The Atlantic Slave Trade

Objective

• Explain the impact of the Atlantic Slave Trade on West Africa and the Americas. (WHS 7C)

• I can analyze the impact of the European and New World slave trade on West Africa and the Americas, using maps, diagrams, primary and secondary sources to examine frame of reference, historic context and point of view.

Origins of Slavery• A slave is a person who is the

legal property of another and is forced to obey them.

• Civilizations as far back as Mesopotamia practiced slavery and almost every civilization practiced it. (e.g. Classical Greece and Rome)

• Slaves throughout history were from all locations, not just Africa.

African Slave Trade

• For centuries major kingdoms in Africa practiced enslaving and selling prisoners to across Africa and the Indian Ocean.

• Some people made a living capturing and selling slaves.

• Starting in the 1500s Europeans began to flood the market with demand for slaves.

Europe and Slaves• Spain attempted to use Natives as slaves

in the New World.• Disease wiped out native populations.• Natives could escape easily.• Most starved themselves to death if enslaved.

• African slaves had resistance to smallpox and other diseases.

• African slaves were skilled in agriculture. • Being taken far from home meant their

escape would be impossible.

Why use slavery?• Demand for goods in Europe high.• Lots of labor needed for mining gold

and silver.• Sugar cane plantations across the

Americas required huge amounts of labor.

• Huge plantations required lots of labor to farm tobacco and other crops.

• Slaves were cheap and easy to replace.

Justifying Slavery?

• Popular reasons used:• Africans were considered a

“lesser race” and could be saved from their savage ways if infused with Christianity.

• The Bible “justified slavery” by punishing people for their sins and “savage” practices.

• Economic benefits were also used to justify slavery.

The Colombian Exchange

• Trade routes between the Old and New World took place in three routes called the Triangular trade.

• The route between Africa and the Americas used for the slave trade was called the Middle Passage.

Slave Ships• After being captured slaves

were crammed into large ships to the Americas.

• Chained to one spot.• Almost zero space between

slaves.• Horrid, unsanitary conditions.• As little at 15% to as many as

1/3 died on the route to the Americas.

Life in the Americas: Central and South

• Life of endless labor.• 18 hours a day with no rest days or weekends.

• Processing sugar cane was incredibly dangerous.

• Some slaves would stand by with machetes to cut off limbs stuck in grinders.

• Tropical climate and horrid conditions caused high mortality rates. • Average life expectancy on a plantation was 7-

9 years.

Life in the Americas: North• While conditions in North

American plantations were not great the climate reduced the mortality rate.

• Slaves lived well and long enough to increase populations naturally.

• Almost equal amounts of men and women had been imported.

• Since slave families could be broken up and sold there was not as much a need to import.

Effects on West Africa• Demand for slaves increased wars

and raids between African Kingdoms; destroys tribes and societies.

• Kingdoms rely on slave trade for European goods like guns.

• By the 1800s it was estimated that 11 million enslaved Africans had been moved to the Americas since the 1500s.

• An additional 2 million had died in conditions from the Middle Passage.

Effects on the Americas• African slaves replaced native

populations in some locations. • Slavery became hereditary, passed

on through the generations.• Dependency on slave labor for the

economy meant it would endure for centuries.

• Descendants mix African roots with Christianity and local traditions to create new cultures in the Americas.

The confined air, rendered noxious by the [waste] exhaled from their bodies, and by being repeatedly breathed, soon produces fevers and fluxes, which generally carries off great numbers of them. Some wet and blowing weather [caused] the port-holes to be shut, and the grating to be covered, fluxes and fevers among the negroes ensued. …I frequently went down among them, till at length their apartments became so extremely hot, as to be only sufferable for a very short time. But the excessive heat was not the only thing that rendered their situation intolerable. The deck, that is, the floor of their rooms, was so covered with the blood and mucus which had [come] from them in consequence of the flux, that it resembled a slaughter-house. It is not in the power of the human imagination, to picture to itself a situation more dreadful or disgusting. Numbers of the slaves having fainted, they were carried upon deck, where several of them died, and the rest were, with great difficulty, restored. It had nearly proved fatal to me also. I was so overcome with the heat, stench, and foul air, that I had nearly fainted; and it was not without assistance, that I could get upon deck. The consequence was, that I soon after fell sick of the same disorder, from which I did not recover for several months. The surgeon, upon going between decks, in the morning, to examine the situation of the slaves, frequently finds several dead; and among the men, sometimes a dead and living negroe fastened by their irons together. When this is the case, they are brought upon the deck, and being laid on the grating, the living negroe is disengaged, and the dead one thrown overboard.…

ROLE Caribbean Slave Slave Driver North American Slave

AUDIENCE Slaves in North America

Slave Drivers Slaves in the Caribbean

FORMAT YOUR CHOICE YOUR CHOICE YOUR CHOICE

TOPIC It is 1760CE and a year ago you went through a slave ship and traveled across the Middle Passage. How did you wind up on the slave ship? What was the journey like in the slave ship? Did anything happen to you during the journey? How have you acted among your peers? What are conditions like where you live? How is the work? Why do you think you have been enslaved? What do people tell you when you ask them “Why am I a slave?”

STRONG VIEW Inform Inform Inform