Essay On The Atlantic Slave Trade

Today, many American’s are very prideful of being part of a Country that not only portrays, but also truly offer an abundance of opportunities for education, careers, housing, for many immigrants’ jobs, and most importantly Freedom. Currently the American motto is that there are no impossibilities, work hard to achieve highest potential and failure is not a negative innuendo, but a mark of the imprints of success. Nevertheless, as one researches and studies American history the stroll down memory lane is sad and disappointing. Use The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database website (http://www.slavevoyages.org/voyage/search)1 take a stroll into the past during 1607-1808 the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade slaves took the place of what we call today America’s industry workforce. Unfortunately, during the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade the slaves did not have a choice, mistreated and stripped of their rights and dignity, dehumanized, and all for the purpose of commercialism competitiveness and industrial prosperity. As shown on the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, during 1607-1808, the total number of slaves embarked on voyages to the Mainland North America was 360,999; however, these slaves experienced the highest form of cruelty and uncaring treatment

The Atlantic Slave Trade was a very important time in history. When the records of the Atlantic slave Trade are reflected upon ,the impacts of the shipboards revolts are often times overseen .Although these revolts did have an immense effect on the political, views of the Slave trade. Richardson’s “shipboard revolts,African Authority,and the Atlantic slave trade”. brings into view the fluctuating causes and effects of shore based, and shipboard insurrection . Because of Richardson occupation it grants him reliability to all of his claims and supports his opinions His profession of studying economics and international ,offers him a profusion amount of education in the countries which were involved in the Atlantic Slave Trade. Richardson expose the indispensable impacts of shipboard revolts , African Leadership on the Atlantic slave trade, the author accomplishes this by painting out the causes an effects of each specific revolt an also by exposing the progress.

There are different experiences of the slave trade that are reflected in these documents such as those of an enslaved person (Olaudah Equiano), a European slave trader (Thomas Phillips – an English merchant), an African monarch (King Jao) whose kingdom and personal authority suffered from the slave trade, and an African monarch (Osei Bonsu) who opposed the ending of the slave trade. Of all the commercial ties that linked the early modern world into global network of exchange, none had more profound or enduring human consequences than the Atlantic Slave Trade. And in all these documents, we can see how people reacted differently to this system based on how they encountered it and how it affected them.

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 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

The Slave Trade in Colonial America The first blacks in the American Colonies were brought in, like many lower-class whites, as indentured servants. Most indentured servants had a contract to work without wages for a master for four to seven years, after which they became free. Blacks brought in as slaves, however, had no right to eventual freedom. The first black indentured servants arrived in Jamestown in the colony of Virginia in 1619.

The expansion of slavery in the 1800s was a brutal and sad time in our country’s history. Through the readings of Johnson and Rothman, along with other lesson materials, it is apparent that the effects of the Louisiana Purchase, the War of 1812, along with the complicit behavior from the U.S., largely impacted slave trade and lives of many slaves that were forced from the East to the Deep South and Southwest.

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 history of the Atlantic slave trade is long and sordid, from the working and transportation conditions to the structure of the trade itself. Historians and scholars from all backgrounds have worked to understand the impact of slavery and why it went on for so long. Two scholars, John Thornton and Mariana Candido, have extensively studied both the impact and organization of the Atlantic slave trade, but disagree on a few main conclusions. Upon thorough review of both sides, however, John Thornton’s ideas regarding the Atlantic trade are more convincing than Candido’s, and by looking deeper into each side it is clear why.

In American history, every event and person plays a part in the future. For example, rich plantation owners helped America advance their economy. However, that would not have been at all possible without the help of their slaves. The time and institution of slavery is a time of historical remembrance. It played a primary role during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. The treatment, labor conditions, and personal stories of these slaves’ treatment and labor conditions are all widely discussed around the world to this day.

The Atlantic Slave Trade was a system of slavery that took place between the 16th and 19th centuries. It comprised of capturing African tribesmen and women from areas of Western and Central Africa and placing them into the colonies of the New World in North, Central, and South America. Many countries like England, Portugal, Spain, Holland, and France, had participated in enslaving the African peoples. The African slaves were used to exploit an array of commodities such coffee, cotton, rum, sugar, and tobacco, and eventually they had become commodities themselves. Often times the slaves were treated awfully by their owners. Most were forced to work long and tiresome hours on plantations to acquire said commodities, and then use them to create products that would be later sold. The slaves did not receive any profits from the sale of the products that they produced, but they were paid with basic needs such as shelter and food. The revenue that was produced by slave labour was highly profitable, but in turn it was counter acted by the cost of keeping the slave labourers alive and well. By the end of the 18th century a period known as the Industrial Revolution had swept Europe, especially England, and her colonial partners. Never before had production been so cheap and efficient. Many believe that the enslavement of Africans was necessary to initiate the industrial revolution. They believe that the slaves provided the foundation to the development of the revolution, and without

During the early developments of America, multiple states instituted the practice of owning African-Americans and using them as slaves. Surprisingly, this form of slavery was not only present in the Southern states, but also in the Northern too. Plantation owners from all over found their use in owning slaves, and were even shown taking advantage of the practice. By having ownership of slaves, it often contributed in farming production on plantations and also became useful when it came to voting. Unfortunately, though, the practice was abused by many plantation owners. When looking back at the many accounts written at the time, there seems to be a pattern of how the slaves were treated. Furthermore, the accounts additionally revealed problems that not only existed in the south, but also in the north too. Therefore, by using an account of a traveler visiting America and a plantation owner who owned slaves, it’s able to understood on how the slaves were actually treated within society. These two sources not only reveal a problem amongst the owners, but also reveal a side of the North that many did not know.

Slavery, a topic that still leaves a mark on the hearts of many citizens throughout America, a matter that leaves a repugnant aftertaste in our mouths. Slaves were transported from their native land, into a new world forced to do manual work that Europeans were resistant in doing and reluctant to having the natives do. Slavery lasted over 200 years; yet for some odd reason African Americans and advocates of memorializing the consistent pain, agony, torture, and mistreatment of Africans are constantly told to just “Let it go”, “Forget about it, it happened so long ago”. Those who still feel the piercing wounds of those who suffered from enslavement are expected to forget about an issue that has not even ceased longer than it lasted. A common desire that existed among all African Americans was to be free, to be released and sent back to their families from whom they were snatched. Africans were stolen from their homelands, stripped from a comfortable environment into an unfamiliar place, and forced to live under cruel conditions, known as the Atlantic Slave Trade. In this paper, several factors will be discussed including: (1) background information on the African slave trade/ middle passage(2) the slaves’ living conditions (3) the slaves’ treatment (4) and the lasting impact in the lives of the slaves after the getting off the ships.

In The Atlantic Slave Trade Herbert Klein attempts to go into great detail of the inner workings of the slave trade: how it came to be, the parties involved, as well as the social and cultural impacts it had on the society. When thinking of the slave trade previous to this class, I would think to myself how low we as a humanity once became, and how many of African Americans were exploited to this awful set of events. After reading the book, those same thoughts still remained, however, due to Klein my understanding of the knowledge gave me greater insight into how complex the slave trade

In the 1800’s there was an increase soar in the use of the domestic slave trade because of the need for slaves in the tobacco planting lands. Many landowners and planters looked towards the Chesapeake area to seek for slaves. Many slave owners started looking towards that region because the International Slave Trade had been blockaded off. The domestic slave trade began something different; where African Americans were moved to a new location either through being sold or being transferred. Because of the desperate need of slaves in order to earn a profit, within that century, hundreds of thousands of slaves were transported, allowing many American traders to earn a profit.