The Social, Cultural, and Economic Impact of Transatlantic Slave Trade

The Atlantic Slave Trade was a very important time in history. When the records of the Atlantic slave Trade are reflected upon ,the impacts of the shipboards revolts are often times overseen .Although these revolts did have an immense effect on the political, views of the Slave trade. Richardson’s “shipboard revolts,African Authority,and the Atlantic slave trade”. brings into view the fluctuating causes and effects of shore based, and shipboard insurrection . Because of Richardson occupation it grants him reliability to all of his claims and supports his opinions His profession of studying economics and international ,offers him a profusion amount of education in the countries which were involved in the Atlantic Slave Trade. Richardson expose the indispensable impacts of shipboard revolts , African Leadership on the Atlantic slave trade, the author accomplishes this by painting out the causes an effects of each specific revolt an also by exposing the progress.

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.

There is no doubt that the United States was built upon the hard work of Black-American slaves, referred to at the time as bondpeople, who were the main labor force in producing important American exports, such as cotton or tobacco, which were, in fact, the backbone of the American economy during that time. Due to bondpeople’s overall importance in keeping the United States the powerhouse that it was, the domestic slave trade was a value market that “‘was roughly three times greater than the total amount of all capital, North and South combined, invested in manufacturing, almost three times the amount invested in railroads, and seven times the amount invested in banks’”(23). In “‘In Pressing Need of Cash,’” Daina Ramey Berry, a professor for the Departments of History and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas, looks at a fifteen year period, from 1850-1865, of the economic factors of the domestic slave trade. Berry uses Steven Deyle’s findings in his study, "Carry Me Back: The Domestic Slave Trade in American Life” which examined both the "long-distance interstate trade" and the extensive local or "intrastate" trade of enslaved males and females, who were priced differently depending on their perceived market value (23). With Deyle’s findings, Berry specifically discusses the relationships among gender, age, skill, or type of sale and how those factors, generally, determined the priced paid of enslaved workers.

When Columbus sailed to the what he thought was India, he would never know the full implications of his “accident” that changed the world. Columbus’s discovery of the Americas created a whole new avenue for competing European states to jockey for world dominance, and most importantly, for wealth. In order to gain the power that Spain, France, Britain, and Portugal so greatly desired, an intercontinental trading network called the Atlantic Slave Trade was established. The need for cheap labor and the desire for large profits brought slaves from Africa, to North/South America. Slavery began to take a new shape, with a focus on plantation agriculture through a dehumanized class of workers. During the Atlantic Slave Trade, slavery was primarily beneficial to European’s. Not only did the Atlantic Slave Trade supply European’s with the resources (primarily crops) required to assume a position of world dominance, slavery also benefited Europeans by providing the wealth that was needed to compete with traditional Asian powers. However, slavery during the Atlantic Slave Trade was detrimental to African’s. They were ripped from their home lands, brought across the Atlantic, and sold into a life of manual labor, and often abuse. Similar to how Columbus would never know the full impact of his discoveries in 1492, Europeans during Atlantic Slave Trade would never know just how much it would catapult the European continent into a position of power, meanwhile having devastating effects on

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.

As the profitability of the colonists’ agricultural enterprises quickly rose, it was essential to procure a sufficient number of workers since labor shortages were a constant headache.7 Enslavement of the Indigenous Peoples had become steadily more problematic and by the 1750’s this practice had ceased altogether.8 European workers were both expensive and tended to leave their employers to start plantations of their own, or to return home. Therefore, a more reliable source of economically viable labor became a necessity, and that baleful need coincided with the rise of the Trans- Atlantic Slave Trade from Africa.

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.

Indentured servants came to America from Europe in search of land, work, increased wages, and religious freedom. However, the colonies expanded so rapidly, labor became scarce. This led to a greater import of Europeans willing to begin a new life in the New World, in exchange for their servitude for a contracted period (O 'Brien & Sparrow, 2014). When labor contracts ended and freed servants received their land, servitude needed to continue with farms and business operation. With scarce labor, Indians became the new target. Captured and forced into servitude by colonials, the Indians filled the gaps in the colonial workforce to repay debt. The Indians eventually revolted and went on murderous adventures against the white man, leading to the expulsion of slave labor trade and outlawing independent trading in the Southeastern states (Shi & Tindall, 2012).

