During this voyage, the slaves would be kept in the ship's hold, crammed close together with little or no space to move. Conditions were squalid and many people did not survive the voyage. On the final leg of the transatlantic route, European ships returned home with cargoes of sugar, rum, tobacco and other 'luxury' items. It has been estimated that, by the s, , people were enslaved in the British Colonies. The majority of those sold into slavery were destined to work on plantations in the Caribbean and the Americas, where huge areas of the American continent had been colonized by European countries.
These plantations produced products such as sugar or tobacco, meant for consumption back in Europe. Those who supported the slave trade argued that it made important contributions to the country's economy and to the rise of consumerism in Britain. Despite this, towards the end of the eighteenth century, people began to campaign against slavery.
However, since trading was so profitable for those involved, the 'Abolitionists' those who campaigned for the abolition of the slave trade were fiercely opposed by a pro-slavery West Indian lobby.
British Broadcasting Corporation Home. Slavery has long existed in human societies, but the transatlantic slave trade is unique in terms of the destructive impact it had on Africa. How did it shape the fortunes of an entire continent? From the middle of the 15th century, Africa entered into a unique relationship with Europe that led to the devastation and depopulation of Africa, but contributed to the wealth and development of Europe.
From then until the end of the 19th century, Europeans began to establish a trade for African captives. At first this trafficking only supplemented a trade in human beings that already existed within Europe, in which Europeans had enslaved each other. Some enslaved Africans had also reached Europe, the Middle East and other parts of the world before the midth century, as a result of a trade in human beings that had also long existed in Africa.
It is estimated that by the early 16th century as much as 10 per cent of Lisbon's population was of African descent. Many of these African captives crossed the Sahara and reached Europe and other destinations from North Africa, or were transported across the Indian Ocean. The transatlantic slave trade began during the 15th century when Portugal, and subsequently other European kingdoms, were finally able to expand overseas and reach Africa.
The Portuguese first began to kidnap people from the west coast of Africa and to take those they enslaved back to Europe. After the European discovery of the American continent, the demand for African labour gradually grew, as other sources of labour - both European and American - were found to be insufficient. The Spanish took the first African captives to the Americas from Europe as early as , and by the first captives were shipped directly from Africa to America.
The majority of African captives were exported from the coast of West Africa, some 3, miles between what is now Senegal and Angola, and mostly from the modern Benin, Nigeria and Cameroon. A view of the slave fort at Bance Island, c. A comprehensive database compiled in the late s puts the figure at just over 11 million people. Of those, fewer than 9.
Many people who were enslaved in the African interior also died on the long journey to the coast. The total number of Africans taken from the continent's east coast and enslaved in the Arab world is estimated to be somewhere between 9. These figures are imprecise due to the absence of written records. The forced removal of up to 25 million people from the continent obviously had a major effect on the growth of the population in Africa.
It is now estimated that in the period from to , the population of Africa remained stagnant or declined. The human and other resources that were taken from Africa contributed to the capitalist development and wealth of Europe.
Africa was the only continent to be affected in this way, and this loss of population and potential population was a major factor leading to its economic underdevelopment.
The transatlantic trade also created the conditions for the subsequent colonial conquest of Africa by the European powers and the unequal relationship that still exist between Africa and the world's big powers today. Africa was impoverished by its relationship with Europe while the human and other resources that were taken from Africa contributed to the capitalist development and wealth of Europe and other parts of the world.
The unequal relationship that was gradually created as a consequence of the enslavement of Africans was justified by the ideology of racism - the notion that Africans were naturally inferior to Europeans. This ideology, which was also perpetuated by colonialism, is one of the most significant legacies of this period of history. By freeing some 3 million enslaved people in the rebel states, the Emancipation Proclamation deprived the Confederacy of the bulk of its labor forces and put international public opinion strongly on the Union side.
Despite seeing an unprecedented degree of Black participation in American political life, Reconstruction was ultimately frustrating for African Americans, and the rebirth of white supremacy —including the rise of racist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan KKK —had triumphed in the South by Almost a century later, resistance to the lingering racism and discrimination in America that began during the slavery era led to the civil rights movement of the s, which achieved the greatest political and social gains for Black Americans since Reconstruction.
But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. Jim Crow laws were a collection of state and local statutes that legalized racial segregation.
Named after a Black minstrel show character, the laws—which existed for about years, from the post-Civil War era until —were meant to marginalize African Americans by denying But on Is there any good way to teach children about lynching?
After attending the opening of a powerful new memorial and museum, which together explore some of the most painful aspects of American history, I wondered about the prospect of returning there with my year-old son. It was formed in New York City by white and Black activists, partially in response to the ongoing violence against Abraham Lincoln did believe that slavery was morally wrong, but there was one big problem: It was sanctioned by the highest law in the land, the Constitution.
The year the Civil War ended, the U. But it purposefully left in one big loophole for people convicted of crimes. Live TV. This Day In History. History Vault. Recommended for you. Slavery in America. Families in Slavery. Slavery and the Presidency.
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