Motivations And Impact Of The Atlantic Slave Trade

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.

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

“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 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

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 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

For my comparison book review, I chose to focus on the Atlantic Slave Trade Second Edition by Herbert S Klein and The Economic Consequences of the Atlantic Slave Trade” by Barbara L. Solow. My focus of the trade is labor demands, effects on Africa, European organization of trade, and economy leading up to the end of the trade and after. Together, the two books demonstrate that the Atlantic Slave Trade was more than just the trading of Africans to different continents, but was a historical point that heavily impacted the world socially, economically and politically. While acknowledging the similarities of the two books in my essay, I will also address differences and points that may challenge each other. Before the institution of slavery was confined to only Africans, there were also indentured servants and other forms of caste workers that involved other races. Until the 15th century, the Mediterranean world use slaves as domestic servants, soldiers, mining and agriculture production. But according to Solow, when colonization moved to the Atlantic, plantation slavery became black and blacks became plantation slaves. Solow says that European colonization was associated with sugar; sugar was associated with slavery; and slavery was associated with blacks. (Solow, pg.5)

The Ottoman Empires blockage of the once popular trade route to the east, led to the exploration of the America’s. In the late 15th century, with the European’s goal to find a new trading route, the Portuguese, with their strong maritime power, were the first to venture out. Not only was the establishment of a new trade route crucial, but so was the discovery of resources to exploit for European gain. Land empires formed, bringing about the enslavement of native populations, and control of production and labor. No more was this evident than in the Caribbean Islands. Small but crucial assets to Europe, why did the Caribbean islands have such a big impact on the slave trade? Many European countries had colonized several regions in North and South America, yet there was something about the Caribbean’s that made them indispensable to their respective economies. The politics in Europe, the Caribbean’s fertile soil, and its demographics were key factors in the Caribbean’s importance. All three factors were essential in the Caribbean becoming a staple in the slave trade.

“The transatlantic slave trade concerns history of three continents over four centuries and it has served as a crucial element of New World protohistory since the slave trade soared in the eighteenth century in response to the increasing demand for unfree labor in both the Caribbean and the

The effects of the development of the Atlantic Slave Trade had impacted the participating civilizations in 1450-1750. Many slaves were treated brutally. Some countries prospered as others died, and a new source of cheap labor has been found. The demand for cheap labor in 1450 to 1750 has caused economic, social, and political effects on civilizations from Europe, America, and Africa participating in the Atlantic Slave Trade by causing the downfall of African tribes and race, hardships of surviving slave life and leading European countries to become rich.

“Black slave-trade. Was it worth it? Was it profitable? Was it dehumanizing? Or was it nothing more than a simple means in which to control a people group in its entirety; a way for white people to become lazy; or just a brutality woven through humankind like no other. Marcus Rediker’s The Slave Ship-A Human History Provides grueling personal narratives of “black slaves” that experienced the cross-Atlantic trade; detailed explanations and descriptions of the functions, focusing specifically on the ships and their travels as a pose to the more broadly studied “plantation lives” of the slaves in The New World.

Before the high point of Atlantic Slave trade, many societies were making technological advances in areas such as warfare and arts. According to “The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano,” it states, “As we live in a country where nature is prodigal [...] of course we have few manufactures. They consist for the most part of calicoes, earthen ware, ornaments, and instruments of war(Strayer, pg 701)” Equiano described his country’s economy and the technology that were available to them. During the high point of the slave trade, technological advances were barely made in Africa since societies began to lose specialized workers to the enslavement.

To begin with, slavery and warfare had been part of African life for many centuries but the transatlantic slave trade had to be the longest constrained movement of people in history (Eltis). The trade was brought upon the lack of laborers, which the European colony needed to start developing its new world ("The Atlantic”). The Europeans did not want to pay for the labor that needed to be done because it was too expensive and the indigenous people were rapidly dying from sickness and conflict so Instead, they ordered slaves from

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

Further, Boterro and Wallace (2011) calculate that the period between 1801-1850 is overrepresented by a factor of two in Nunn’s sample while 1701-1750 is barely represented in spite of its share of aggregate exports being roughly 20%. Even more crippling is the fact that Bottero and Wallace (2011) who extended Nunn’s study to 1960 found that the results did not become significantly negative until 1970 and were close to zero in 1960. Thus, although his paper made significant strides in our understanding of the impact of the slave trade, careful attention to the data and models calls into question whether or not this relationship is a statistical artifact or a valid finding. Consistent with the view that the slave trade had a profound impact is the work of Candido. Like Rodney, Curtin, and Nunn, Candido emphasizes that Atlantic slave trade was violent, and resulted in the