Summary: The Atlantic Slave Trade

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 two majors drivers that led to the transatlantic slave trade was the European desire for the agricultural products of the Americas and the need for laborers to work the land in the Americas. All participants, besides for the slaves, benefited from the trading.

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 transatlantic slave trade first began in 1502, with records of the first slaves in the New World, lasting nearly four centuries. It connected the economies of three continents. The route began in West Europe, where it continued to Africa, trading manufactured goods such as rum, textiles, weapons, and gunpowder for slaves. From Africa, the ship went along the Atlantic to America, distributing slaves, and bringing agricultural products such as coffee, cotton, rice, and sugar back to Europe. The entire route typically lasted eighteen months. The slave trade ended in 1867, seventeen years after Britain began arresting slave ships.

The Atlantic Slave Trade was one of the worst events in the world. From the 16th century to the 19th century, a considerable number of slaves were captured and traded. During the 18th century, a surplus number of slaves were transported to the Americas, this is where the story begins. Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing introduces readers to two important characters, Esi and Quey. Esi is a fifteen-year-old girl who is a slave. Quey is the son a British soldier. Both characters story take place during the middle of the Atlantic Slave Trade to the end, highlighting the different perspectives they have during the Atlantic Slave Trade. Esi and Quey’s stories show violence in West Africa through different hierarchies leading to the capturing of select members; which caused an unproductive economy.

During the 16th to 19th century, an estimated 9.4-12 million Africans arrived in the New world via the Atlantic Slave Trade. There were two systems of the Atlantic Slave Trade; the First Atlantic Trade System and the Second Atlantic Trade System. The First Atlantic Trade System was in the 16th Century when Portuguese merchants were the major players the West African slave trade. They supplied African labor to the New World colonies of the Spanish and the Portuguese. The Second Atlantic Trade System was during the 17th and 18th centuries when the British, French and Dutch replaced the Spanish and Portuguese as the major players in slave trade in the Atlantic.

During the atlantic world, African slave trade spread crazy around the world. Everyone wanted african slaves to farm, plant, household chores and several other jobs their owner wanted them to do, they would pawn it off to the slaves. People could have hundreds one less slaves, it was easy. They died easily so if one died, pshhh! They’re cheap and they can just go down to the village and go buy another if they wanted.

lavery first enters human history with the dawn of civilization. The most primitive hunter-gatherer peoples had no economic advantage by owning another individual. Only once humans began to gather in centralized communities with a surplus of food, they could reap the benefits of cheap labour. Slavery can be found in historical records dating back to even the earliest civilizations. The Code of Hammurabi details the oldest confirmed use of slavery in the 18th century B.C.E. (Fage 1969, 394). With such incredible longevity, it was inevitable that the institution of slavery would find its way to the new world. The Atlantic Slave trade can be divided into two eras. The first era of the Atlantic slave trade began on significant scale in 1502, with the Southern American Portuguese and Spanish colonies accounting for the majority of slave imports. Soon, the British, French and Dutch began to abduct people from Africa for the purpose of forming slave populations in the New World. This was the second era of the Atlantic slave trade and accounted for 97% of the total volume of the Atlantic Slave trade, with over 50% of imports occurring in the 18th century (Fage 1969, 396).

For nearly five centuries – from the 15th century at the onset of the trans-Atlantic slave trade up to the 1950s when African states began to win the struggle for independence, Africa was exploited as a continent. The natural as well as the human resources were taken with no returns. This great pillage led to a complete halt of trade in Africa. Trade implies an exchange, yet the human resources were taken as slaves and the former colonial masters took the natural and mineral resources without the consent of Africans through imperialism.

What is the slave trade? Well, I believe that the slave trade is when white people of the Americas would take black people,and put them on ships, and then bring them over the Atlantic ocean to the Americas to become slaves. This must have affected a lot of people during the Atlantic Slave Trade. Well, it did. Most of the slaves received being branded on their shoulder, breast or buttock. and many experienced getting their names changed so that is was almost impossible for their family to trace them. I’m always wondering, why did the slave trade last so long, and what values were found during the slave trade. Well, I believe the slave trade lasted so long, because numerous people died of diseases, which caused a heavy demand for more slaves every year. With the historical book, Roots, a primary sources, “Olaudah Equiano, and a secondary source “The Cruelest Commerce” I will give evidence to back up my answers to the three questions, what is the slave trade? How where humans affected by the slave trade, and why did the slave trade last so long and what values were found in the slave trade?

