The Social And Economic Impact Of The African Slave Trade

Africa was a region that was effected negatively by trade. Slavery first started to become a popular idea when in the 1500s, Portuguese and European traders started going into Africa and purchasing slaves to come work on their plantations. Ironically slavery was started by African rulers trading slaves for resources such as metalwork,

The transatlantic slave trade did negatively impact the lives of 11 million of African individuals. Millions of these individuals were captured and transported to the “new world”, between the mid-1500s and late 1800s.The death toll, economic and environmental destruction due to wars and slave protests were immensely high. The old and very young were often left to starve or killed. Dehumanisation due to the slave trade was lead by ill usage and mistreatment leaving many African individuals feeling neglected in the Americas and stripped of their identity. Health and well-being have also been a major complication for enslaved Africans, as excessive labour and unsanitary living conditions resulted sickness and disease. Religion in the slave community was visible as it was also invisible and had developed overtime. Slaves were forbidden to be educated and the slave holders were strongly opposed of this, they thought if education was allowed then it would threaten their hierarchy and the slaves would start an rebellion.

The Transatlantic slave trade placed Africans in a position where they were taken from their own homelands and forced to live in America by enslavement. Through colonialism those of African descent were taken from everything they had, due to Europeans taking over the continent, and transporting millions of men, women and children from what they call home. These circumstances impacted the cultural and psychological well-being of Africans during the slave trade, along with economic and political factors that impacted slave trade and its institution.

“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

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

As the European need for slaves to be exported from Africa to the Americas increased, it allowed them to further develop their societies at the disbursement of Africa. It began as a small profitmaking system of transporting a few Africans in exchange for European goods like guns, but led into being a large market that endorsed the capture of many Africans to be transported to the Americas. In response to the European demands, a new social system evolved as whites were the superior and blacks were subservient. Slaves were viewed as property and had no rights. Slave ownership became a key factor to economic success for Europeans. The result of this was the decline of Africa as it was nearly impossible for poor Africans to avoid being put into the slave trade. This led to descent in Africa as they encountered decline both economically and socially. The problems in current day Africa root all the way back to the participation in the slave trade. The Trans-Atlantic slave trade allowed the Europeans to strengthen their world power to and even greater

Long before Europeans arrived in Africa, slavery existed. In Africa, the slaves were treated as servants, humans, though lower class. European explorers would travel throughout the world looking for resources to trade, and Africa was such a place. Europe traded weapons in exchange for African slaves—kidnapped people that would eventually serve as laborers for European plantation owners and miners. Slavery’s negative physical and mental effects have impacted everyone around the world greatly, but the way slavery has changed society is the one with the greatest effect.

”European ships brought manufactured goods to Africa, trading them for people. They carried Africans across the Atlantic to the Americas where they were sold into slavery (The Atlantic Slave Trade).” Europeans fueled trade by selling African slaves in exchange for sugar, coffee, and tobacco, impacting economies in both, Europe and the Americas. Further, another triangular network between the English colonies, West Indies, and Africa, led to the trade of numerous commodities including slaves, rum, sugar and molasses. From an economic standpoint, the increased demand for African slaves became integral to trade between the three nations fueling the growth of various trade networks.

Review of Herbert S. Klein, The Atlantic Slave Trade. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Pp. CCXI, 211.

African slave trade or Atlantic slave trade was the result of advancement of maritime innovation and the ambitious imperialism that swept among the powerful countries of Europe. With new set of maritime skills and innovation, firstly Portuguese’s traders crossed harsh seas along the coast of western Africa. What began as the quest for the exchange of goods between European and African merchant, swiftly changed into the massive potential of cheap labor and unlimited resources to exploit with the founding of new European colonies in Caribbean, Central and south America respectively. These colonies used slaves as the laborer in the coffee, coco, tobacco and sugar production, often in harsh conditions and longer working period, which not possible by white settlers’ due drastic change of climate and tropical diseases.

One of the darkest chapters in world history is the slave trade of the Atlantic World that occurred following the discovery of the Western Hemisphere by Columbus. All told, somewhere between ten to fifteen million Africans were forcibly brought as property to the New World. It has been estimated that eighty percent of all immigrants between 1500 and 1800 to the Americas were Africans brought in bondage. One of the great untold stories of the foundations of the Western World is the contribution African slaves provided for the wealth that would propel Europe into capitalism and the Industrial Revolution. African slaves provided the necessary labor source for Europeans to successfully exploit the economic possibilities of the New World through

From the introduction of the African slave trade, the legislation and social construct regarding the slaves’ place in society changed drastically, in order to create division among the indentured servants/ farmers who were freed from servitude. The African slaves enjoyed more or less the same legal representation as indentured servants, in the respect of allotted time of service, and there was no distinct definition of how to treat a slave nor civil liberties granted to the slave. However, as time progressed and labor needs grew, rules regarding treatment and legal rights of the slaves worsened.

Slavery has played a strong role in African society from as early as prehistoric times, continuing to the modern era. Early slavery within Africa was a common practice in many societies, and was very central to the country’s economy. Beginning around the 7th century, two groups of non-African slave traders significantly altered the traditional African forms of slavery that had been practiced in the past. Native Africans were now being forced to leave the country to be used as slaves. The two major slave trades, trans-Saharan and trans-Atlantic, became central to the organization of Africa and its societies until the modern era. Slavery and the slave trade strongly affected African society, and

In today’s world it is widely know and accepted that money makes the world go round but, unfortunately that is not the question. The question is: what made the world go round in the early 1600’s? Surprisingly, just like the world today money made the world go around back then also. One major difference is that in today’s world machines do all of our dirty work, back then it was all up to the slaves. Finding the perfect slave was a challenge to the colonists. First, there was the indentured servants, second, came the Indians. However because Indians and indentured servants could escape to freedom with ease, they were not the ideal slaves. The colonists’ third attempt proved to be a gold mine. The unfortunate people who were forced in to

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