Atlantic Slave Trade
Random Facts
- New World- Colonial America
- Old World- Most of Europe especially England
Slave Background
- Slavery had been going on for a very long tie.
- It can be dated back to the time period of Ancient Egypt.
- One of the biggest roles that slavery had in a civilization would have been in Rome.
- They were very important in grown food in the latifundias
- Also in Colonial America it was not just the African that were used as slaves, Natives were also tried by the colonist had better luck with the Africans.
Atlantic Slavery Trade
- Many historians compare this event 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 in 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.
- It 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 memebers 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 slaves escaping which is very inhumane.
- Also the Europeans would take variety of slaves form different villages. The reason for this is the Africa had many different languages so it was impossible for some of them to communicate.
Columbian Exchange
- Focuses more the trade network for the Old World to the New World.
- Named after Christopher Columbus.
- Many different foods from each side were exchanged which benefitted both sides.
- For the most part it was a pretty positive experience except for the disease that is brought both sides.
- New World: beans, pumpkins, tomatoes, turkeys, tobacco
- Old World: Cattle, Chickens, Horses, Pigs, Wheat
Causes and Effects
- The biggest cause for slavery is that Colonial America was expanding very quickly and the colonist did not have the man power to keep up.
- Effects:
- the African villages would struggling because they were losing many of their hunters and gatherers
- spread of disease
- racial superiority
- colonists became lazy
- the economy boomed in South
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