The Atlantic Slave Trade And Its Impact On Africa

During the eighteenth century, The Atlantic Slave trade was a normalized business in Europe, Africa and America. These three nations combined to engage in the largest slave trade known to man, where they would negotiate the price of a human life. Subsequently, this trade resulted in millions of slaves to be ripped from their homes and traded into a life of oppression and servitude. One positive that came from these catastrophic events, is that it united the African tribes, who no longer labeled themselves as a particular group, but now a whole and passed down African customs. As barbaric as it is, this trading system was sadly vital to the economy.

The Atlantic slave trade was a type of trade that occurred from the 15th through the 19th centuries; however, it flourished in the 17th and 18th centuries. During this time, Africans were taken from their homes in their native country of Africa and sent in organized trade to Europe and the America’s. These slaves were forced to work on plantations in extremely poor working environments and conditions. They were often physically tortured by their owner’s and were denied basic human rights. Ultimately, the terrible treatment of these slaves led to opposition from numerous groups and organizations.

The transatlantic slave trade began in the 15th century, after the Portuguese started exploring the coast of West Africa. This had a long term effect on Africa because even though it started out benefiting the upper class in Africa, the long term effect was devastating. When Europeans started to enter Africa, they enjoyed “the triple advantage of guns and other technology, widespread literacy, and the political organization necessary to sustain expensive programs of exploration and conquest”(Doc 4). Africa’s relations with Europe depended on common interests, which Europe did not share. Europe’s contact with Africa, involving economic exchanges and political relationships, was not mutually beneficial.

For my comparison book review, I chose to focus on the Atlantic Slave Trade Second Edition by Herbert S Klein and The Economic Consequences of the Atlantic Slave Trade” by Barbara L. Solow. My focus of the trade is labor demands, effects on Africa, European organization of trade, and economy leading up to the end of the trade and after. Together, the two books demonstrate that the Atlantic Slave Trade was more than just the trading of Africans to different continents, but was a historical point that heavily impacted the world socially, economically and politically. While acknowledging the similarities of the two books in my essay, I will also address differences and points that may challenge each other. Before the institution of slavery was confined to only Africans, there were also indentured servants and other forms of caste workers that involved other races. Until the 15th century, the Mediterranean world use slaves as domestic servants, soldiers, mining and agriculture production. But according to Solow, when colonization moved to the Atlantic, plantation slavery became black and blacks became plantation slaves. Solow says that European colonization was associated with sugar; sugar was associated with slavery; and slavery was associated with blacks. (Solow, pg.5)

Africa had been the target of colonialism and slavery for many years. The colonies that European’s developed during fifteenth and sixteenth century were the main reason that started slave trade in Africa.

African society changed dramatically when the Atlantic slave trade began to carry so many Africans away. SOme African societies were weakened by the regular buying or kidnapping of valued community members.” (Burgan,6) This quote shows how slavery not only affected the United States people’s way of life, it also affected African people’s way of life. While the North’s economy was benefiting due to Industrialization, the south was benefiting through its agriculture and production of cash crops.

Another immediate effect that would go on to have far reaching consequences was the identity that African people would form in the Americas. In class we learned and discussed how to outsiders such as the Europeans, Africa was like one big country full of people who were culturally the same. In reality, nothing could have been farther from the truth. When Africans were enslaved, they came from many different peoples with different cultures and languages. These differences served to create barriers amongst the Africans who could only have been even more disoriented. Once they arrived to the Americas, the kinship network that many depended on in Africa was gone. To try and regain a network, slaves often viewed their shipmates as their new kin, going so far as to forbid shipmates from marrying one another because they were now each other’s family. In time and with effort from their owners, slaves also began to

Social Upheaval and Low Self Worth was another one of the major impacts of the European commercial activities on West Africa. As a result of the slave trade through raids and trade, there is no doubt concerning the social ills that plagued Western Africa. Many Africans were betrayed by their own political leaders

Screams for relief, cries for comfort, and moans for death all revolved around the slave trade. The slave trade is an event that not only impacted Africa, but the whole world even still today. This essay will explain how cultures were ruined and families were torn apart. The slave trade has influenced history worldwide because it has impacted continents economically, socially, and politically.

Throughout history, a common theme that can be seen is the stronger, acquisitive society preying on the weaker society for their own gain of land, people, materials, and more. The Atlantic Slave Trade had a profound effect on the way states were constructed and transformed in West Africa. Some societies became very powerful, militarized centralized societies, like Dahomey and Kongo, and others were decentralized societies, like Balanta and Igbo. Many scholars argue that the centralized societies targeted these decentralized societies and kidnapped people for the slave trade or for their own lineages, but this issue of strong and controlled preying on weak and dispersed is not as “black or white” as it may seem.

The changes in African life during the slave trade era form an important element in the economic and technological development of Africa. Although the Atlantic slave trade had a negative effect on both the economy and technology, it is important to understand that slavery was not a new concept to Africa. In fact, internal slavery existed in Africa for many years. Slaves included war captives, the kidnapped, adulterers, and other criminals and outcasts. However, the number of persons held in slavery in Africa, was very small, since no economic or social system had developed for exploiting them (Manning 97). The new system-Atlantic slave trade-became quite different from the early African slavery. The

The African slave trade was devastating but many do not know how terrible it was. Twenty eight million people were taken from their homes and families, and more people killed (3). An estimated total loss from the slave trade is thirty million to two hundred million people (4). The worst effect would be the problems it caused for Africa’s children.

In today’s world it is widely know and accepted that money makes the world go round but, unfortunately that is not the question. The question is: what made the world go round in the early 1600’s? Surprisingly, just like the world today money made the world go around back then also. One major difference is that in today’s world machines do all of our dirty work, back then it was all up to the slaves. Finding the perfect slave was a challenge to the colonists. First, there was the indentured servants, second, came the Indians. However because Indians and indentured servants could escape to freedom with ease, they were not the ideal slaves. The colonists’ third attempt proved to be a gold mine. The unfortunate people who were forced in to

The Atlantic slave trade existed from the 16th to the early 19th century and stimulated trade between Europe, Africa, and the Americas. Over 12 million Africans were captured and sold into chattel slavery off the coast of West Africa, and more than 2 million of them died crossing the Atlantic. These outcomes of the slave trade are rarely disputed among historians; the effect of the Atlantic slave trade in Africa, however, is often a topic of debate. Some academics, such as Walter Rodney, insist that Africans were forced to take part in the slave trade, resulting in demographic disruption and underdevelopment in all sectors of Africa. Historian John Thornton acknowledges the negative consequences of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, yet contends that it was merely an expansion of the existing internal slave trade which African rulers engaged in willingly. A final case made by Hugh Thomas completely contradicts Rodney’s thesis, asserting that the slave trade was not solely responsible for decreasing Africa’s population, and furthermore, that it was primarily beneficial to Africa’s economy and politics. The true outcome of the slave trade in Africa lies not entirely in any one of these arguments, but rests rather in a combination of all three. Although the Atlantic slave trade was detrimental to the economic and social development of Africa, the trade benefited a small portion of Africans, who willingly aligned themselves with

In addition to the impacts of the slave trade on the social history of Africa, there were also major impacts on the political history. Below, three major impacts of the slave trade on the political history of West Africa will be discussed. To begin with, an impact that the slave trade had on West Africa is that it made the area more susceptible to colonization by European powers. There were two main ways in which the slave trade made it easier for European powers to colonize; the ways are the loss of population and the use of slavery as justification for colonization. To start, the slave trade exported an estimated six million people from West Africa. Of those six million, the majority of them were strong, healthy males. The result of