Slavery And The Trans Atlantic Slave Trade

Everyone has their own understanding of what slavery is, but there are misconceptions about the history of “slavery”. Not many people understand how the slave trade initially began. Originally Africa had “slaves” but they were servants or serfs, sometimes these people could be part of the master’s family. They could own land, rise to positions of power, and even purchase their freedom. This changed when white captains came to Africa and offered weapons, rum, and manufactured goods for people. African kings and merchants gave away the criminals, debtors, and prisoner from rival tribes. The demand for cheap labor was increasing, this resulted in the forced migration of over ten million slaves. The Atlantic Slave Trade occurred from 1500 to 1880 CE. This large-scale event changed the economy and histories of many places. The Atlantic Slave Trade held a great amount of significance in the development of America. Africans shaped America by building a solid foundation for the country.

Chapter 3 was talking about black people in the colonial North Americas. This chapter was very interesting but there were three main parts in the chapter that really caught my attention and that was the slave life in early America, the Origins of African American culture, and black women in colonial America. Each part that I’m about to break down sheds light on what happened during that time.

The transatlantic slave trade first began in 1502, with records of the first slaves in the New World, lasting nearly four centuries. It connected the economies of three continents. The route began in West Europe, where it continued to Africa, trading manufactured goods such as rum, textiles, weapons, and gunpowder for slaves. From Africa, the ship went along the Atlantic to America, distributing slaves, and bringing agricultural products such as coffee, cotton, rice, and sugar back to Europe. The entire route typically lasted eighteen months. The slave trade ended in 1867, seventeen years after Britain began arresting slave ships.

The Transatlantic slave trade was a horrific event where between 1526 to 1867 over twelve million slaves were captured and were sent from their native homes in Africa to the Americas. The African slaves that were captured over those centuries were shipped in bulk (between 30,000 a year in the late seventeenth century and 85,000 one hundred years later). Approximately, six percent of the African slaves were taken to North America in the eighteenth century and the majority of enslaved Africans were sent South America and parts of what is now Central America. In the Southern states of America, a single slave owner owned and housed about a thousand slaves. The slave population in the United States grew and this mainly due to the high fertility rate. However, due to the living environment many of the enslaved infants had a high mortality rate did not make it past their first year of life. This was the result of the children being fed food that lacked the nutrients they needed and they were breastfed too early. Due to the unhealthy environment, slaves contracted many terrible illnesses and diseases (i.e. blindness, skin lesions, Vitamin D deficiency, Diarrhea, whooping cough, etc.) that they usually succumbed to without a way to get proper treatment for them. In the mid-nineteenth century, the population of enslaved Blacks tripled from the beginning of the nineteenth

There is no doubt that the United States was built upon the hard work of Black-American slaves, referred to at the time as bondpeople, who were the main labor force in producing important American exports, such as cotton or tobacco, which were, in fact, the backbone of the American economy during that time. Due to bondpeople’s overall importance in keeping the United States the powerhouse that it was, the domestic slave trade was a value market that “‘was roughly three times greater than the total amount of all capital, North and South combined, invested in manufacturing, almost three times the amount invested in railroads, and seven times the amount invested in banks’”(23). In “‘In Pressing Need of Cash,’” Daina Ramey Berry, a professor for the Departments of History and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas, looks at a fifteen year period, from 1850-1865, of the economic factors of the domestic slave trade. Berry uses Steven Deyle’s findings in his study, "Carry Me Back: The Domestic Slave Trade in American Life” which examined both the "long-distance interstate trade" and the extensive local or "intrastate" trade of enslaved males and females, who were priced differently depending on their perceived market value (23). With Deyle’s findings, Berry specifically discusses the relationships among gender, age, skill, or type of sale and how those factors, generally, determined the priced paid of enslaved workers.

For over 2,000 years, slavery has been conducted in various parts of the world. From year 1500 to year 1900, Europeans stole individuals from West Africa, West Central Africa, and Southeast Africa and shipped them to the different parts of the Atlantic. This process dehumanized them of their identity. Europeans stole husbands, wives, merchants, blacksmiths, farmers, and even children. They removed them from their homelands and gave them new names: slaves. European slaveholders never thought to take ownership of their actions by killing humans with brutality and degradation. Slave trade was considered popular in England and soon after more countries began the process of taking slaves to newly claimed territories. These countries include

The rise of the Transatlantic Slave Trade started with the helpless souls of Africans. Many people of this time would classify slavery as a natural order, state, or fate. They believed that people were either born as a slave or would later become one because it was their predetermined destiny or fate. Later, world cultures regarded POW’s as a natural state. POW stands for Prisoners of War, and is defined as a person who is captured and held by an enemy during war, especially a member of the armed forces.

