Research Paper On African Slave Trade

African Slave Trade In The Atlantic World African slave trade in the Atlantic world was important because of new land discovered by Columbus. This brought europeans over to America to claim this large chunk of unknown land. Slaves were important to the Americas because they provided labor and kept America's economic system running. African slavery during this period had a huge impact on the Americas, the causes and effects of slavery tell us how and why slavery became so important in this time in history. Slaves have been used for hundreds of years, slaves were taken from Africa and auctioned off. The Americans would trade home goods like clothes, food, blankets, and livestock, and in most cases firearms. Fortunately, slaves were cheap. The
Europeans would buy slaves from the auctions and bring them to America, or would sometimes be shipped from Africa. The number of imported slaves grew steadily across the Atlantic ocean, from about 5,000 a year to about 100,000 a year. Because of this, the African American population grew at an alarming rate growing twice as much as the European population. But of course the europeans continued to migrate to the americas. The triangular trade system was a trade route that scattered all through the Atlantic ocean, the english dominated this trade system. European merchants would buy sugar, tobacco, and coffee, and bring it to the Americas so they could re-sell these items at a higher price to buy more slaves. One important thing that was huge in the slave trade business was slaves were not aloud to read write, they could not learn.
Reading from the bible was prohibited because if you were a christian you could not be enslaved, and if the slaves were Christians they would be free and no one else would do the work that the slaves did, so the economy would suffer heavily. Slaves worked long hours, it was devastating to the black community. They didn't eat much and got little to no sleep, the policy was sun up to sundown, they work as soon as the sun is up and they are done as soon as the sun goes down. They were beaten (usually wiped) for not working hard enough or not doing what was asked of them. Each slave owner owned all the slaves they could afford, some small town farmers probably only had four or five, but if you had a successful farm or business that made a lot of money then they would have hundreds or more working the fields. Successful farmers would own multiple
fields. Another reason slaves were so important was because they brought expertise to the farm. They knew how to plant, clean the plants, plow the fields, they could do it without the owner's wasting any money trying to teach them. Of course you would have to have someone watch the slaves making sure they don't try to escape, slaves trying to escape wasn't very common because they didn't know the land well in the new world. Disease were a common issue, some slaves had some resistance, but some were not so lucky. Slaves, since they lived in africa in the warm tropical climates, had some resistance to disease. Malaria was the most well known disease in Africa, and probably one of the more deadly illnesses. Not all slaves survived in America, some would die from unfortunate diseases, like malnutrition even before they got to the new world. Most believe that most deaths occurred on the way to america, the middle passage, or within the first couple weeks of being in a slave camp (this was an estimated 13%). This thirteen percent is lower than the number for seamen, ship officers, and even passengers on the same trip. But there was only a tiny percent of African slaves that were being shipped to America, in this time America is not the strongest or wealthiest, they had competitors. Not all African slaves went to America, in fact less than 5% of the slave population was held in the Americas.
Brazil, British, and the Spanish bought twice as many slaves than the Europeans in the Americas. This is important because these numbers change in future years, america grows and the demand for slaves skyrocket because of economic success America has. Other places like British and Spain would try to keep up but got outran by the migrating Europeans. These are only a few major impacts of slave trade in the Atlantic world. The African slave trade in the new world is important because, the America's success is determine on whether or not we need slaves. The economy does not run without slaves, they do all the farm work and caring for animals. African slavery during this period had a huge impact on the Americas, the use of slavery tell us why slavery had such a huge impact on
America.