Atlantic Slave Trade Research Paper

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.

Slavery had been practiced in Europe and the Caribbean. This being said, it did not exist in the English mainland colonies because there was no shortage of labor. In the 1670s and 1680s the Chesapeake economy depended on tobacco which required a large labor supply. At the same time, fewer and fewer men and women were willing to become indentured servants for a variety of reasons. The tobacco planters found the answer to this shortage in the slave trade. In the years between 1492 and 1770 more Africans than Europeans came to the Americas. Most were imported as slaves to Brazil and the Caribbean and only about 260,000 came to the region that would later become the United States. The slave trade was part of the Atlantic economic system, which is often referred to as the triangular trade. Triangular Trade was a system in which slaves, crops, and manufactured goods were traded between Africa, the Caribbean, and the American colonies. The future of Europe, Africa, South America and, North America were now bound together in the triangular trade and Atlantic economic system that would affect millions of lives over the centuries.The traffic in enslaved people served as an essential part of the triangular trade system. Europeans purchased slaves from Africa and then sold them in their colonies in America. The slave trade also had political and economic consequences for the people of West Africa. For example it created the powerful kingdoms of Dahomey, as it changed traditional economics. Goods now were imported to the coast instead of the Mediterranean. It also affected the population of West Africa unevenly. The slave trade left a shortage of men able to work in areas such as the Gold Coast. This resulted in new opportunities for women and encouraged polygamy. Despite the slave trade economic

Although all this documents stress voices from the Slave Trade, each document sheds a unique light on the much-debated question about who should be held responsible for the tragedy of the Atlantic slave trade. For example, Document 15.1 sheds light on the role of both European and African merchants in the trafficking of slaves as well as the human suffering of the slave trade. However Document 15.2 reveals the cooperation between local African rulers and European and African traders in the slave trade. Moreover, Documents 15.3 focus on how disruptive European traders could be to established African governments, even those that actively opposed the slave trade. And finally, Document 15.4 shows how some African leaders were attached to the slave trade and promoted it even when European were moving to end it. Nonetheless, all the documents do shed a clear and a full light on what should be held responsible for the

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.

The Atlantic Slave trade began to pick up speed with the development of colonies by the Spanish and then the English, which were used to expand the mercantilist countries empires and power. African slaves began to be seen as a necessity once the Native American population plummeted and Spanish Creoles refused to do the hard work to supply their home country with the needed raw materials. Europeans were unwilling to provide the heavy menial labor required to successfully build a colony, making it “necessary to acquire negro slaves” (Document 1). Creoles and other European settlers forced slaves to “work too hard” and gave “them too little to eat” which weakened slaves and caused many to die off (Document 1).

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.

“The Slave Ship: A Human History” written by Marcus Rediker describes the horrifying experiences of Africans, and captains, and ship crewmen on their journey through the Middle Passage, the water way in the Atlantic Ocean between Africa and the Americas. The use of slaves to cultivate crops in the Caribbean and America offered a great economy for the European countries by providing “free” labor and provided immense wealth for the Europeans. Rediker describes the slave migration by saying, “There exists no account of the mechanism for history’s greatest forced migration, which was in many ways the key to an entire phase of globalization” (10). African enslavement to the Americas is the most prominent reason for a complete shift in the

During the mid-fifteenth century, the transatlantic slave trade occurred throughout the world and lasted well over four hundred years. Oversea trade between Africa and the Portuguese, along with other European kingdoms, formed, which began what is known as the transatlantic slave trade. Along with a variety of goods, copious amounts of slaves, roughly twenty-five million, were traded between the continents of Europe and Africa. Driving the trade were politics, economics, religion, business, and a desire for profit. Along with the majority of the African population being traded elsewhere in the world, the overwhelming amount of deaths and low fertility rate among the indigenous people neared the African culture to distinction. Among the documents provided, all can be grouped into two main groups: attitudes and impact. During the years 1450 to 1800, the Europeans showed a large amount of varied opinions towards the Transatlantic Trade slave and the impact of the trade towards the included civilizations.

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

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.

As the European need for slaves to be exported from Africa to the Americas increased, it allowed them to further develop their societies at the disbursement of Africa. It began as a small profitmaking system of transporting a few Africans in exchange for European goods like guns, but led into being a large market that endorsed the capture of many Africans to be transported to the Americas. In response to the European demands, a new social system evolved as whites were the superior and blacks were subservient. Slaves were viewed as property and had no rights. Slave ownership became a key factor to economic success for Europeans. The result of this was the decline of Africa as it was nearly impossible for poor Africans to avoid being put into the slave trade. This led to descent in Africa as they encountered decline both economically and socially. The problems in current day Africa root all the way back to the participation in the slave trade. The Trans-Atlantic slave trade allowed the Europeans to strengthen their world power to and even greater

Another factor enabling the slave trade was a better nautical knowledge. An “understanding of the wind and ocean currents of the North and South Atlantics” (Eltis, 2007). Not having enough indenture servants from Europe and a dying Amerindian population made trading for African’s slaves the best choose. The “agency” that supplied the slaves were the ruling tribe of the African’s region. Slaves were either former prisoner of war or a person of criminal tendencies (Eltis, 2007).

The Atlantic Slave Trade was a never-ending cycle, so to speak, with each part playing an integral part in the continuum of the trade of human lives for over four centuries. There is no “beginning,” so I’d like to begin in a local market in the Igbo-speaking region of southern Nigeria in 1745. Olaudah Equiano recalls a bit about these markets in his narrative, “These are sometimes

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

Rodney puts together a biting criticism of Europe's interaction with Africa starting in the 15th century with trading, both the slave trade and the trade in goods. This essentially killed inter-Africa trade, forcing African civilizations to only trade with European and other western economies. This also changed the economies of African civilizations to suit what the traders wanted, whether human beings, cotton, or minerals. When European powers grew as a result of the profits from trade, they then carved Africa into its current state and entered the continent to force more and more production of things that would increase profit for the western markets. Banks, industries, and nations prospered by the use of underpaid, sometimes forced African labor. Meanwhile, civilizations fell apart and education came to a stand-still. This book left me further convinced in the concept of reparations, not just for slavery, but for the destruction of an entire continent and all the people that came from there in the last 500