Why Is Slavery Important In World History

Slavery plays a significant role in world history. Slaves were not only transported to America, but also Brazil, South America, and the Middle east. Africa was the hotspot of these transactions taking place. We will see this through The Two Prince of Calabar and Adanggaman. Through such actions, freedom and slavery transformed its meaning for me personally. Slaves, Africans, Europeans, slavers, and the people of Old town gave me new opportunities of retrospectively thinking about slavery. The belief’s and the engrained things I learned when I was a child about slaves and slavers, has changed tremendously. One main aspect of slavery that I learned is that Africans themselves played a large in enslavement. They were agents of the trade, and essentially in control. My understanding of slavery before the start of this unit was simple. Though I was not a fan of history in high school, …show more content…
Over the course of the trade, roughly eleven million, men, women, and children from a wide variety of African ethnic groups were imprisoned, sold and shipped to the New world (Sparks, p. 4). Africans themselves played a large role in enslavement through many ways. Such as, starting slavery, opening the door to Europeans to buy their people, and also enslaving themselves due to troubling factors. In my opinion, there are two sides of Africans in the slave trade. One as primarily the perpetrator for world history. They started something that only damaged many Africans and African Americans. The greed for money, made Africans turn themselves into monsters. Not realizing the damage, they were causing among themselves, their people, and their country. They initiated racial stereotyping and much more. On the other hand, many of the Africans that were sold, were helpless. Throughout this unit, I have learned that there are two sides to every story and not to always presume what I hear is true, but to do my own