Slavery in Africa, Europe, and Jamaica
Traders, businessmen, African slavers and slaves each had a unique experience and involvement in the business of the transatlantic slave trade. This lucrative process, that lasted between 1500 to 1870 AD included three different hemispheres: Europe, Africa, and the Americas, specifically Jamaica.
In Africa slavery existed long before European exposure, however, over time the motivation for slavery changed. Originally slavery existed because of the expanding of African territories or the need to pay off debts. Europeans, during their attempts to make a shorter trade route to India and Asia, encountered the African custom and adopted it. Therefore, the Europeans filled their pockets with goods
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The first reason for slavery was the prisoner of war. War between rival communities over land or for other fractions left people who were captured. These people were mainly adopted into the new culture, in order to increase the power of the dominant society; they were not only used for labor purposes.
War between communities was not the only means of fighting that caused slavery. The second principle concerns fighting between family members. If a household becomes too upset by a certain member of the family, the remaining members have the option to sell the troublemaker into slavery. This in turn would solve the familial problem, as well as enable profit for the family and the individual. The family gains wealth and goods, as the individual is able to learn how to control oneself as well as gain a sense of responsibility.
Debt proved to be another main resource for the buying and selling of people in Africa, which is the third principle. "In Africa, where coin is not known, the slave is made a substitute for this commodity, and in each district a positive value is given him which is passed for currency and legal tender." There are cases of parents having to sell their kin because they were in such debt, as well as people selling themselves into slavery for a certain amount of time. These
The Atlantic slave trade which was inevitably began by the Portuguese, but later in time taken over by the English, was the sale and exploitation of African slaves by Europeans that occurred in and throughout the Atlantic Ocean from the 15th century to the 19th century. Most slaves were transported from West Africa and Central Africa to the New World. Although slavery and slave trading already existed it became well known and practiced in all cultures. During this time while Europeans obtained most slaves through coastal trade with African states, some slaves
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.
Before Europeans joined the African slave trade, slavery was widespread throughout Africa, and slaves served to pay off debts, sold by their kin in exchange for goods during famine, or as war captives. The slaves were central to the trans-Saharan trade, and on occasion the slaves would be freed from servitude. Once the Europeans began to exploit the slave trade, they created a forced migration of African slaves into the
Slavery in America began when the first bunch of African slaves were brought to North America in 1619. They settled in Jamestown, Virginia to assist in the production of economy enhancing crops. Initially, the concept of this form of slavery was servitude, slaves were either sent back to Africa or allowed to own land. Europeans recommenced quests to Africa in search of gold. This is when they
Slavery has been an inevitable part of history. Slavery has been around since the Babylonian Empire . Slavery was even, present in Ancient Greece. The Byzantine-Ottoman wars and the Ottoman wars resulted in the enslavement of large numbers of Christians. However, it was during the Middle Ages and moving forward that slavery played a prominent role. Both the Dutch and the British played important roles in the Atlantic slave trade, especially after 1600. When, the New World was discovered, slavery was not based on race until much later.Slaves consisted of a few people brought from Africa and native peoples where the newly discovered land . However, slavery was still present . Slavery in the New World was in many ways inevitable because Europeans
Slave as defined by the dictionary means that a slave is a person who is the property of and wholly subject to another; a bond servant. So why is it that every time you go and visit a historical place like the Hampton-Preston mansion in Columbia South Carolina, the Lowell Factory where the mill girls work in Massachusetts or the Old town of Williamsburg Virginia they only talk about the good things that happened at these place, like such things as who owned them, who worked them, how they were financed and what life was like for the owners. They never talk about the background information of the lower level people like the slaves or servants who helped take care and run these places behind the scenes.
