New world: Colonial America
Old World: Most of Europe especially England.
Slavery
- Background
- Slavery had been going on for a very long time.
- It can be dated back to the time period of Ancient Egypt.
- One of the biggest roles that slavery had in civilization would have been in Rome.
- They were very important in growing food in the latifundias.
- Also in Colonial America, it as not just the Africans that would be used as slaves, Natives were also tried, but the colonists had better luck with the Africans.
- Atlantic Slave Trade
- Many historians compare this even t to the Holocaust.
- Start in the mid 16th century and continued up until the 19th century.
- Current estimate of the number of slaves that were actually shipped across the Atlantic is roughly 12 million even though historians think that more were purchased.
- Triangular Trade
- It was a trading network that was established in the late 16th century to early 19th century.
- The Trade network consisted of the New World (Including the West Indies), Old World, and Africa.
- Some of the best exports:
- Africa- Slaves
- Old World- Manufactured goods.
- New World- Cash crops (tobacco)
- Middle Passage
- Term used to refer to the event/setting of sending the slaves across the Atlantic to Colonial America.
- The conditions were terrible. Ex: No bathrooms and close quarters
- Some slaves often would even commit suicide by either not eating or jumping off the ship and generally would drown.
- If a slave would starve to death, the captain of the ship would make friends or family members of the slave eat the liver and heart of the dead slave.
- Around 15-20% of the slaves that were shipped over the Atlantic died on the journey there.
- Dead slaves would be thrown overboard to help avoid disease, even though there were many diseases already being spread on the ships.
- How they were captured.
- Many of the slaves were actually sold into slavery by other Africans.
- The reason for this is due to the fact that the European explorers would bribe the Africans with manufactured goods like alcohol and guns.
- Generally the European explorers would conduct the coast raids, but if they went too much inland, the Europeans wanted nothing to do with that.
- Slaves: Captured
- Once captured, they would walk to the coast and wait for ships. This would sometimes take months for the European ships to appear.
- They would be restrained to avoid the slave escaping.
- Also the Europeans would take a variety of slaves from different villages. The reason for this is that Africa has many different languages, so it was impossible for some of them to communicate.
- Columbian Exchange
- Focuses more on the trade network for the Old World to the New World.
- Named after Christopher Columbus.
- Many different foods from each side were exchanged which benefited both sides.
- For the most part it was a pretty positive experience, except for the disease that it brought both sides.
- Causes and Effects
- The biggest cause for slavery is that Colonial America was expanding very quickly and the colonists did not have the man power to keep up.
- Effects:
- That African villages would start to struggle due to the lose of their hungers and gatherers.
- Spread of disease.
- Racial superiority.
- Colonists became lazy.
- The economy boomed in South.
- Research
- In a pair, I want you to research why the Africans were preferred race for slavery in Colonial America.
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