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The African Slave Trade. What was the African Slave Trade?. The first Africans to come to North America came as slaves with the Spanish explorers in the 1500’s. Slaves did manual labor and tended to agricultural crops such as cotton and vegetables.
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What was the African Slave Trade? • The first Africans to come to North America came as slaves with the Spanish explorers in the 1500’s. • Slaves did manual labor and tended to agricultural crops such as cotton and vegetables. • Over the following 300 years, more than 10 million Africans were taken from Africa to the Americas.
How were the African slaves treated? • The African slaves were treated as something lower than human beings. • Their living conditions were worse than anything in recent human history.
What was the Middle Passage? • It was the journey taken by Africans to the Americas in a ship. • Many people were born into slavery, so their earliest memory was being on a ship heading to the Americas via the Middle Passage.
How were conditions on the Middle Passage? • Conditions on the ships were horrific and dangerous. • Ships were packed wall to wall with Africans; it was too crowded to move, and in some cases, breathe. • It was very hot on the ships, so diseases thrived. • One million people died on the ships before even reaching land.
OlaudahEquiano describes a slave ship on the Middle Passage • “The first object which saluted my eyes when I arrived on the coast was the sea, and a slave ship…waiting for its cargo. These filled me with astonishment, which soon converted into terror, which I am yet at a loss to describe, nor the then feelings of my mind. When I was carried on board I was immediately handled, and tossed up, to see if I were sound, by some of the crew; and I was now persuaded that I was got into a world of bad spirits, and that they were going to kill me….When I looked round the ship too, and saw a large furnace of copper boiling, and a multitude of black people of every description chained together, every one of their countenances expressing dejection and sorrow, I no longer doubted of my fate, and, quite overpowered with horror and anguish, I fell motionless on the deck and fainted….I was soon put down under the decks, and there I received such a salutation in my nostrils as I had never experienced in my life; so that with the loathsomeness of the stench, and crying together, I became so sick and low that I was not able to eat, nor had I the least desire to taste anything. I now wished for the last friend, Death, to relieve me…”
What impact did slavery have on Africa? • Because slaves were in such high demand, African leaders gained great profit by selling them. • The slave trade was so powerful that many African leaders would wage war on each other for the opportunity to capture more slaves!
How did slave owners view their slaves? • Plantation owners viewed slaves as a cheap (free) source of labor. • Colonial governments saw slaves as valuable and encouraged colonists to get as many as possible. • Explains why so many were packed onto ships.
