans to escape and travel back to Africa, and if they did attempt to escape, the punishment in most cases was death. Slavery was profitable and the slaves were sustainable to the tobacco plantations. The African were physically able to work under harsh conditions and another key aspect is that although the African slaves were from Africa they came from different parts of Africa and were diverse in language and skills. The diversity especially in language made it hard for them to rebel. Since, they spoke different dialects it made it hard for them to communicate with each other, rebuttal, and more importantly made it hard for them to organize and to stage any form of rebellion.

First, African slavery was very different than normal slavery, like in America before it was abolished. In Africa, slaves had very different opportunities compared to the slaves of another culture. Slaves in Africa could (depending on the location) be integrated into the slave owner’s family, or even obtain positions of military or administrative importance. Also, in early African culture, slaves were used as a way to determine land ownership. Before colonial officials imposed European law, African tribes distributed land based on the amount of laborers available to the family, thus beginning regular raids on other tribes to obtain slaves and by extension: land.

Human beings have been in bondage for thousands of years. Slavery originated in early civilizations. It has not only affected our modern world, it has affected the advancement of the human being itself. In most civilizations, humans establish class systems and look upon other humans as if they are “lesser than” or “subhuman”. The process of dehumanization is a key psychological factor in why slavery has existed since the formation of civilizations.

Slavery in America caused African families to live under brutal living condition and living under another power. In America, an African family has live under vastly different circumstance. They are forced into slavery that destroyed their national origin and religion that couldn’t be replicated in the New World. The slave trade was responsible for breaking up African families and occurred more problems in their life. African slave’s life, they are not legally married between men and women. They had no right to live or stay together, no right to have own children, and slave parents and children will be separate. Parents could not protect their children from the will of the master, who could separate them at any time. Form Countries Quest, “About

In the last 50 years much has been done to combat the entirely false and negative views about the history of Africa and Africans, which were developed in Europe in order to justify the Transatlantic Slave Trade and European colonial rule in Africa that followed it. In the eighteenth century such racist views were summed up by the words of the Scottish philosopher David Hume, who said, ‘I am apt to suspect the Negroes to be naturally inferior to the Whites. There scarcely ever was a civilised nation of that complexion, nor even any individual, eminent either in action or in speculation. No ingenious manufacture among them, no arts, no sciences”. In the nineteenth

The complexity of African slavery has impacted Mexico in ways one may not have imagined. Thousands of Africans were brought to Mexico to become slaves and do manual labor. On average, a slave would cost anywhere between 150 to 400 pesos, and studies show that owning a slave was considered a luxury. Slavery in Mexico had an enormous impact in the social aspect during the colonial period to a large extent. The labor jobs that Africans worked, helped Mexico become the lead in the commercial trade of sugar, silver dyes, and gold in the sixteenth century. Although African slaves were only brought to Mexico to fulfill the labor that Spaniards could not complete, their presence helped construct the birth of Mexico and despite their harsh working

. Africans became inferior and were seen to be destined to be slaves. A sense of helplessness came in play, but no one realizes the mental aspect of it. African slaves hardships became a huge psychological factor. We must realize that the mind is powerful. Many wanted to end their own lives by jumping off the ship. Many were even afraid they would get killed from what they witnessed. No man should have such fear like that. Not only was their mind impacted but their culture was taken. Their culture no longer mattered but what mattered was power, wealth, and prosperity.

In the early years African slaves were treated much like the indentured servants from Europe. Some even gained their freedom after a few years of service. However in the later 1600’s they were relied on more in the South as lifetime labor sources. “Slaves were most economical on large farms were labor-intensive cash crops, such as tobacco, could be grown.”

Slavery in Africa was very similar to the peasants in Europe, which was a hard, laborious life (yet still having the ability marry, own property, etc.), however very different from the American slavery where all rights were denied and slavery was lifelong.

“During the 1960s, some black leaders revived the idea of reparations. In 1969, James Forman proclaimed a "Black Manifesto." It demanded $500 million from American churches and synagogues for their role in perpetuating slavery before the Civil War.”(William Reed) This argument has been demonstrated: a compensation should be provided to the descendants of enslaved people in America, because their ancestors had performed the tedious labor over past few hundred years ago. However, it is clearly that the idea remains highly controversial. Looking at the historical evidence that have been presented, now we can analysis the historical events that were actually contributed to the slavery of African contingents. We need to analysis few questions in order to get better understanding of this topic itself. First,

Slavery has played a strong role in African society from as early as prehistoric times, continuing to the modern era. Early slavery within Africa was a common practice in many societies, and was very central to the country’s economy. Beginning around the 7th century, two groups of non-African slave traders significantly altered the traditional African forms of slavery that had been practiced in the past. Native Africans were now being forced to leave the country to be used as slaves. The two major slave trades, trans-Saharan and trans-Atlantic, became central to the organization of Africa and its societies until the modern era. Slavery and the slave trade strongly affected African society, and

When Europeans arrived along the West African coast, slavery already existed on the continent, however slavery in Africa and the brutal form of slavery that would develop in the Americas were completely different. African slavery was more like European serfdom. For example, in the Ashanti Kingdom of West Africa, slaves could marry, own property and even own slaves. And slavery ended after a certain number of years of servitude. Most importantly, African slavery was never passed from one generation to another, and it lacked the racist element that whites were masters and blacks were slaves.