Did Slavery Exist Essay

Humans can be owned, bought, and sold to do labor. This is the concept of slavery. It is a misconception that slavery only existed in America during the time before the civil war. Slavery existed long before Africans were brought to the Americas. Ancient Romans, Chinese, and Africans all had their own slaves and slave trade networks. But not only did slavery occur in the past, it still exists today. Among all the places, past and present, America is most well known for its slavery. The European countries and African kingdoms formed a network of slave trade called the Atlantic slave trade. European countries exchanged weapons and technology for slaves from the Africans. These slaves would be imported into European colonies in America to work …show more content…
Chattel slavery is the kind that the Europeans and Americans used: they treated slaves as a piece of property. In Africa, a slave was not sold into slavery because of being captured. They were not even sold. Slavery was a form of payment. A person in debt of another could pay off his debt by becoming a slave. A person could also become a slave if he committed a crime. Like all slaves, they were forced to do labor. However, a child of a slave was born into slavery. As a slave, people were placed at the very bottom of social standings, but their children were not. A child of a slave could be born into the the master’s family. They could be treated as a part of the master’s family and earn the same rights. Slaves in Africa were treated closer to “family” than “slaves.” Even now slavery still exists. Human trafficking is the more commonly used term. How it works is that a person is abducted and shipped to different parts of the world. Men are used for labor and woman are used for sex. Children also do easier labor, but are still forced to work in terrible conditions. Human trafficking could also be used for selling body parts. Normally, a kidney or a liver would be very hard to obtain for transplants, and would thus be very expensive. Because of the high price, many human traffickers sell the organs on the black market to earn lots of