A Study On Atlantic Slave Trade

The introduction of Africans to America in 1619 set off an irreversible chain of events that effected the economy of the southern colonies. With a switch from the expensive system of indentured servitude, slavery emerged and grew rapidly for various reasons, consisting of economic, geographic, and social factors. The expansion of slavery in the southern colonies, from the founding of Jamestown in 1607 to just before America gained its independence in 1775, had a lasting impact on the development of our nation’s economy, due to the fact that slaves were easy to obtain, provided a life-long workforce, and were a different race than the colonists, making it easier to justify the immoral act.

When Columbus sailed to the what he thought was India, he would never know the full implications of his “accident” that changed the world. Columbus’s discovery of the Americas created a whole new avenue for competing European states to jockey for world dominance, and most importantly, for wealth. In order to gain the power that Spain, France, Britain, and Portugal so greatly desired, an intercontinental trading network called the Atlantic Slave Trade was established. The need for cheap labor and the desire for large profits brought slaves from Africa, to North/South America. Slavery began to take a new shape, with a focus on plantation agriculture through a dehumanized class of workers. During the Atlantic Slave Trade, slavery was primarily beneficial to European’s. Not only did the Atlantic Slave Trade supply European’s with the resources (primarily crops) required to assume a position of world dominance, slavery also benefited Europeans by providing the wealth that was needed to compete with traditional Asian powers. However, slavery during the Atlantic Slave Trade was detrimental to African’s. They were ripped from their home lands, brought across the Atlantic, and sold into a life of manual labor, and often abuse. Similar to how Columbus would never know the full impact of his discoveries in 1492, Europeans during Atlantic Slave Trade would never know just how much it would catapult the European continent into a position of power, meanwhile having devastating effects on

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 colonists did not choose Africans for slavery simply because they were unease by their alien skin tone or because they belittle the people’s lack of civilized background. In fact, the first Africans to arrive from abroad in 1619 were treated the same as the white indentured servants, who could earn their freedom, even a few acres of land, within agreed years of labor. Since cash crops are the fastest and most stable way to wealth, the demand for

Slavery was in North America before the English Colonies even settled there. The Spanish brought Africans to North America to replace the Native Americans that they had killed with their diseases (Lecture 1). The question is: why did Africans get chosen to become slaves, and why was slavery an underlying cause of the Civil War? The answer to these question have to deal with the influence of: psychological limitations of whites, the second great awakening, and abolition.

The African slave trade was an important part of the Atlantic World. Many Africans were taken out of Africa and brought to the Americas or the Islands in the Caribbean. Many of them were transported through triangular trade, and faced a harsh new life when they arrived. The causes and effects of slavery in the Atlantic World were good for Europeans, and bad for the Africans and Natives.

thDuring the time 1440-1640 the Atlantic slave trade was happening there were a lot of good and bad things that happened in the eighteenth century when slave trade was going on britain was the worst transgressor the causes of the of Africa in the slave trade in the Atlantic world was because they needed hard workers to help them get to where they wanted to go they worked in the mines and they used these slaves to help them do that and around this time the race of someone did not matter if you were white or black all they needed was the worker to be done they helped with plantation what the slaves worked with was ‘’white gold’’that is what they called it it means sugar there was two kinds of slaves tho there were the gang labor which meant

By 1800, there were slaves being sold in Britain and being taken against their will to the West Indies, but most black people in Britain were free through their own efforts. Some slaves rebelled as source 3 shows us, " slaves on the island of St Dominique set fire the sugar cane," this portrays the image that if they started being more aggressive towards the plantation owners business then they would be scared and try to make a treaty with them. This treaty would have rules like payment must be allowed or they won't work and many other rules and regulations to make it fair on the slaves working extremely hard for 15 hours or more labor. There were other methods in which slaves used against their owners so they would be freed or payed these were, act ill, work less hard, sabotage crops, act stupid also pretend they don't know English even though they have been in that plantation area or 10 years or more; this would create the owner a huge cost in money and they would loose all they're profit. They would have no choice to either free the slaves or pay them. This second reason links in with the economy problems because the slaves sabotaged and rebelled against the plantation owners fields and crops causing the owners huge costs and reductions from rich to poor.

