How Did The Atlantic Slave Trade Dehumanize African Americans

The development of the New World relied upon the buying and trading of slaves, as African Americans were critical labor force for plantations and construction crews that lead to the development of the Americas. During the course of slavery, ship Captains, Plantation owners and slaves composed journals of there their trips, tribulations and daily life. The stories and details vary, depending on who is recounting the tails, but one constant found throughout is that the poor treatment of slaves was evident. Even in journals written by people like Captain Phillips, who wrote about how he made his lively hood off of selling and buying African Americans, the inhuman treatment could be seen even though he had no intention of writing about it. On the other hand there are journals from African slaves, such as Harriet Jacobs, that served the purpose to detail the difficulties they faced and their harsh treatment rather than how they made money for their owners. No matter which stories one reads the sense of African slaves being treated inhumanly and like products in a store for the economic growth and profit for private traders can be seen.

Getting slaves to the coast was not a streamlined process. The commodities involved in trade on the Atlantic market changed over a few centuries. The peak demand for slaves, at the turn of the nineteenth century, caused an influx of commercial opportunities for slave traders within Africa. At this time the Atlantic slave trade, for Africans, became more than just an outlet for making profit on war prisoners, who by tradition, before the arrival of Europeans, would have just been killed. The Atlantic Slave trade became an outlet for the strengthening of political power. Anyone who had a subordinate was likely to take advantage of the Atlantic market, often times sending their own family or kin to the coasts in exchange for goods and political gains. With the use of deception, families and spouses were able to sell off their own in order to reach their own goals, all at the price of the imprisoned slaves mental state. The use of deception in the slave trade amongst families and tribes is the first step in the commodification of slaves. The use of deception and kidnapping played a role in the complete alienation of captured slaves leading to this idea of the slaves experiencing a complete “social death”.

People have ample knowledge when it comes to Transatlantic slavery because it was a long-lasting institution built upon the idea of trading humans in the form of stolen goods through negotiation (Berry Lecture 4). Although textbooks and classroom lectures thoroughly cover the topic of transporting slaves through what would become the Middle Passage, these perspectives fail to report what it felt like to experience the journey firsthand. People’s understanding of the psychological and physical torture negroes were coerced into is limited because slaves were either illiterate or their opinions were invalid. As a result, rare records such as images and texts obtained directly from the slave trade unveil unique

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.

Slaves were present to newly diseases and endure from malnutrition lingering before they stretch the unspent globe. It is inspire that the superiority of deaths on the course across the Atlantic - the intermediate death - happen during the first leash of weeks and were a proceed of malnutrition and indisposition attack during the hurried marches and succeeding burial at vassal leaguer on the

It is difficult to comprehend the full scale of the atrocities that occurred from slavery by just learning about it through a textbook. Because of this, I believe that watching films about slavery, such as Amistad, is extremely important. Although, it was terrifying watching the horrendous dehumanization and barbaric treatment of the African American, this clip opened my eyes on a completely different level about the evil of slavery. Tears in my eyes, I watched the Africans being chained and dragged under the water. Additionally, I felt sick and was appalled when one of the white people threw a bag full of dead babies over the side of the ship. Another scene that stuck out was the when they were all being fed. Their broken body language, suffering,

This week’s assignment and context videos have prompted me to deeply reflect the ruthless history of the slave trade during the 18th and 19th centuries. I had never before explored, in this depth, the cruelty of the slave trade operations. To begin with, I was baffled by John Green’s video “The Atlantic Slave Trade” Revelation after revelation was revealed to me. For instance, I was not aware that pre-civil war Americans facetiously dubbed this horrific practice as “the peculiar institution.” Also, later in the video he mentions the exact space the average slave was given during the journey on a slave ship. It is stated that each slave had four square feet of space, and he shows a taped of section of it on a blackboard in the video. In order to further engage with the

How was the slavery idea build and what happen with its move to the Atlantic world.The cause and effects of slavery in the atlantic world was horrible for africans and natives,for europeans it was a great deal to them them.

