Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade

Atlantic Slave Trade

(1500-1600) 300,000 Africans transported to the Americas. (1600-1700) nearly 1.3 million Africans enslaved. By 1870, 9.5 million Africans had been imported to the Americas.

Four reasons Europeans saw advantages in using Africans in the Americas.

1. Africans were already exposed to European diseases. 2. Africans had experience farming and could be taught plantation work. 3. Africans less likely to escape in a completely new land. 4. African skin color made them easier to catch and could not blend in with others.

Cause: Islam expansion into Africa increased slavery and slave trade.

Between 650-1600, Muslims transported 17 million Africans to Muslim lands of North Africa and Southwest Asia.

Cause: Influx of Africans into the Americas and West Indies.

Effect: Africans brought their art, music, religion, and food to influence societies. Generations of broken families as the more fit and able Africans were enslaved. Sizable African population and mixed races in the Western Hemisphere.

Cause: Spanish lead in importing Africans to the Americas.

Effect: By 1650, the Spanish had imported thousands more Africans than the Europeans.

Cause: During the 1600s, Brazil dominated the European sugar market.

Effect: During the 17th century, more than 40% of all Africans brought to the Americas when to Brazil.

Cause: England's dominance in America grew.

Effect: From 1690 - 1807, English became leading carrier of enslaved Africans. 1.7 million went to the West Indies and 400,000 went to the American Colonies. (The population in American grew to 2 million through births.)

Cause: Many African rulers and merchants played a willing role in the Atlantic Slave Trade.

Effect: Many Africans were captured and delivered to Europeans in exchange for gold, guns, and other goods.

Cause: Slavery was seen as a minor institution in Africa for centuries.

Effect: Slaves in Africa had legal rights and opportunities.

Cause: Sugar plantations and tobacco farms required large amount of workers to be profitable.

Effect: planned to use Native Americans, but millions died from disease, war, and brutality. Owners turned to Africa for cheap labor.

Slavery

Has existed in societies around the world. Derived from prisoners of war working for farmers. At that time, race was not a factor. Slavery in America was based largely on race.

Middle Passage

The voyage that brought captured Africans to the West Indies and later to North and South America.

Triangular Trade [1]

Transatlantic trading network where a) Europeans exchanged goods for captured Africans; b) then the Africans were transported across the Atlantic and sold in the West Indies; and c) merchants bought sugar, coffee, and tobacco and returned to Europe.

Triangular Trade [2]

Transatlantic trading network where a) Merchants carried rum and other goods from Americas to Africa; b) exchanged merchandise for Africans; c) transported Africans to West Indies and sold them for sugar and molasses; and d) sold these goods to rum producers in the Americas