African Americans In The 1500s
Historians estimate that between 1500 and 1870, more than eleven million men and women were captured and carried across the Atlantic Ocean in large ships meant to house slaves in horrific conditions. The passengers were transported to the West Indies, Brazil or other parts of the new and forming Americas. These people were enslaved Africans, and their lives onboard these slaves’ ships were worse than any pain imaginable at the time. During the 1500s, Europeans saw enslaved Africans as inexpensive laborers for their colonies. European planters established huge plantations and farming grounds in North America, South America and the Caribbean. As the plantations grew, more slaves were needed to work on them.
The word “slave” actually comes from …show more content…
But skin color during the 15th century was seen as an entirely new cultural revolution and bewildered most people. Think about living in a set 50 miles your entire life, seeing something new this will probably scare you. Now imagine meeting someone with lime green skin, how do take it in? Does this person scare you? Are you two equal? These are the same questions Europeans had to ask themselves when they faced an entirely new race in their perspective. Europeans saw Africans as poorly dressed and uneducated (based on their own systems) people who were not equal to them. So when ships would come into ports in the Western ports of Africa to buy slaves, no European had second thoughts about buying a man and making him work against his will, to them, it was no different than buying …show more content…
Margaret Hunter, an expert in Clinical Psychology, stated that, “In the United States, discrimination based on skin tone dates back to the chattel system of slavery, where skin color was often used as the basis for the division of labor” (Hunter, 2002). When slaves began working on major plantations, the slaves were divided based on the pigmentation of their skin. Darker-skinned Africans would be placed in the fields to do the manual labor, while the lighter-skinned Africans were most likely a result of racial mixing, and were seen as a higher class of African and tended to work in or around the
The word “slave” actually comes from …show more content…
But skin color during the 15th century was seen as an entirely new cultural revolution and bewildered most people. Think about living in a set 50 miles your entire life, seeing something new this will probably scare you. Now imagine meeting someone with lime green skin, how do take it in? Does this person scare you? Are you two equal? These are the same questions Europeans had to ask themselves when they faced an entirely new race in their perspective. Europeans saw Africans as poorly dressed and uneducated (based on their own systems) people who were not equal to them. So when ships would come into ports in the Western ports of Africa to buy slaves, no European had second thoughts about buying a man and making him work against his will, to them, it was no different than buying …show more content…
Margaret Hunter, an expert in Clinical Psychology, stated that, “In the United States, discrimination based on skin tone dates back to the chattel system of slavery, where skin color was often used as the basis for the division of labor” (Hunter, 2002). When slaves began working on major plantations, the slaves were divided based on the pigmentation of their skin. Darker-skinned Africans would be placed in the fields to do the manual labor, while the lighter-skinned Africans were most likely a result of racial mixing, and were seen as a higher class of African and tended to work in or around the