The Institution of Slave Trade Essay

While images of Port Royal and the Spanish Main fill most people’s imagination when they hear the word pirate, the truth is not all privateers were sailing around the Caribbean looking to capture gold bound for Cadiz. The British government imposed a huge tariff on goods coming in and out of the American Colonies that spurned a black market for cheaper goods that had been plundered from foreign vessels. At the time South Carolina was an impoverished colony that was only eager to trade with the pirates letting them move around town freely just as if they were in New Providence.

So it was the plentiful supply of enslaved African labour provided by the salve trade that allowed for the development of the plantation economy. Of this process of the plantation economies turning to the slave trade for the supply of African labour Eric Williams writes in Capitalism and Slavery "Slavery in the Caribbean has been too narrowly identified with the Negro. A racial twist has thereby been given to what is basically an economic phenomenon."

Slave Traders and Owners share a major goal, revenue. Slave Owners intend to gain this profit from working their slaves. “Slavery was immensely profitable to some master. James Madison told a British visitor shortly after the American Revolution that he could make $257 on every Negro in a year and only $12 or $13 on his keep”(Zinn 33). Madison happens to be able to earn back the money he spent on his slaves

The cultivation of sugar was of central importance to the Atlantic Slave Trade, as the demand for sugar was rising yet its price made it unattainable to many. With demand comes capitalist opportunity for economic growth, and as early as the 15th century, the Portuguese exploited human beings as slaves in the sugar cane plantations of the Caribbean and Brazil, paving the way for continued use of “coercive labor” and the evolution of slavery as a trade for the Spanish, Dutch and English well into the 19th century (Peabody). The pattern of trade for human beings destroyed the African culture as the Triangle Trade ripped at the heart of tribal life, still impacting today’s world through economic inequality and racism, as Africans were cruelly used

This week’s assignment and context videos have prompted me to deeply reflect the ruthless history of the slave trade during the 18th and 19th centuries. I had never before explored, in this depth, the cruelty of the slave trade operations. To begin with, I was baffled by John Green’s video “The Atlantic Slave Trade” Revelation after revelation was revealed to me. For instance, I was not aware that pre-civil war Americans facetiously dubbed this horrific practice as “the peculiar institution.” Also, later in the video he mentions the exact space the average slave was given during the journey on a slave ship. It is stated that each slave had four square feet of space, and he shows a taped of section of it on a blackboard in the video. In order to further engage with the

The institution of slavery has played a major role in the history, and the shaping of the Caribbean. Therefore, in order to truly understand the Caribbean one must completely understand slavery itself.

In Jamaica slavery was an industry that that was fueled by people’s greed and visions of what African people were. Africans were not actually people at all but a resource that could be bought and sold with no issue of morality. These people were believed to be nothing more then savage beasts that, with training, could bring in tremendous profits with very little money on the part of the owners. These were precisely the views in Jamaica by the wealthy whites that set the stage for the longevity of enslavement instilled on people of color. During the development of Jamaica Black men and women not only had to break the chains of slavery to free themselves, but also rise above the values of the whites that had been so unchanged for so many years. In reality their social enslavement is actually a much harder and more tiresome task then simply breaking off the shackles of the plantation owners. Their social enslavement is dug deep into the minds of many people in Jamaica, and the fact that most of these people have been in the possession of the power for hundreds of years makes their task all the more difficult.

Throughout history, a common theme is the stronger, acquisitive society preying on the weaker society for their own gain of land, people, materials, and more. The Atlantic Slave Trade had a profound effect on the way states were constructed and transformed in West Africa. Some societies became very powerful, militarized centralized societies, like Dahomey and Kongo, and others were decentralized societies, like Balanta and Igbo. Many scholars argue that the centralized societies targeted these decentralized societies and kidnapped people for the slave trade or for their own lineages, but this issue of strong and controlled preying on weak and dispersed is not as “black or white” as it may seem.

During the time of the Atlantic world the need for labours in the Americas was needed for the benefits of Europeans but to Africa's’ extent. Slavery had one of the most largest impacts on our known world. It impacted it in almost any way you can think of; weather it be economically, socially, politically, or just from our every day to day life. One of the most obvious causes of Slavery in the Atlantic world was that the practice of slavery. Slavery has been a thing for thousands of years, even though it may have not been the same kind of slavery practiced at the time, it definitely originate from other forms of less harsh and violent practices of the trade.

The trading and distribution of slaves were important to the development of western colonies. According to, to the “Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database”, during the transatlantic slave trade, an estimated 12.5 million Africans were stripped from their countries and sent all over the west, of those only about 10.5 million made it to the intended destination (“Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade”). From the 10.5 million, about 493,163 (5 percent) went to Barbados, a small British island in the west indies (“Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade”). Barbados was influential in the development of the American Lowcountry. Barbados was also significant in the development of Carolina’s plantation and slave infrastructure. As a result, many of the slaves that were

The Transatlantic Slave Trade had began around the mid fifteenth century and the Atlantic Ocean had been the ultimate path for transporting slaves all around the world. The spark was ignited when the Portuguese had realized they could make a larger profit off slaves as opposed to searching for gold. Trading would go on full force for centuries to come until slowly dying off in the nineteenth Century. When studying this catastrophic event it is crucial to understand every aspect of it from beginning, middle and end.

The plantation owners of South Carolina wanted to increase the production of crops so that they could increase their export. For that purpose, Slaves were brought from Africa to work for those plantation owners. The import rate was so high that the majority of the population of South Carolina were slaves. And on top that, the majority of slaves were brought from kingdom of Kongo. As many of them were from same origin, this provided a guarantee as all new slave would work equally hard as other previous slave. But with advantage, there came an disadvantage. Slaves having a common origin would mean that there would be unity between them which was

Slaves on the island were seen as little more than moveable equipment with which to exploit in order to make money. Money, in both American and West Indian slavery is the heart of the matter. The entire slave trade over the Atlantic, and resulting degrading of the African dignity which still exists today was all in the name of making money. This is the climate that existed in colonial Jamaica (as well as throughout the New World) when African and European music first

The Transatlantic Slave trade developed during the 15th century, many European kingdoms such as Portugal expanded overseas to reach Africa, would kidnap people, and bring those they enslaved back to Europe. There was a demand for more slaves and this lead to active participation in obtaining the slaves from the already existing African slave trade (Adi, Dr Hakim. “History - British History in depth: Africa and the Transatlantic Slave Trade.” BBC, BBC, 5 Oct. 2012, www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/abolition/africa_article_01.shtml). The trade largely increased when Portugal and many other European kingdoms were able to expand and arrive in Africa to contribute to the already long existing human trade in Africa. Many colonists believed that they needed slave to help around because of the discovery of the new land, this caused an increase in slave labor. With the discovery of America the demand for the African slave trade grew quite gradually because of the huge need for

Why did Africans who were brought to the Caribbean lose much of their culture during the period of slavery? (10 marks)