What Were The Effects Of Slavery On African Americans

African peoples who were kidnapped and forced to travel to ports for shipment were the majority of the time taken not by Europeans directly, but by other Africans who provided them with this massive supply of labor. Through wars and surprise raids on unprotected villages, captors were easily able to overwhelm the young men, women, and children, gagging them and tying them up, or simply throwing the little ones into a sack. Captors mainly focused on capturing strong men that would be highly valued at an auction, but they also took anyone and everyone who looked like a viable source of labor and profit. They would break into their huts and forcefully take these families as if they were objects to be collected. Many of the victims knew or could imagine the horrors that awaited them so they would hide themselves and their children in the tall grass hoping to not be seen by the vicious predators lurking. Others would end their potential for imaginable suffering and would drown themselves before anyone would be able to drag them off. Some of the people taken for slavery were being punished for minor crimes, debt, or religious offenses, but the majority were free …show more content…
Just through the transportation process across land, about one fifth of the slaves would die of exhaustion, starvation, or beating. Once arrived at the coast, slaves were held in pens, also know as barracoons, that were guarded by dogs to ensure that none of the captives were able to escape back to their villages. A small amount of captives would die during this time as well. After a few days of captivity, boats arrived and those who were relatively still in good shape were branded with a hot iron as slaves, or sometimes branded with a cross to show that they have been baptized. Others who were too weak for the voyage across the Atlantic were simply