How Did The Transatlantic Slave Trade Affect America

The Transatlantic Slave Trade greatly impacted both America and Africa because of the establishment of slave trading posts, slave raids in African villages, the introduction of African culture in America, and slavery. Several European nations such as England, France, and Portugal set up trading posts, mainly along the coast of West Africa in order to ease the process of transporting slaves from Africa to the plantations in America. To obtain slaves, soldiers would raid villages and capture villagers to transport and serve as slaves. Upon their arrival on the plantations on which they would work, slaves introduced many aspects of their culture to Americans such as lore, language, religion, and music. The purpose of the slave trade was to bring men and women from Africa to work on American plantations in order to maintain the agriculturally based society in the south.

When enslaving Native American populations in the Americas failed, European settlers resorted to the enslavement of Africans. When Africans first began to be exploited for slavery in the Americas in the early 16th century, they were taken in very small amounts at a time by the Portuguese and Spanish. By the 19th century, slaves were being imported by the boatload by not only
This was done through slave raids. White slave traders would invade villages and kidnap Africans that looked like they would be fit to work. Raiding, however, was dangerous because of the tribal wars that frequently took place in Africa, meaning the raiders would often get caught in the heat of the battles. Slave traders were able to use this to their advantage and alternatively began to take prisoners that were already captured from the wars to the trading posts. Over 50% of all of the slaves that were captured, were prisoners. In addition, 30% became slaves as a punishment for their crimes or debt. The last 20% were