The Causes Of The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade

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.

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 Atlantic Slave trade began to pick up speed with the development of colonies by the Spanish and then the English, which were used to expand the mercantilist countries empires and power. African slaves began to be seen as a necessity once the Native American population plummeted and Spanish Creoles refused to do the hard work to supply their home country with the needed raw materials. Europeans were unwilling to provide the heavy menial labor required to successfully build a colony, making it “necessary to acquire negro slaves” (Document 1). Creoles and other European settlers forced slaves to “work too hard” and gave “them too little to eat” which weakened slaves and caused many to die off (Document 1).

There are endless reasons that human trafficking exists in modern times. These reasons are not black and white, and have a multitude of contributing factors, cause and effect, and influences. The causation of the modern slave trade is outlined in chapters three, four, and five of the text: Human Trafficking: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, written by Mary C. Burke. Chapter three, titled, “Sociological Perspective: Underlying Causes” relates sociology to the concept of human trafficking to better understand the culture behind the slave trade, including political and economic characteristics. A factor contributing to the existence of human trafficking is globalization and the development of national economies. While globalization can be

“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

During the mid-fifteenth century, the transatlantic slave trade occurred throughout the world and lasted well over four hundred years. Oversea trade between Africa and the Portuguese, along with other European kingdoms, formed, which began what is known as the transatlantic slave trade. Along with a variety of goods, copious amounts of slaves, roughly twenty-five million, were traded between the continents of Europe and Africa. Driving the trade were politics, economics, religion, business, and a desire for profit. Along with the majority of the African population being traded elsewhere in the world, the overwhelming amount of deaths and low fertility rate among the indigenous people neared the African culture to distinction. Among the documents provided, all can be grouped into two main groups: attitudes and impact. During the years 1450 to 1800, the Europeans showed a large amount of varied opinions towards the Transatlantic Trade slave and the impact of the trade towards the included civilizations.

The history of the Atlantic slave trade is long and sordid, from the working and transportation conditions to the structure of the trade itself. Historians and scholars from all backgrounds have worked to understand the impact of slavery and why it went on for so long. Two scholars, John Thornton and Mariana Candido, have extensively studied both the impact and organization of the Atlantic slave trade, but disagree on a few main conclusions. Upon thorough review of both sides, however, John Thornton’s ideas regarding the Atlantic trade are more convincing than Candido’s, and by looking deeper into each side it is clear why.

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.

European merchants had already been keen on African countries and kingdoms, for example, Ghana and Mali, because of their complex exchanging systems. Brokers then needed to exchange individuals. They took oppressed individuals from western Africa to Europe and the Americas. At first this was on truly a little scale yet the Slave Trade developed amid the seventeenth and eighteenth hundreds of years, as European nations vanquished a significant number of the Caribbean islands and quite a bit of North and South America. Europeans who settled in the Americas were baited by the thought of owning their own particular land and were hesitant to work for others. Convicts from Britain were sent to take a shot at the ranches yet there were never enough thus, to fulfill the enormous interest for work, grower bought

Imagine going about your everyday life when all of a sudden, you are taken away from your family, friends, and the life you know and you are placed aboard a ship going to a foreign place. On top of all that, you will have to work hard for free and be treated with almost no respect. It’s crazy right? Well not for the millions of Africans during the 15th to 19th century. The Atlantic Slave Trade was a part of the triangular trade which involved trading between Europe, Africa, and the Americas. The triangular trade was a trade system between the three continents which involved exchange of goods and slaves. The Europeans traded manufactured goods while the Africans traded slaves and the Americans traded for agricultural products. In all of this, the question arises that who is to blame? The blame can’t be placed on only one group of people because each group has played a big role in the slave trade. By looking at what was the role of each continent in the slave trade, we can see how much they are to blame.

The Transatlantic slave trade is a “wrenching aspect of the history of Africa and America” (Colin Palmer). The transatlantic slave trade transported African people to the “New World”. It lasted from the 16th to the 19th century. Slavery has had a big impact on African culture. The Africans were forced to migrate away from everything they knew, culture, heritage and lifestyles (Captive Passage). Coupled with they were faced with racism and overcame life-threaten situations everyday. Nevertheless the Africans preserved and survived tremendous conditions. Even though the slave trade was horrible it still contributed to the economy of the

To look at how social and economic reasons Africans were brought to the Americas you have to go back to the 15th century, “The origins of the Atlantic slave trade and its long duration were products of Western Europe’s expansion of power that began during the fifteenth century.”1 This expansion of power was a race between Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, France, England and other nations for sources of wealth and trade.1 Portugal took the lead in the early 1400s. The other nations motivated the spanish monarchy to pay for Christopher Columbus’s  journeys to the americas that began in 1492. During portugal’s search  for  expansion, wealth, and power, they arrived in Africa and found a thriving business in slaves.1 In the late 1400s, the Portuguese and the Europeans began to purchase slaves from African traders when the Portuguese merchant Ruy De Siqueria received permission to trade slaves from oba, the king of Benin. The slaves would then be traded for gold and ivory. It was not until the early 16th century that the Atlantic Slave trade began due to a lack of domestic servants. Because of columbus’s travel, which led to colonization of the new found land in the caribbean, Central America, Mexico and South America, The slave trade expanded. Because of the spread of disease in addition to overworking, many of the Natives died. In result of the sudden decrease in workers, “Europeans relied on the Atlantic Slave Trade to replace them as a source of slave labor.”

Around the mid-fifteenth century, the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade began. When the Portuguese moved away from their interests of selling gold, they turned to an asset that would gain them more money, slaves. By the seventeenth century, the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade was fully established, and hit its milestone by the end of the eighteenth century. There were three stages to the Trans-Atlantic TradeStage, every stage played a role in a journey that was cost-effective for merchants. “As a commercial and economic enterprise, the slave trade provides a dramatic example of the consequences resulting from particular intersections of history and geography. It involved several regions and continents: Africa, America, the Caribbean, Europe and the Indian

The increase in the need for slaves in the eighteenth century was the result of the increase in plantation production (Benjamin 341). Over time the slave trade became larger and more competitive. There were multiple methods of trading, with one being more successful. For three centuries the slave trade dominated Atlantic commerce.

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