Atlantic Slave Trade Research Paper

“The Atlantic Slave Trade”
There were many different impacts from “The Atlantic Slave Trade”. The impacts varied from being very beneficial to be very unfavorable. Many of the African tribes had suffered from poor treatment and unsafe conditions. Thought history the treatment of slaves has been very different depending on the time period and the job they had been assigned to fulfill. In ancient Greece, a family slave had been treated very well. Often they were treated as almost a part of the family, but some worker slaves had died young due to their dangerous and grueling working conditions. Ancient Rome had many slaves who faced what many had during “The Atlantic Slave Trade”, cruelty. The Romans had very poor treatment of their slaves. The slaves had been considered property, and many of the owners, or masters, had lived by the words “every slave is an enemy.” This was thought to have the contribution of the poor treatment of the slaves.
Slavery had different effects during the “Atlantic Slave Trade”.
In Europe, slaves were needed for various reasons. Many of the European countries were in dire need for workers to work in the plantations picking tobacco, in the sugarcane fields, or working in the mines. Millions of African Americans had been enslaved because they were seen as supposedly better at physical labor. The journeys were uncleanly and dangerous, which caused the deaths of many enslaved people before they had worked. Europeans had ignored the religious aspects of the treatment of the Africans. This was because during this time some people had thought that the Africans were black because they had been marked by the devil. This caused many Christians to have the desire to “bring them to the light”. Slavery was seen as the solution because it was able to control the impure
population.
In Africa, there were various reasons for the agreement of slave trading and selling. African rulers were cooperative because they obtained wealth and other valuable good, such as guns. They had become very well armed due to Europe. This later caused many problems. The number of wars increased due to the fact that many places now had the newly obtained technology. For every slave traded an equal or greater amount of unenslaved people died. There was a major drop in the population for many places due to the immense amount of people, around one million, who had been enslaved. Of the enslaved over ¼ died, either from the wars or during transportation. Families had often followed military actions, where the old and very young would be left to die. The forced marches took many lives because they were over long distances with little provisions.
It took a very long time for the European governments and public to respond to the unfair and inhumane treatment of the slaves. Europe had greatly benefited from the “Atlantic Slave Trade” since it had allowed them to amass the collected raw materials that help to the contribution of the Industrial Revolution that would later happen. The slaves had also help with the New World. With a shortage of people wanting to work the Africans free labor had helped with the development of many different regions. Without them, there would not the be areas we see today. The slaves were used as a way to clear areas and were very useful in the Brazil area. When the Spanish brought slaves during the early 16th century they worked on many sugar plantations along with working in the mines off the coast of modern-day Haiti. The slaves, while treated very poorly, had many major contributions to the European area, along with the New World. The leaders all had different reasons for supporting or being against what was going on.