Trans Altlantic Slave Trade

The Atlantic Slave Trade lasted between 1450 and 1750 and drastically impacted the lives of both European and African people. During this time, the Europeans, such as the British, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Dutch, traveled to Africa in search of labor workers. In total, over twelve million slaves were taken, mainly because they workers to make money, but it also had to do with their race, religion – as they were not Christian – and to civilize them because the Europeans did not believe that they were humans. Due to these European beliefs, the Europeans saw themselves as the most powerful group and viewed slave trade as a business. The Africans, on the other hand, had a harder time transitioning into slavery. Many of them were taken from their homes and forced to accept a new life working as a slave. These events did not come without many sacrifices from the African people. One of the major reasons the slave trade was so expansive is due to the low life expectancy of the slaves after their capture. While the Europeans believed that they were helping the African culture, as well as themselves, the African society as a whole suffered the most.

The rise of cotton in the United States came later to slavery. After 1800, plantations that grew cotton spread all across most of the south and as far west to what is now New Mexico’s border. Plantations were once again the key to commercial success. “By 1860, there were 4 million slaves in the US, some 60% of whom worked in cotton.” (Plantation life”). Plantations have a bigger importance than just sugar, it was the original tool the enabled European settlers to develop key areas of the tropical and semi-tropical Americas. It did this by allowing a colonial settlers with the means of dragooning and organising unfree labor to raise a host of tropical and semi-tropical

The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade was one of the most horrific things to happen to any group of people closely relating to the Jewish Holocaust. The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade was actually often referred to as the “Holocaust of Enslavement” which was basically the incarceration and imprisonment of people not for committing criminal offenses but to be put to work for others. The “Areas that were involved in the European slave trade eventually prospered.” (Aca Demon) These areas took advantage of what they had in their own countries and traded for slaves that in result produced twice as much of the product, which made them very profitable.

Human trafficking is one of the most popular ways to get a lot of cash. Money is one of the most important things in a person's everyday life, people do a lot of things to get that money. Most women prostitute to make some money, others do life threatening jobs, but many young girls that want money do stupid things like getting involved with trafficking. Many people would say “oh, that is not in our country nor our neighborhood, it can’t be.” But it is. Everyone should have that fear that they could be in danger. Most of the captors or the human trafficker find their prey or the ones getting trafficked in places with low education and have destruction ( hurricane destruction, tornado destruction,floods, etc. )areas where people have barely any money to provide for themselves.

During the sixteenth century, European merchants began to realize trading Africans for plantation labor to the Americas was the most profitable measure. The Middle Passage is the journey in which slaves were transported to The Americas from West Africa, and sold for profit. The slaves were kidnapped or purchased from their motherland, forced to march to the coast to be sold. The captives were purchased by European merchants, branded and transported to the new world (The Americas). When they arrived to the new world, the slaves were retained on the auction block, resold, and branded again to either domestic slave traders or personal owners. The profit of the slave trade is the cause for the upsurge of wealth in The Americas. The Transatlantic slave trade lasted 350 years, and there were approximately 43,600 journeys. 12.5 million Africans were stolen and forced on European and American slave vessels. Out of the 12.5 million African captives, there were roughly 10.7 million survivors. Out of all the surviving captives, around 305,326 Africans disembarked in the U.S.A. Although, many slave rebellions transpired on the ships, the intimidation, abuse (sexual, physical, and mental), violence and excruciating inhuman environments that slaves suffered during the middle passage was a technique to disenfranchise, disparage, a make the slaves less than human for the white traders to empower themselves and gain profit.

Araujo A.Lucia. “Forgetting and Remembering the Atlantic Slave Trade: The Legacy of Brazilian Slave Merchant Franscisco Felix de Souza,” in Crossing Memories. (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2011), 70-103.

From the late fifteenth until the mid-nineteenth century, slaves were the main priority of trade between Africa, the American Continent, the Caribbean, and Europe. The Atlantic Slave Trade transported 12.5 million slaves using the Triangle Trade Route and the dreadful Middle Passage route. The Triangle Trade Route included West Africa, colonies of British North America, and West Africa. The Middle Trade was the inside of the Triangle Trade Route connecting Africa, Europe, The Americas, and the Caribbean. The Europeans would often trade copper, bullets, cloth and goods in exchange for African Slaves. Africa would carry manufactured goods with African slaves to sell to the Americas in hope to earn a profit. Lastly, America would bring sugar, molasses, rice, cotton, and sugar back to Europe and the trade would repeat. The capturing of the African slaves was cruel, bitter, painful, and life changing. The Atlantic Slave Trade was a mile marker in history that boosted the economy and trade life for the New World while also gaining the title of the largest forced slave migration in history. Slave Trade established a blue print for how America became successful and prosperous. Although lives were sacrificed and tough times occurred, the Atlantic Slave Trade impacted individuals, the government, and the economy in all regions in the New World in positive and negative ways.