Slavery a practise that took absolute freedom away from African people for over 500 sometimes it is even referred to as the ‘African Holocaust’ because the estimated lives lost because of the slave trade is thought to be up to 100 million. And in 1691 this hideous practise was introduced to America and continued for another 250 years and it was only in the 18th century that America began to question the morality of slavery. This lead to a divide in the American people you were either pro or anti slavery. Due to geography Southern states benefited much more from slavery than Northern states did because they had the environment the could sustain plantations and their population was lower and less condensed. Northern states however due of the advent of industrialism did not need or benefit economically from slavery and because of higher importance placed on education and immigration there was a growing diversity of cultures and people so they were more aware of the moral issues involved with a practise like slavery. Another factor that contributed to the growing resentment of slavery in the North was a paradoxical one, because the South benefited so much economically for slavery where little to no labour skills were needed it began to affect the American economy as a whole as it limited the growth of the US economy. Work ethic was undermined and slavery itself only was only beneficial to the US in the short term and in hindsight it is easy to see that it actually stunted the US
To begin, the reason why slavery began in the United States. When the Europeans first came to the Americas, they realized that the climate is different which allowed them to grow crops they couldn't back in Europe. These crops were called cash crops and were being sold in Europe but are grown in the Americas. Since Europe was in high demand for
For the colonists slavery was an easy concept. African slaves had practiced slavery before and were more skilled. When they were introduced to the new world they had no idea where they were. They started to work again for the colonist because they had so few choices for themselves and didn’t know the best for them. They need a lot of labor with the Native population decreasing they needed some.The slaves were experienced in intensive agriculture and raising livestock and knew how to raise crops. They started bringing more and more slaves across the Atlantic ocean and to the new world. They started to take them out of England and make up all the American colonies.
Contrary to what we learned in school, the transatlantic slave trade actually began in the 1450s when the first Africans arrived in Europe. You see, slavery existed in some capacity since the beginning of human interaction. As early as 2,000 years ago, the Romans enslaved people of color as servants. Around 600 AD the Arab Muslims started enslaving Africans. However, slavery was not based on race until Europeans began slave trading with Africans. It is also worth mentioning that Africa had a slavery system that existed within the country long before the Europeans arrived. The African slavery system was based on tribal ethnicities and economic status as thousands of Africans were captured during various wars between African nations and sold into slavery. In 1440, Spanish and Portuguese explorers sailed
Despite being held at the bottom of the social pyramid for throughout colonial times, the labor of the colonies would prove to be far from useless. While vast, open land was turned into numerous plantations in the colonies by rich planters, the plantations could not purely be run by their owners, creating a great need for labor. This lack of labor would eventually be solved through the use of African slaves, but after the first shipment of slaves to Jamestown in 1619, few were purchased due to high prices for an extended amount of time. The planters, however, would be able to fulfill their need for labor through English indentured servants. Through the use of indentured servants, basically free labor was provided to land owners, while
The world wars had hit the Europeans so hard that they seriously and urgently needed a source of labor that would help in the rebuilding of their cities and mine their minerals such as coal, gold, and silver among others. They decide to turn to Africa for this labor and therefore, slave trade was born in the middle of the 15th century on the continent. The first batch of slaves was imported to Cuba.
Slavery developed in the Americas because of exploration and need or labor. Europeans captured Africans and transported them across the deadly Middle Passage, to the Americas, where they would be forced to poor under harsh conditions. Slavery had many lasting effects. Africa was depopulated, and Africans in America lost their cultures and identity while Europeans made money from the resources being exported in the Americas at the expense of Africans’ lives and culture.
The most famous example of this kind of slavery is found in America, during the 16th, 17th and 18th century. During this time, America's southern states were dominated by slavery, and the vast majority of plantations were essentially run by black slaves, imported from Africa. The slave trade was founded in 1444, by the Portuguese who, sensing the need for more slaves, ventured to use Africans. They realised that the
This essay will attempt to describe the modalities and consequences of the abolition of the slave trade in early nineteenth century West Africa. We now live in a world where slavery is considered not to be morale since it was abolished however cases of slavery still exist today but are hidden from the public eye so well that no one even knows the exist. Forcing someone to perform various duties like cleaning without any form of payment against their will is considered to be a form of slavery and anyone found to be having slaves or holding anyone against their will these days is punished and possibly sentenced to jail for a very long period of time. We are in the 21st century and slavery is something that is not accepted by