” We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life,Liberty,and the pursuit of Happiness” (Thomas Jefferson). Nothing in the human history can be compared to the Transatlantic Slave Trade in its magnitude,cruelty, and the sustained brutality of African Americans. From their horrific misfortunes to finding their greater strengths.
The definition of slave trade is Traffic in slaves especially the buying and selling of African Americans for profit prior to the American Civil War. In the early 15th century, European traders had begun selling slaves. There was about 10 to 12 million Africans that was forced into slavery and had been sent to European colonies in the North and South America. There were many more that was captured, and had been placed in ships but died of disease or the lack of food before reaching the New World.
By having the Transatlantic Slave Trade in place it had diminished the African American population. So about two-thirds of the people that was sold to European traders were men, and those enslaved males which had led West Africa’s demography to become unequal. So the women that were captured and sold was required to take on the burden of rebuilding their destroyed families and their communities. Now the Europeans taking the West Africans to the Americas where there the slaves began cultivating of sugar and the cash crops. Some of the Africans began to raid the smaller villages in search for slaves just so that they could keep up with the Europeans demand for slaves as well.
Kerr 2
The Middle Passage was the cross from Africa to the Americas, this is where the slave traders would hold their ‘cargo’ of slaves. It was called the middle passage because this was the section that many ships would use to take their good to be marketed. The first section (the ‘Outward Passage’) was from Europe to Africa. Next came the Middle Passage, and then the ‘Return Passage’ was the final journey from the Americas to Europe. These slaves were captured from their homes,or cultural groups and other areas of Africa and was then loaded on these ships where they would eventually be taken off the ships to go and work for other people.
Many of these slaves had no idea what was going to happened to them or even where they was going to be taken too. There was up to a thousand of slaves that were being packed in the lower decks of these ships where they would stacked among each other to live in the harsh conditions that they faced for several weeks at a time or even months if they ran into bad weather on the seas. The slaves laid in waste together, heat exhaustion, seasickness, very little air to breathe, laid in waste feces, stomach problems, fever, and even death that laid among them.
The captors thought that the men would be dangerous and might try and break free so they shackled them as a pair with leg irons just so they could keep them from escaping. Usually it would take about six to eight weeks to reach land but it might take up to thirteen weeks if they had bad weather out to sea. Finally when the slaves had reached the New World they to had brought diseases that would be carried into the New World population. There were those that did survive the Middle Passage and was also sold at auction upon entering the New World.
Kerr 3
The Atlantic slave trade changed the Africans economy drastically. There were several reasons