The Transatlantic Slave Trade, The Most Honourable King George IIi Of Britain

It took place across the Atlantic Ocean from the 15th to the 19th centuries. It was a trade of human beings from African societies who were shipped across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas. About 1.8 million people died during the Atlantic Slave Trade due to harsh conditions on the ship. Furthermore, many others perished during the process of capture and transport to the African coast done by the middle men. Slaves were kept in dungeon fortresses and suffered horrid living conditions while waiting to be sent out to sea on boats headed for America. Both on the forts and the ships, they were kept in dirty, dark rooms with little moving space and almost no food and drink. They were usually kept in chains and forced to lie on their backs. The transatlantic slave trade is sometimes known as the "Triangular Trade" because it was trade among three ports or regions. The voyages were from Europe to Africa, from Africa to the Americas, and from the Americas back to Europe. The raw materials and natural resources like rice, tobacco, cotton and sugar that were found in the Americas were brought to Europe. Europe then brought manufactured products such as cloth, beads and guns to Africa in exchange for slaves who were brought to the Americas. This voyage impacted the world. Africa became a permanent part of the interacting Atlantic world and millions of people were

By the time that the slave trade had been abolished in Britain and her colonies in 1807 eleven million men, women and children had been snatched from their homes. For historians understanding the factors that led to the abolition of the trade remains an important task. Whilst there is clearly a consensus on the main factors that led to this seismic and historic event there is obviously a difference in opinion on the most important due to the degree of subjectivity the question poses.

The triangular trade route brought slaves over from Africa to sell to plantation owners in the colonies. The Africans were on a ship for over a month in horrible conditions, they barely received any food or water, and could hardly sit or stand. If they became sick or died the were tossed over the deck into the sea. If they refused to eat the food they were given, they were whipped. If the slaves lived through the terrible journey they were taken to the slave market to be sold.

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.

The Triangular trade was a trade system among Europe, Africa, and the Americas. Europe made manufactured goods such as textiles, gun powder, firearms, iron and copper bars, alcohol, cloth and brass kitchen ware. These were traded in Africa for slaves, gold, and silver, which were transported to the Americas, where they were exchanged for tobacco, fish, lumber, flour, sugar cane, cotton, and distilled rum. This merchandise was then brought to Europe, where the cycle began again. The Triangle Trade was very

The triangular Trade Route was a system of transferring goods, imports, and people throughout three different ports. Items were transported between the West Indies, Africa, and New England. The most known case of the Triangular Trade Route was in the 17th and 18th century when North American colonies would trade specific goods, like rum, in return for African slaves. The transfer of the slaves was referred to as the middle passage. The middle passage was a harsh and aggressive way of trading African slaves for economic use. The use of African slaves may have been a short term success for the American people however, the long term effect was horrific.

The impact of the Slave Trade affected many countries and continents, especially the Americas. The Triangular Trade was a system that carried slaves, crops, and goods between Europe, Africa, and the Americas. The Atlantic Slave Trade lasted from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries after trade contacts were established between the “Old World” which was referred to as Africa, Europe, and Asia, and the “New World.” which was referred to as the Americas and Oceania. The Triangular Trade had three parts to it. The trade routes started in England and made a triangle shape to Africa and the Americas. The boats carried the slaves and goods and brought it to each part of the trade route. The first load started in Europe and went to Africa, then

The transatlantic slave trade was integrated into England amid the 16th century (with the first occurrence of the trade taking place in 1563.), where it began to develop as one of the country’s most lucrative trades. Nowhere was this more evident than in the case of Liverpool, a city that ascended into prosperity from the spoils of the triangular trade.

The triangle trade was a trade system connecting three major continents: the “New World”, Europe, and Africa. This system made it possible for the European countries to profit off of slavery for the first time. This trading method brought guns to Africa, slaves to the New World, and new raw materials to Europe. Therefore, the Triangle Trade was a method of making money off of the transport of slaves and raw materials.

human lives, all with a purpose of securing a profit (Foner, GML, 131). Slave plantations

This growth of trade during the 16th and 17th century, brought about the establishment of the Colonial Board in 1661, its objective was to decide how best to populate and work the colonies of the new world. The political aspect of this was the increasing concern that emigration of white workers to the colonies would eventually leave a shortage of cheap labour at home. The Royal Family gave its patronage to the African slave trade in 1680 by the formation of the Royal African Company (Ramdin 1987). This move could be argued to be seen as giving legitimacy to the belief that the Africans where more suited to labour than the white peoples, it could be argued that it is here that we see the first signs of racism emerging in British society.

By 1750, one-third of the British merchants were involved in the slave trade and profited a great deal. Slave trade became very profitable to those countries and merchants who exchanged their manufactured goods for slaves. During this decade, the British parliament is debating the abolishment of slave trade due to humanitarian rights, but majority of the MP’s

Within two decades, Britain had made decisive actions to abolish the transatlantic slave trade, and this made the emancipation of trade emerge as one of the most significant reform movements that took place in the 18th and 19th centuries. In July 1833, the British parliament abolished slave buying and selling through the passing of a Bill in the House of Commons and then in the House of Lords which abolished slave trade all through the British Empire. How this came into place has been largely debated and yet slave trade provided the British nation with money, employment, and luxurious commodities enriching the country. Interpretations of the British slave trade tends to be explained by the humanitarian or moral movements where emancipation campaigns were made by religious groups (Porter, 43). Another famous interpretation and which makes the focus of this paper is that emancipation of the slave trade was due to changes in economic interests. This paper argues that the emancipation of slave trade in British land and also on the colonial territories coincided with the periods of economic decline in the British Caribbean, and so emancipationist ideas came due to the growth of free-labor ideologies and the factory system.

Having looked into the political reasons for the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade let us look into the economic reasons. In the first place it is of absolute importance to note that the economic shifts from dirty slavery business into imperialism and Industrial revolution also led to the abolition of Atlantic slave trade . That is, underlying both political and social movements, systemic developments in the growing world capitalist economy were taking place; in the vanguard was British imperialism and its industrial revolution . The New World plantation system was a highly developed form of the slave mode of production that, unlike ancient slavery, was integrated into and increasingly driven by a growing capitalist world market . The profits from New World slavery had significantly contributed to the ‘primitive accumulation’ of capital that enabled the industrial revolution, especially in Britain . However, by the

We will now explore the background of the triangle trade in America, Britain, and Africa, along with the economic effects that were brought to not only America and Britain but also the economic effects brought to Africa as a result of slavery and the slave trade.