13 million lives were taken away from Africans in only 300 years. If they were not killed from overworking, they died along the way here. The Atlantic World’s state today would not be achieved without the African Slave trade. Europeans greatly benefitted from the trade, but at the cost of entire generations of Africans, and even Native Americans from the 1550s to 1850s. In the early 1500s Africans were not the only race of people being used as slaves. At first, the people of Europe used Native Americans, as well as some of their own willing people. The Natives were sufficient for a few years, but they were too versed in the land and their population quickly died off after being exposed to the diseases brought from Europe. Europeans even began using indentured slaves to do their bidding, but most people realized that they would die before they would become free. So, the last resource for Europeans was the Africans.
The cause for using few hundred African slaves that had already been used in the Caribbean was because they were the perfect option for the European people. They were already exposed to the diseases brought by the Portuguese centuries before. The climate in Africa was similar to the areas in the Caribbean; they were used to the 95 degree weather. Africans were experienced in farming and raising animals, and had no knowledge of the land, unlike the Native Americans.
The source of prejudice, however, was a whole different story. Race was not the reason for
The African Slave Trade was a massive system of Europeans taking African Americans and selling them into slavery. The African Slave Trade began in the 15th century. This slave trade put Africa in a weird relationship with Europe that cause the depopulation of Africa, but it increased the wealth of Europe.
The Atlantic Slave Trade was a part of African history that had made one of it's biggest impact on Africa's relation with the world and more importantly on the inner workings of the country itself due to its large-scale involvement of many of the people in the continent. Although the slave trade was so long ago the impact can still be seen in Africa's social workings within the people, its economy in the local and global market, and within the political landscape of the countries.
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.
When Europeans arrived along the West African coast, slavery already existed on the continent, however slavery in Africa and the brutal form of slavery that would develop in the Americas were completely different. African slavery was more like European serfdom. For example, in the Ashanti Kingdom of West Africa, slaves could marry, own property and even own slaves. And slavery ended after a certain number of years of servitude. Most importantly, African slavery was never passed from one generation to another, and it lacked the racist element that whites were masters and blacks were slaves.
The other component of slavery is slaves often encaptured because of war and conquest. The English put the slaves to work for profit and to ease their workload. The English did not have the physical endurance to sustain harsh conditions. As a result in 1442 Europe brought the African slaves from the West Indies because of their physical endurance. Thereafter transporting slaves began as an entrepreneur occupation for British seamen. So the British captured slaves for sugar farming to sweeten coffee and tea enslaving Africans for over four hundred years.
Futhermore, at first slaves were both Indians and Africans. Since the Natives started getting sick and dying from diseases the colonist spread, the colonist started to import people from Africa. The colonist have not explored most of Africa. There were more people that they could use as slaves and the people
For more than three and a half centuries, the forcible bondage of at least twelve million men, women, and children from their African homelands to the Americas forever changed the face and character of the western hemisphere. The slave trade was brutal and horrific, and the enslavement of Africans was cruel, exploitative, and dehumanizing. The trade represented one of the longest and most sustained assaults on the life, integrity, and dignity of human beings in world history.
“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
* Europeans, Caribbeans, and southern North Americans needed these Africans for their cheap labor. People chose Africans as slaves since their bodies became immune to the diseases, therefore they wouldn't die as the Natives did.
As the Europeans set up colonies in America, they brought the plantation ideas with them, which led to the need for labor hence they tried to enslave the Native Americans to work in their mines and fields. The Native Americans were prone to diseases hence most of them died as a result of diseases and overworking. Apart from the ones who died, a number rebelled and formed alliances forcing the Europeans to look for other sources of labor. They started to acquire African slaves due to a number of reasons: The African slaves were more stronger and immune to a number of diseases in Europe and America; the Africans had no friends and family in America hence it was not easy for them to form alliances or to escape; they provided a permanent and a cheap source of labor; and most of them had worked on farms before in their
From the years 1609 to 1610, Virginains suffered through what was called a 'starving time," where approximatley four hundred and forty settlers died due to starvation. Colonist realized they needed labor to grow crops to sustain the colony, and as there were few numbers of white servants, Africans were the perfect solution. This was the one of the first steps to American slavery. However, how were the Africans so easy to enslave? African had a culture centered around community and family, so when they were removed from that, they lost became stranded and helpless. Slavery proceeded because of the greed of slave traders and plantation owners. Africans were packed in ship to the point of suffocation, and in fact, "one of every three blacks transported overseas died" (Zinn 5). Ir did not matter to the traders because they earned huge profits despite losing
According to liverpool muesuems.org “before 1820, over 80% of the people arriving in the New World were enslaved Africans. It is estimated that 12 million enslaved Africans were transported to the Americas.” The french would go down to South Africa and trade with them but they would take enslaved african americans over to the Americas to get cotton and then they would take the goods back up to france. They enslaved African Americans to help work because they believed they worked harder and that they shouldn’t work. They believed that if they had people do work for them life would be easier.
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.
Because of the vast and abundant amount of land in the Americas, Europeans desperately needed slave labour. They needed useful tools to get the job done, so that they can be able to make a profit and contribute more wealth in Europe. Europeans needed the Natives to work for them. However, the Natives were so easily immune to diseases and sickness from the Europeans. Instead, African Slaves were shipped to the Americas to be used as tools and were forced to work for the Europeans.
work being done by the natives. The Africa slaves were used mostly in the sugar plantations and