The phenomenon of new world slavery was a well-run business and the slaves were the product. Slavery was one of the few industries in history where assets exceeded liability and owner’s equity, which is an unusual occurrence considering the equation is normally that assets equal liability and owner’s equity. Throughout this essay, the rise of slavery and the slave trade will be explained and slavery will be illustrated as the product of a domino effect. Slavery was a process and it took many people and pieces to fall into place for it to become the most profitable industry in its day, progressing over a 400-year time span. The economic analysis in this paper will show that the ideology of slavery in the new world came after the economic incentive.

A white male with a criminal record is 5% more likely to get a job than an equally qualified person of color with a clean record. A white male with a criminal record is 5% more likely to get a job than an equally qualified person of color with a clean record. This is just one kind of racism that people of color face on a regular basis. How about the fact that white people are 78% more likely to be accepted to the same university as an equally qualified person of color. This, again, is everyday racism. Racial prejudice can easily be traced back to The Transatlantic Slave Trade. The Transatlantic Slave Trade is primarily known as the reason behind the forced migration of between 12 - 15 million people from Africa to the Americas from the middle of the 1400’s to the mid 1800’s. The Slave Trade not only led to the violent and unjust transport of millions of Africans, but also to the demise of many more. The Slave Trade is responsible for the development of a mindset, bent on racial superiority, racial group stigmatization, and the utilization of many racially-based stereotypes that still plague modern America.

The Trans-Atlantic slave occurred during the early sixteenth century and lasted until the beginning of the all the way to nineteenth century. It was during this time when the beginning of the Black Diaspora would begin to manifest itself with the exportation of millions of the African populace to the Americas. These African people were forced and taken from their respective countries in a horrific manner. The result, these people became the slaves of newly forming colonies in North America. The trek across the Atlantic Ocean, alone, is considered to be one of the most inhumane acts committed by the slave traders during the Diaspora.

The trans-Atlantic slave trade is a complex institution with multiple sides to be considered and analyzed. On the one hand, one could say that Europeans were the sole creators of this trade, for it was their motive to bring slave labor to the Americas that served as the driving force behind the mass movement of slaves out of Africa and across the Atlantic. They brought desired material resources to African nations, and in exchange they gained human cargo to be used at their will. While this is the understanding that many hold about the slave trade, it is not the only side to be measured. Africans themselves also played a substantial part in contributing to and facilitating the progression of the slave trade by selling their own people for desired necessities such as weapons and other manufactured goods. As a result, both Africans and Europeans held interesting roles in the advancement of the Atlantic slave trade, which begs the greater question of whether the Europeans were really the only party at fault in enabling the progression of slavery in the Americas.

In the 1600s, slavery played a significant role in European history. The negative aspects that made up the dark times in history are, mainly centered on the brutalizing effects of the enslaved people, which can be best explained by the destroyed family bonds, history of the enslaved people erased, and unjust treatment of the slaves. Olaudah Equiano, a former slave and abolitionist, was born in 1745, part of the Igbo tribe. He served as a slave for many years all over the world, until he bought out his freedom in 1767. After that, he pushed for the abolition of the slave trade and civil rights until the end of his life.

Africa’s has obtained a poor representation of its deep past, during the past couple of weeks we have watched, read and researched information on this topic. Africa has been known to be backwards, poor, and disconnected from the rest of the world. Which we have proven false throughout this course, as a result, we will focus on five maps and a few readings that have proven Africa’s deep past has had inquired and false truths.

Through the transportation use of the asientistas, the slave trade was constantly changing and integrated with the whole Atlantic economy. From 1595 to 1773, a total of 648,688 slaves, or an annual average of 3,381 slaves every year for the 178 years of trade. However, as with many economic understandings and studies changes are more important than the totals. Therefore, the changing sources of supply and destinations are of more importance. With Spanish records, the Guinea of Cape Verde and the region just south of Congo mouth were the main sources of slaves arriving to Spanish-America.

Slavery is a topic or section in history that has stained the world with its ever lasting impact. The topic can be discussed for ages and lead to many different things, but the beginning of it all starts with the Trans- Atlantic Slave Trade. The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade is a significant part of the history of slavery, mostly because of its duration, the horrible way the Africans were treated and because of the forced migration of the African people. Throughout the time that the trade actually took place, Africans were transported to many different parts of the world. This lead to what we know as the African Diaspora. Because of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade different groups of people in various areas of the world are of African Descent. This slave trade became the beginning of a very important part in history that became known as “the African Nightmare’’.