Equiano 's First Hand Experience Of Being Kidnapped

African slaves were shipped to the West Indies and America as part of the Triangular Trade. Many slaves died on the voyage due to the ghastly conditions that accompanied the Middle Passage and others committed suicide. Portugal held a near monopoly on the export of African slaves for a period of about 200 years from the early 14-1600s. The peak years of the slave trade were during the 16th and 17th century, but Africans were forced across the Atlantic for an astonishing timeframe of around 400 years.

It took place across the Atlantic Ocean from the 15th to the 19th centuries. It was a trade of human beings from African societies who were shipped across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas. About 1.8 million people died during the Atlantic Slave Trade due to harsh conditions on the ship. Furthermore, many others perished during the process of capture and transport to the African coast done by the middle men. Slaves were kept in dungeon fortresses and suffered horrid living conditions while waiting to be sent out to sea on boats headed for America. Both on the forts and the ships, they were kept in dirty, dark rooms with little moving space and almost no food and drink. They were usually kept in chains and forced to lie on their backs. The transatlantic slave trade is sometimes known as the "Triangular Trade" because it was trade among three ports or regions. The voyages were from Europe to Africa, from Africa to the Americas, and from the Americas back to Europe. The raw materials and natural resources like rice, tobacco, cotton and sugar that were found in the Americas were brought to Europe. Europe then brought manufactured products such as cloth, beads and guns to Africa in exchange for slaves who were brought to the Americas. This voyage impacted the world. Africa became a permanent part of the interacting Atlantic world and millions of people were

Meanwhile in the Americas, European empires were growing, and they realized that they needed a more efficient work force. They had tried using Native Americans, but they usually died from European diseases. Europeans couldn’t work because of the diseases that the tropical climate gave them. It seemed like Africans would be the perfect solution to their problems. They were used to the tropical climate and immune to its diseases, had experience in agriculture, and there was already a market for them. This introduced the slave trade to North America, and in 1619 the first New World slaves were brought to Jamestown, Virginia. Most of the earlier slaves to journey the trans-Atlantic Slave Trade were from Windward Coast and Senegambia (Present-day Mauritania), but later expanded all along the coast of Africa. The Atlantic Slave Trade was also given the name “Middle Passage”, since it was the middle leg in the Triangular trade.

“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

Natives on the other hand were very difficult to enslave because many died due to diseases and lack of immunity to them and they were very knowledgeable with the surrounding terrain if they were to ever escape. To comply with the demand for cultivation of cash crops, a shipping route that imported Africans to the new world was the famous “horrendous six-to eight- week long ocean voyage known as the Middle Passage” (Goldfield, The American Jorney, 55). The European powers traded these slaves for guns, rum and other textiles. But in order to get these slaves, Africans kidnapped and traded other Africans for these resources. The African kingdom traded slaves who have done punishable crimes in their country for valuable resources that could help protect the kingdom from other rulers in Africa. Once the Africans were enslaved, they now begin their long journey to the New World on the compacted ships. Similar to indentured servants on their long voyage to the New World, the living conditions for the slaves on board were disgusting and unimaginable, they lived in their own filth struggling to barely survive the week long passages and slaves were often tightly packed below the deck. The slaves who did survive were then bought and sold just like cattle, often being separated from loved ones

The Atlantic Slave Trade lasted between 1450 and 1750 and drastically impacted the lives of both European and African people. During this time, the Europeans, such as the British, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Dutch, traveled to Africa in search of labor workers. In total, over twelve million slaves were taken, mainly because they workers to make money, but it also had to do with their race, religion – as they were not Christian – and to civilize them because the Europeans did not believe that they were humans. Due to these European beliefs, the Europeans saw themselves as the most powerful group and viewed slave trade as a business. The Africans, on the other hand, had a harder time transitioning into slavery. Many of them were taken from their homes and forced to accept a new life working as a slave. These events did not come without many sacrifices from the African people. One of the major reasons the slave trade was so expansive is due to the low life expectancy of the slaves after their capture. While the Europeans believed that they were helping the African culture, as well as themselves, the African society as a whole suffered the most.