The Atlantic slave trade lasted from the 15th to 18th century. Between 10 and 12 million slaves were moved from Africa to South America. About 15 percent died and the ones who survived were sold as property. Only five percent of the slaves went to America (Green, 2012). The slaves were used to make sugar, tobacco and coffee (Slave Trade:, 2007). None of these things were good for us other than for desire, but nothing to sustain human life. Africans were captured by other Africans and traded for goods like metal tool and guns. Slaves were the source for private wealth and were viewed as an economic commodity. They were sold like cattle and branded on their cheeks. The slaves performed all kinds of labor from agricultural labors and house work. The slaves would work 48 hours straight at times. 23 years was the average life expectancy of slaves. The slave owners suddenly got a bright idea that if they kept their saves healthy enough, they could reproduce and in return make babies that would later be sold to become slaves. Slavery was defined as the permanent, violent, and personal domination of naturally alienation and generally dishonored persons. They were removed from their culture and dehumanized and suffered from social death. In this paper, I will discuss the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade, how it took place and how is has influenced our culture today.

Different avenues were explored to acquire the ideal labor force, by using “white, indentured labor from Europe” which made up of convicts and refugees. They weren’t effective as African enslavedso “African labor was deemed best suited due to its low cost and because it allowed for an easily distinguished servile class” (Campbell 9). Africans were brought to the Caribbean by cargo ships where they were treated inhumanely, many died because of diseases and suicide.They had to conform to being owned as someoneelse’s property; though it was foreign to them they were some resistance and management had to find ways to make plantation life bearable for the enslaved because they had means to disrupt production on the plantation.

Imagine being on a ship rocking back and forth, side to side, chained to people you might not even know. The Atlantic Slave Trade or Transatlantic Slave trade was a boat that West African slaves rode on across the Atlantic ocean. The Atlantic Slave Trade made a huge impact on lives; people getting taking away from their families, children scared and not knowing what to do.

Around 1640, slavery was becoming the most common condition of blacks in America and fewer were accepted as indentured servants. This happened because the colonial ruling class felt that Africans had at least five advantages over white immigrant labor: they were strong, they were inexpensive, they had no government protection, there seemed to be an exhaustible supply of them, and their skin was black, so they could not blend in with the white population. (Bryant)

Throughout the 18th and 19th century, the transatlantic slave trade has had a major impact on international relations, as well as its extensive influence on the growth of capitalism and its active change in global context. Since its development, the transatlantic slave trade has affected many lives for hundreds of years. Its system gradually thrived while the degradation of a human beings expanded. During the transatlantic slave trade there were several instances that occurred, causing a great controversy amongst the system. Consequently, continuity of the transatlantic slave trade gradually stopped. For the sake of this paper, the Neirsée incident will be used as an example.

As Eric Williams directly establishes in Capitalism and Slavery, “unfree labor in the New World was brown, white, black, and yellow; Catholic, Protestant, and pagan” . Stimulated by an abundance of cheap land and a dearth of workers, the origin and initial expansion of African slavery in New World plantation economies was not a racially motivated circumstance, but rather an economic phenomenon. Native and European populations in the 16th and 17th centuries were simply not capable of meeting the accumulative labor demands of sugar, tobacco, and cotton plantations, and from a production standpoint, the cost of cultivating these particular crops was appreciably reduced on larger-scale enterprises – the profits

Natives and African both experienced harsh punishments and work ethic in the 16th to 19th century due to the extensive need for labor in both fields and mines. Thus resulting in a tragic outcome for the slaves but, for European a good way to find the path to riches and growth in the social structure.