The Atlantic Slave Trade was a process that happened between the Europeans, Africans, and the New World. The Atlantic trade lasted for about 400 years affected people physically, mentally, and socially. About five to twenty-five million slaves landed in America being sold and placed on plantations that lasted until about the end of 19th century. This slave trade was a huge benefit for the Europeans that helped their economy grow, increase trade routes, and gain as much power as they could. The Atlantic Slave Trade is one of the most detrimental marks in history due to the amount of hatred and inhumane treatment of the African people. The role of slavery did make a significant impact on this society since this type of market was bringing an abundance of money for European countries. This slave trade was beneficial for the European economy to skyrocket, expand their territory and commerce in America and Africa.

The Atlantic Slave Trade was a system of slavery that took place between the 16th and 19th centuries. It comprised of capturing African tribesmen and women from areas of Western and Central Africa and placing them into the colonies of the New World in North, Central, and South America. Many countries like England, Portugal, Spain, Holland, and France, had participated in enslaving the African peoples. The African slaves were used to exploit an array of commodities such coffee, cotton, rum, sugar, and tobacco, and eventually they had become commodities themselves. Often times the slaves were treated awfully by their owners. Most were forced to work long and tiresome hours on plantations to acquire said commodities, and then use them to create products that would be later sold. The slaves did not receive any profits from the sale of the products that they produced, but they were paid with basic needs such as shelter and food. The revenue that was produced by slave labour was highly profitable, but in turn it was counter acted by the cost of keeping the slave labourers alive and well. By the end of the 18th century a period known as the Industrial Revolution had swept Europe, especially England, and her colonial partners. Never before had production been so cheap and efficient. Many believe that the enslavement of Africans was necessary to initiate the industrial revolution. They believe that the slaves provided the foundation to the development of the revolution, and without

The states in which slavery is still commonplace are well-known for their wealth, with much of this due to the friendly policies of the federal government towards the South. That said, if slavery were all of a sudden abolished, as many in the North argue, the nation’s economy as a whole would suffer greatly, especially with regard to exports, of which those from the South compose nine-tenths. Furthermore, those who believe that slaves in the South lead worse lives than laborers in the North are mistaken to the point of being disingenuous. The laborer in the North has to deal with poverty and anxiety to a much larger extent than that of the slave. Another common myth that abolitionists insist on is that the lack of education oppresses the slave.

The Transatlantic slave trade was a horrific event where between 1526 to 1867 over twelve million slaves were captured and were sent from their native homes in Africa to the Americas. The African slaves that were captured over those centuries were shipped in bulk (between 30,000 a year in the late seventeenth century and 85,000 one hundred years later). Approximately, six percent of the African slaves were taken to North America in the eighteenth century and the majority of enslaved Africans were sent South America and parts of what is now Central America. In the Southern states of America, a single slave owner owned and housed about a thousand slaves. The slave population in the United States grew and this mainly due to the high fertility rate. However, due to the living environment many of the enslaved infants had a high mortality rate did not make it past their first year of life. This was the result of the children being fed food that lacked the nutrients they needed and they were breastfed too early. Due to the unhealthy environment, slaves contracted many terrible illnesses and diseases (i.e. blindness, skin lesions, Vitamin D deficiency, Diarrhea, whooping cough, etc.) that they usually succumbed to without a way to get proper treatment for them. In the mid-nineteenth century, the population of enslaved Blacks tripled from the beginning of the nineteenth

The slave trade industry had a huge historical impact on our lives. So much so, that we've completely changed our whole dynamic about it. Although it's not so common anymore, there still lies some unanswered questions, like what were the economical advances for owning a slave back then? What did the slave owners gain from this, and why was Africa the only country targeted? How could they have handled the slave trade business either better or different?

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