When life becomes too hard humans tend to ignore the matter for as long as possible, but in some cases in history ignoring your problems is impossible. A slave is a person who is considered property of another person and is forced to do work for them. Throughout history there have been different kinds of slavery, some are a lot less violent than others, for the purpose of paying off a debt, or simply because one group of people does not like another. The Trans-Atlantic slave trade took place during the years 1450 and 1850. The Old-World countries that were a part of the slave trade were the British, Spanish, French, And the Portuguese. The Trans-Atlantic Slave trade affected individuals and societies on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean in a negative way because of the degradation of human beings, population decrease in Africa, and the ignorance of people in Europe and the Americas.

Responsible for the forced transportation of around 15 to 20 million African slaves in just over four centuries, the Trans-Atlantic slave trade was a brutal and inhumane economic enterprise. Commencing in the early 1500’s, the country of Portugal effectively made the decision to start travelling to Africa in order to kidnap African citizens living on the West Coast. Next, other powerful Regions/Continents such as America, the Caribbean and Europe then began to also take advantage of this venerable state of Africa. It was a time where whites were considered superior because of their ‘pure’ skin tone but also a time where there were extreme labour shortages, making the black slaves appealing to the wealthy. The slaves were predominantly given the gruelling work on rice fields, Tabaco plantations, sugar plantations, cotton plantations and so on. Appalled by the evident cruelty of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and slavery itself, people of different races, gender and economic status united to fight for the rights of those in captivity, thus forming the abolition movement.

During the 1500’s Innocent Africans went from being free civilians to slaves in a matter of seconds. Starting in the late 1600’s Portuguese travelers began exploring Africa, this is when they began kidnapping Africans. The Portuguese continued acquiring slaves for nearly 300 years, this ensured that plantations in Europe and South America would be able to grow exponentially, because of the constant flow of free labor that was provided by the Atlantic Slave Trade. The Atlantic Slave Trade was a turning point in history because of the mass exploitation of Africa by the Europeans. During the transport many Africans died or got PTSD due to the atrocious conditions, when the slaves, arrived they would be forced to perform rigorous labor. This is called the Spanish Encomienda system. The impact of the Atlantic Slave Trade can still be felt all around the world, it is a prime example of human exploitation.

European colonist employed various forms of coerced labor on slaves to develop North America because of their desire for profit, the drive for land, and the need of labor. Slavery and servitude started playing a role in the development of the North American colonies In the 1490s when Columbus started exploring new lands. When Columbus found the new lands, he brought back things such as plants, minerals, golds, and the people who inhabited the land. He would kidnap the people and inslave them. He would do this to make a point that the land really existed and he had humans to prove it. In these new lands, there was a drive for mineral wealth. The colonist would accomplish this through slave labor. Most of the slaves who worked would literally be worked to death, therefore creating a need for more slaves. So, Columbus started bringing slaved africans to do the job as well. This really lead to the beginning of the atlantic slave trade.

The Atlantic World slave trade gave birth to an Atlantic world of people, goods, and cultures that spread, collided, and melded together to lay the foundations for much of our modern world. The Atlantic slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people, mainly from Africa to the Americas, and then their sale there. The 18th century was the great period of importation of slaves from Africa throughout the whole new world and most of the slaves brought to Colonial North America came in the18th century. Roughly 280,000 slaves are brought from Africa to the North American colonies between 1700 and 1770. More than three times as many Africans had boarded ships for the New World than Europeans. This fact that highlights the importance of African contributions to everyday life and culture in the early Americas. The slave trade was a vital part of world commerce. All the European countries in the New World used slave labor and battle for control of this profitable trade. Except for the king of Benin, most African rulers took part in the slave trade. The slave trade was concentrated in western Africa, greatly disrupting its society and economy.