In Captain William’s “New Account of Some Parts of Guinea and the Slave Trade”, Captain William wrote about the powerful impact the slave trade had on the individuals who were held captive on ships, separated from their families, and sold into slavery. The African slaves who were ripped away from their homes and families almost had no idea what was going to happen to them, Captain William stated “That, now they are become my Property, I think fit to let them know what they are bought for, that they may be easy in their minds” (Snelgrave). Many of the newly become slaves thought that they were being bought by the white men to be eaten. As the demand for slaves became more widespread, slave ports began to open all around Africa. Some Africans were being captured and sold by other Africans to the Europeans. Hundreds of slaves were compressed into ship’s cargo decks to be transported from Africa across the Atlantic to the West Indies. This cruel system became known as the Middle Passage. With thousands of slaves cramped in such small quarters with no fresh air, illnesses and diseases ran rapidly amongst them, which in result caused death to many. Olaudah Equiano, a former slave, wrote about his experience on the ships, “....the

Slavery is a terrible part of the human race that has occurred for millennia, each time it has left a stain on that nation’s reputation. Furthermore, North America and Europe during the early 15th century towards the 18th century was involved in one of the most despicable acts of all time, in human history. During these 300 years, the African population witnessed the near destruction and collapse of Africa. This event would be known as “The Transatlantic Slave Trade”. The transatlantic slave trade was responsible for the forced migration of in-between 12-15 million people from African to the Western Hemisphere. The Transatlantic Slave Trade not only was responsible for the violent transportation overseas of millions of Africans, but was also

During the Atlantic Slave Trade many of the Africans as well as Europeans lives were drastically changed for the rest of their life, but each of their experiences were different in terms of social status as well as race. In article A-14.1 we learn the life of Olauduh Equiano, who was a poor African male during slavery and how he became a slave and how he was treated during his time as a slave in terms of getting taken away from his family and getting traded between three different masters. When looking at article A-14.3 we see a letter from African King Affonso I to King João of Portugal that was explaining the struggles they were having with all of the loss in their community as well as resources. Each of these articles show how the Africans and Europeans differ during the Atlantic Slave Trade.

From the 16th to the 19th century Africans were snatched from their homes and taken to another country, mainly the Americas, where they would be put to work in the plantations and mines. This is known as the Atlantic Slave trade. The Atlantic Salve trade is a big part of our history for the reason of how big it expanded, the damage it caused and its long-lasting effects. The Portuguese were the first to get involved in the Atlantic slave trade back in the 16th century and they completed the first slave voyage to Brazil, where they were treated like cargo and not humans to be sold and, so they could work in the fields with cocoa, sugar, cotton and coffee. Soon after that voyage the English and the Dutch joined forces and they invaded the African homes and took the men at first, then taking women and children separating them their families and loved ones. The Portuguese established sugar plantations using enslaved labor. Once Europe got involved things spiraled into something different, Europeans interest in particularly concentrated on Senegambia because the kingdom of Gahanna and the Medieval empires of Mali and Songhay and its regions of Bure and Bambuk were rich in gold. That is why the slave trade was closely linked to Europeans and their hunger for gold. The Atlantic Slave Trade provided many slaves to Europeans because European colonizers soon began to migrate and settle in lands outside their native continent. By 1942 the Portuguese king had an agreement with the

The slave trade degraded human beings by exploiting them and making them live through harsh conditions. 1Olaudah Equiano was a prince who was captured from his home and turned into a slave but later in his life he was freed. In Equiano’s account, he described how his life was as a slave. He also talked about the physical pain from being beaten and branded and the sadness he felt from being separated from his family. Thomas Phillips was a European man who was aboard a slave ship in 1694. On the journey, he kept a journal that he wrote in. In the journal,

The leading cause of the Americas and the Europeans developing into astounding countries in the 15 - 16 centuries was that the North Americans profited from the exploitation of the slaves which were used as workers in the Americas in order to produce cheap materials for food and clothing. Like the slaves helping plant and harvest the cotton.

The Atlantic Slave Trade took place subsequently to the breakthrough discovery of the New World, also acknowledged today as North and South America. The Trade established a global exchange or Triangular trade between the Americas, Europe and Africa. The exchange between the Old and New world occurred to satisfy the enormous European demands for African labor on the plantations and for the colonization across the newly uncovered land. Prior to the Atlantic Slave Trade, Slavery had stood alive and thriving for centuries, leaving places like Africa with an immeasurable loss of human population. One stage of the Triangular slave trade was the Middle Passage, where millions of purchased and abducted Africans were transported to America being exchanged for other marketed possessions. The Zong vcvv was one of the several slave ships to travel the middle passage, leaving behind over a hundred deceased living beings and several court appearances. The abolition of the slavery in America did not begin until the eighteenth century, almost two hundred years following. Amongst the immeasurable tragedies that transpired to Africans during the middle passage, the executions and outcomes of the Zong ship massacre became one of the most influential catalysts for pushing forward the abolition of slavery, remaining one of the most dishonorable and narcissistic occurrences to ever strike by exposing the immense atrocities of the middle passage and Trans-Atlantic slave trade of the late 1700’s.