According to the Atlantic Slave Trade video, there have been centuries of contact between Europe and Africa via the Mediterranean, but the slave trade didn’t begin until the late 1400s with the Portuguese colonies in west Africa and Spanish settlement of the Americas. Due to the labor intensive upkeep with the sugar cane, tobacco and cotton plantation there was a surge in the need for slaves who can keep up with it. To meet the massive demands for the labor, the Europeans looked to Africa, thus how their migration to the new world was forced as they brought slaves from Africa there. The process of being sold was inhuman and brutal, but that was nothing compared to how horrid the voyage to the new world was.
The Atlantic Slave Trade video also mentioned, African slavery had already existed for centuries in various forms, with some being indentured servants who had a limited term and the chance to buy their own freedom. When the white captains came offering manufactured goods and weapons in exchange for slaves, the kings and merchants who already didn’t see slaves as fellow Africans, but as criminals, didn’t hesitate at the offer. Which is how …show more content…
Comaris slide show, the slaves were packed onto a ship with approximately 450 other slaves. The slaves would be crammed into the holds of a ship forced to either huddle together at all times or made to lay down like groceries on a shelf. Deprived of personal rights the slaves were treated as an object, someone's property. The document, The Middle Passage:Hell Below Deck, even mentions that some slaves would even jump overboard and plunging into the sea from the ship to escape the hell that was to come upon them. Those who were less fortunate to escape were forced to “exercise” and eat. This so called “exercise” was forcing the slaves to jump up and down as the shackles that held them together bit into their flesh, which was also mentioned in the document, Brutal Voyage: The Daily Routine on the Slave
The Atlantic Slave Trade video also mentioned, African slavery had already existed for centuries in various forms, with some being indentured servants who had a limited term and the chance to buy their own freedom. When the white captains came offering manufactured goods and weapons in exchange for slaves, the kings and merchants who already didn’t see slaves as fellow Africans, but as criminals, didn’t hesitate at the offer. Which is how …show more content…
Comaris slide show, the slaves were packed onto a ship with approximately 450 other slaves. The slaves would be crammed into the holds of a ship forced to either huddle together at all times or made to lay down like groceries on a shelf. Deprived of personal rights the slaves were treated as an object, someone's property. The document, The Middle Passage:Hell Below Deck, even mentions that some slaves would even jump overboard and plunging into the sea from the ship to escape the hell that was to come upon them. Those who were less fortunate to escape were forced to “exercise” and eat. This so called “exercise” was forcing the slaves to jump up and down as the shackles that held them together bit into their flesh, which was also mentioned in the document, Brutal Voyage: The Daily Routine on the Slave