European Influence On African Americans

Without contemplating the consequences for the Africans, the Europeans took advantage of African slaves due to the convenience of needing more labor workers and as additional export markets for the European manufacturers.
The Atlantic slave trade (1500-1866) was an enterprise that was entirely in the hands of the Europeans. It all started with sugar. At first the Europeans did not know much about sugar, so they had to rely on other things such as fruits and honey to make their bland diets a little better. Once the Europeans found out about the Arabian’s techniques for sugar production, they established sugar-producing plantations within the Mediterranean, which would require people to work at the plantations. The absence of wage workers left
slavery as the source of labor for the plantations. Another European group that needed more labor workers were the Portuguese. The Portuguese did rely on the Slavic slaves until they were cut off. So at the time instead of finding gold in West Africa, they found an alternative source of salves. So not only did the Europeans need and want slaves for labor work, they also had religious consent to do so. In 1452 the Pope granted the Kings of Spain and Portugal “full and free permission to invade…capture, the Saracens and any other unbelievers.” With considerable factors including religion, disease, and expensive servants, African slaves became the primary source.
What was not desirable about them? Many were skilled in farming, immune to tropical diseases, they were not Christians, and they were already available in mass numbers. Even though taking all of the Africans from their home was beneficial to the Europeans, it was severely depopulating West Africa. The monarch Nzinga Mbemba, Affonso I, wrote letters to King Jao of Portugal addressing his concerns of his kingdom, Kongo. In one of the letters he presents, “The mentioned merchants are taking every day our natives, sons of the land and sons of the noblemen and vassals and our relatives,” So the King of Kongo is begging the King Jao to stop sending merchants to take his men because the depopulation was corrupting the country and believed that King Jao should not agree nor accept it as his duty. Later during the slave trade, when Europeans came to America, many of them got sick with disease which devastated local
populations. To the Europeans benefit, the already had a link to the West African slaves. So when cotton and tobacco production started they already had a link to labor workers. Europeans really had the upper hand in this situation.
So in addition to needing more labor workers, the slaves also made it more convenient to have additional export markets for the European manufacturers. Slave trade became part of a worldwide exchange. Africa itself became a major export market for the Europeans. Powerful Africans who participated in slave trading decided they could make a decent profit with how much the Europeans were willing to pay. In order for the Europeans to benefit from this sale even more they tried to use the African rivalries to their benefit to be able to get the slaves at a cheaper price. In exchange for selling their slaves, the Africans sellers bought goods such as, cowrie shells, metal goods, firearms, gunpowder, alcohol, and beads. Besides exchanging slaves with Africa, there was also slave trade within different European countries. Thomas Phillips, an English merchant who was sent to London to trade with the king. They made agreements on what goods would be used as payment for the slaves and set prices. In Thomas’s journal he says, “The king’s slaves…were the first offer’d sale…and we must not refuse them, tho’ as I observ’d they were generally the worst slaves in the trunk.” So Thomas and his men ended up paying the most for the king’s slaves even though he said they were the worst. They probably could not have backed out after the prices and goods were set to be traded. The king even forced him to promise that he’d be back next year to trade. After this trade was over Thomas sailed to Barbados and sold the slaves to them so all three countries involved in this were better off afterwards. That is how trade works. Trade makes people better off, well the people who are trading anyways and most likely not the slaves.
The slaves made these factors convenient for the Europeans, but the slaves did not have the better end of the bargain.
There were many consequences for the slaves and Africa during the Atlantic Slave Trade. Africa itself was becoming severely depopulated, unbalanced sex ratios since far more men were shipped off to the Americas. Now for the slaves themselves, it really just depended on where they were taken to depend how they were treated. Olaudah Equiano was a slave born in Nigeria. He had three masters, and some treated him better than the others. When he was sold to a widow and her son in Tinmuh, they treated him just like another family member but when he was kidnapped and carried onboard, well that’s another story. He did not have a pleasant experience on the ship, he said “I became so sick and low that I was not able to eat, nor had I the least desire to taste anything.” This is the way most people probably think of when they think of the journey of slaves. On the bottom of the ship, chained, and in close perimeters with the other slaves which usually caused sickness. Whenever he arrived to Barbados he said, “we were all pent up together like so many sheep in a fold, without regard to sex or age. There was a lot of dehumanizing treatment to the slaves during this time from the white people. European and Euro-Americans contributed to racial stereotypes. Ibn Khladum said, “black people were submissive to slavery, because Negroes…have attributes that are quite similar
to those of dumb animals.” So some Europeans, mostly scholars believed that the Africans were almost born to be slaves because they are “dumb.” Not only were these slaves forced to complete hard labor on a daily basis but they were thought of very poorly compared to how great the Europeans thought they were.