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The World Economy And The Western World

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The world economy played a large role in the shaping of racial circumstances in Africa and the Western world. The African world went from barely any contact with any nations outside of Africa pre-1400, to vast trade with European nations and the West by the 1800s. The major change in communication and trade affected the way in which the economy flourished and countries evolved. The introduction of African slaves to the Western world through trade because of disenclavement and the emergence of capitalism are the two main events that influenced the racial circumstances in Africa and the Western world. European navigation and exploration broke the isolation between many countries and introduced vast trade routes. Historian Pierre Chaunu …show more content…

Europe had many goods to trade with the African nations, but the African nations were not as well off with a surplus of fine goods. The African nations turned to selling slaves as their main export because slaves were very abundant in central Africa. The abundance of slaves that were traded to the Western nations meant that slaves in the West now had a different skin color. Since the slaves in the West were now predominantly black, it became normal to accept any black person as a slave. The exporting of the slaves to Europe raised the question of if slavery was moral. In Africa, slavery was legal and it was the European equivalent of owning land. This was not how slavery was practiced in Europe, but the idea of slavery being legal made it acceptable for European nations to take the slaves of the African nations. Europeans had now found a way to obtain slaves through a legal manner. In a racial circumstance, it was not good for those that were black because they were now always going to be seen as slaves to the people of the Western world. Even when they were free, they would not ever be truly free of being associated as a slave because of their skin color. The economy had introduced the Africans as slaves and nothing more, which would make them a slave forever in the eyes of those that believed they were superior. One example of the worlds changing economics influencing racial

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