Slave Trade Motivation

The motivations of each person during any moment in the trading of a slave is interesting. What are the slave traders feeling hauling and moving the slaves as if they were cattle? What are the slaves thinking as they change masters? What motivates a person to buy their first slave. Each of the roles of the people in the slave trade had a unique perspective and desires based on the situation. The collision point of all of these perspectives is the moment the slave changes hands from the slave trader to the buyer. The moment that the transaction occurs each person’s worries and desires are at their heights. The different perspectives, motivations, and worries will be analyzed at this particular moment in the slave trade. While each of the parties …show more content…
The way that the slaves were transported made them susceptive to disease. If a slave died then the trader couldn’t make any money at all. The risk of the slaves dying is one of the reasons why many slave traders were unsuccessful. The slave traders could also lose their money if the slaves ran away. The slaves might not be captured, and even if they are captured their value drops due to them being a flight risk. The slave traders also had to fear for their lives. At any given moment a slave trader was heavily outnumbered by the slaves, and he could be easily overpowered. Most of a slave traders fears revolved around his potential loss of profit. A big enough loss could prevent him from being able to continue being in the slave trade. The lack of money might prevent him from being able to buy more slaves to sell, or the people he sells slaves for to lose faith and change …show more content…
Many of the slaves we 're from cotton plantations where either their masters had died, they were being replaced with a better slave, or the plantation had gone bankrupt. Slaves that were sold were separated from their friends,families, and communities. Many had nothing to lose and attempted to runaway or had already attempted to runaway to prevent himself from being sold. Many of the slaves were chained together with slaves weren’t considered a flight risk to prevent this. The slaves were placed into pens at the trade markets like cattle. In these pens they did form connections that helped some keep in touch with their family members. The slaves perspective came from a person who was trapped and alone in a place where change was imminent, and they had no control over what happened. The worries of a slave during the sale of himself revolved around his fate and the fate of his family members. The slaves worried that this new masters would be worse than their old masters, and what was happening to their family members. They worried that the slave traders wouldn’t keep their promise of selling them to a the best owner possible (to prevent runaways). They worried about change, and hoped that it would be for the