Still there was slave trade in other countries "like Egypt, Rome, China, Persia, the Aztecs, and many other countries" (Slave Trade and It's Impact 417) long before the Era of Exploration. When the Europeans started using slave trade it became a giant profitable business, changing it forever, and originally coastal African leaders agreed to this slave trade in exchange for weapons, and other goods. But this agreement didn't last very large because African leaders soon tried to stop the trade, but their efforts failed and the slave trade grew larger and larger. These slaves were transported on the middle passage or the second leg of the triangle trade. This had a huge impact on many of the people from Africa that would forever impact them and there family for generations. Because of this trade people saw Africans as lesser beings, or sometimes not even people, even long after the Age of Exploration people saw Africans, and African Americans differently then Caucasian Americans. People of America saw African and African Americans so differently it resulted in a civil

The Europeans acquired the slaves from the coasts of Africa trading with the chief tribes guns, tobacco, etc. in return the chief tribes uses the guns and goods to capture people from other tribes which they will then sell to the Europeans. Alexander Falconbridge describes the way she was captured “I was likewise told by a Negro woman that as she was on her return home, one evening, from some neighbors, to whom she had been making a visit by invitation, she was kidnapped; and notwithstanding she was big with child, sold for a slave. This transaction happened a considerable way up the country, and she had passed through the hands of several purchasers before she reached the ship”(Falconbridge, “A slave Ship”). The voyage from Africa to Europe was known as the middle passage. The treatments of slaves in the middle passage were horrific, with many men and women packed into a small space. The slaves were underfeed and they were killed with diseases contracted from the

All through the African Slave Trade there have been numerous huge occasions that happened amid 1450-1850. Three of which I will be expounding on in this theme. The center section was the first key occasion in which Africans were sent to the New World. The slave treatment and resistance of African men and ladies who were viewed as not as much as human was the second key occasion. The Fugitive Slave Law which permitted recover of slaves was the third key occasion. An expected 12 million Africans were transported over the Atlantic toward the Western Hemisphere from 1450 to 1850. Of this number, around five percent were conveyed to British North America and, later, to the United States, the greater part of them landing somewhere around 1680 and 1810. A little number of Africans went first to the British West Indies and afterward to North America.

For many years African slaves were traded, mistreated, and killed innocently. Two events in which Africans were involved in slave trade were the Triangular Trade & the Middle Passage. The Middle Passage, the forced voyage of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to the New World. It was a route from the Triangular Trade that took goods (including knives, guns, ammunition, and cotton) from Europe to Africa, Africans to work as slaves in the Americas and West Indies, and items, mostly raw materials, produced on the plantations (sugar, rice, tobacco, and indigo back to Europe. From the mid-19th century, millions of African men, women, and children made the 21-to-90-day voyage aboard grossly overcrowded sailing ships manned by crews mostly

Looking at the narrative of Equiano and the many details it portrays, we have learned a lot about the Atlantic slave trade and its effect on Africa, its people and the world. According to the narrative, slaves were not only taken against their will, but were separated from their families, loved ones and friends. They were mistreated, beaten, burned, torture, and punish for trying to escape or being disobedient by their masters. In some cases, the torture and punishments were so severe, that they would try taking

Unfortunate Africans from different countries, ethnic, and cultural, was taken from their homeland. The Middle Passage took the enslaved Africans placed them in pairs handcuffs, leg shackles, and leg irons. The cargo ships were pledged, with the dangerous disease, seasickness, and overcrowded Africans. Therefore the Africans were taken across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas. Once there they were sold and later work on the European-owned plantations.

The trade of Africans was part of Triangular trade, from Europe to Africa, Africa to the Americas, and the Americas back to Europe. The journey from Africa across the Atlantic was known as the Middle Passage. For many months, enslaved Africans were treated terribly on the voyage. Slaves were packed on top of each other into the bottom of the ship. African men wore iron chains around their wrists and legs and had little room to move. The chains and cuffs prevented revolts and escapes. Revolting slaves would be shot or drowned. Women and children were sometimes

Many wonder about the spread of the African race. The answer to that mystery leads back to the Transatlantic Slave Trade/Middle Passage. The Transatlantic Slave Trade/ Middle Passage is the reason for the wide spread of the African society altogether. The first stage included manufactured goods like clothing, food, and artilleries and transporting them from Europe to Africa. The second stage was known as the “Middle Passage” where the enslaved Africans would be shipped to the Americas. The third and final stage of the trade was the shipment of the produce from the enslaved Africans to Europe. The fifteenth century is when the trade began, and the Portuguese interests for Africa turned from its natural resources and into its people who they will pursue as slaves. The triangular trade included the Americas, England, and Europe.

This was then known as the triangular slave trade as Europeans sailed to Africa to buy slaves and then shipped them to the Americas to work in the plantations. Brutality