The history of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade is more readily accessible and popular, as opposed to the history of the Viking slavers. Painter points out that the Vikings were hardly viewed in popular culture as the preeminent slavers they really were, while Dublin was the slave market capitol of the world from the 11th through the 15th centuries. Whites living in the current day British Isles through France and Scandinavia were all subject to slave raids by Vikings for hundreds of years with some destitute individuals going as far as to sell themselves into slavery. While the Atlantic Slave Trade used racism to justify their exploitation, it is important to realize that this is a justification birthed out of economic greed rather then inherit racist sentiment. Economic advancement was the purpose of the slave trade while race creation and whiteness were constructs built to support and justify this economic exploitation during the Atlantic Slave Trade. Unfortunately, due the indoctrinated justifications of race creation; racism, prejudice and the prevalence of whiteness became magnified and held up as superior social standing.

The African diaspora also known as the forced movement of primarily Western Africans to various parts of the globe including the Americas, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. One of the most influential sectors of the African diaspora was the Trans-Atlantic trade route. According to PBS’ How Many Slaves Landed in the U.S.? “Between 1525 and 1866, in the entire history of the slave trade to the New World, according to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, 12.5 million Africans were shipped to the New World,” out of the 12..5 million who were taken, approximately 10 million survived the dreaded middle passage. These freshly chained slaves afoot on unknown terrain were then separated and sold to the highest bidder at a local slave auction.

The Atlantic slave trade, often known as the triangular trade (Chudacoff, et al. 2015), connected the economies of three continents which was Europe, African and America. Europe sent weapons to Africa, Africa sent African slaves to America and America sent raw materials to Europe. This exchange grew rapidly with several trading posts and forts that shipped hundreds of English goods and transported thousands of slaves (Chudacoff, et al. 2015). The largest number of Africans were torn from their homes and forced to walk in slave caravans to the European coastal forts, sometimes as far as 1,000 miles. Olaudah Equiano was a free African whom was captured at the age of 11, along with his sister to be sold into slavery (Olaudah 1837). For months,

The transatlantic slave trade was responsible for the forced migration of between 12 - 15 million people from Africa to the Western Hemisphere from the middle of the 15th century to the end of the 19th century. The trafficking of Africans by the major European countries during this period is sometimes referred to by African scholars as the Maafa ('great disaster' in Swahili). It's now considered a crime against humanity.

The Transatlantic Slave Trade was the transportation of slaves that were shipped from Africa to the America’s. It lasted for more than three and a half centuries from the middle of the 15th century to the end of the 19th century. It all started when the Portuguese and other European empires discovered that they could start expanding overseas further south (Africa). They realized that they wanted to capture African Slaves and bring them to specific places. Soon the America’s were discovered by Christopher Columbus. After it was discovered the Spanish copied them and took most of their slaves to Brazil (America’s).

The Transatlantic slave trade which took place between the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries was focused only on enslaving people from Africa ("Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade"). There were about 12 million slaves brought to the US. These slaves were brought by Europeans to Europe and the Americas to perform manual labor so that the Europeans would not have to pay wages for labor. While many plantation owners raped their slaves. The slaves

There has always been a great debate on why the British Parliament chose to abolish the slave trade, after all, this was the richest part of Britain's trade in the 18th century. Most importantly, Britain benefited immensely from the Transatlantic Slave Trade as it was extensive and flooded into the country bringing wealth which established newly funded industries. However, there were multiple humanitarian and economic factors that were responsible for the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade and the effect it had on the economic and political stability of Britain and West Africa in the nineteenth century.

The Trans-Atlantic Trade system was created to satisfy the luxury demands made by Europeans. Europe began their search for better means of receiving their lavishes through the European migrants in the Americas. Europe received opulences such as fur, silk, timber, sugar, rice, and tobacco from the America, and in return, the Americans received manufactured goods such as guns and furniture, as well as spices, tea, oils, and tools. Because of the growing demand for luxury items in Europe, and the decrease of Indian slave labor, Africa and the Americans created a slave trade in return for luxuries such as rum, tools, cloth, iron, and gunpowder. Slaves were by far the biggest export of Africa and the largest import into the Americas, ultimately starting the popularity and increase of the Trans-Atlantic Trade.