Africa and the Slave Trade CP World History Modern Era

Overall Look

Overall Look - 1 European expansion led to a dramatic increase in the slave trade European settlement of the Americas in the 1490’s and the emergence of Sugarcane brought on an increased demand for enslaved Africans. Plantations were established in the 1500’s along the coast of Brazil and on the Caribbean Islands for one main purpose to grow Sugarcane.

Overall Look- 2 Native Americans that survived the settlement of Europeans could not supply the labor needed to grow and maintain sugarcane so enslaved Africans were shipped to the Americas to relieve a labor shortage on plantations.

Overall Look - 3 On August 18, 1518: Charles V grants his Flemish courtier Lorenzo de Gorrevod permission to import 4000 African slaves into New Spain- Making it the first true time first enslaved Africans directly from Africa to the Americas

TRIANGULAR TRADE – colonial trade route among Europe and its colonists, the West Indies and Africa in which goods were exchanged for slaves

Overall Look - 4 The triangular trade functioned as follows: European merchant ships carried European manufactured goods, such as guns and cloth, to Africa where they were traded for enslaved people. Enslaved Africans were then sent to the Americas and sold. European merchants then bought tobacco, molasses, sugar, and raw cotton in the Americas and shipped them back to Europe. As many as 10 million enslaved Africans were brought to the Americas during this brutal process

MIDDLE PASSAGE -- The horrible second leg of the triangular trade in which Europeans brought Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to the West Indies

Overall Look - 5 Many enslaved Africans died during the Middle Passage. Those who survived often died from diseases because they had little or no immunity to the germs and diseases that they encountered during the Middle Passage. Death rates were higher for newly arrived enslaved Africans than for those born and reared in the Americas.

Overall Look - 6 Although this was true, slaveholders rarely encouraged enslaved slaves to have children. Many slaveholders, especially on islands in the Caribbean, believed that buying a new enslaved person was less expensive than rearing a child from birth to working age.

Source and Progression of African Slavery

Source and Progression of African Slavery 1 Before the coming of Europeans arrived in the 15th century, most enslaved persons in Africa were prisoners of war. Europeans first bought enslaved people from African merchants at slave markets in return for gold, guns, or other European goods.

Elmina Castle in Ghana

Slave Castle in Cape Coast, Ghana

Source and Progression of African Slavery - 2 Local slave traders first obtained their supplies of enslaved persons from nearby coastal regions --- As demand grew, they had to move farther inland to find people to enslave. Some rulers eventually became concerned about the welfare of their own countries - King Afonso of Congo wrote to the king of Portugal, asking him to end the slave trade. Europeans and other Africans, however, generally ignored such protests.

Source and Progression of African Slavery - 3 Local rulers who traded in enslaved people viewed the slave trade as a source of income.

Impact of the Slave Trade

Impact of the Slave Trade - 1 The slave trade depopulated some areas and deprived many African communities of their youngest and strongest men and women. The desire of slave traders to provide a constant supply of enslaved persons increased warfare in Africa ---- Coastal or near-coastal African chiefs and their followers, armed with guns acquired from the trade in enslaved people, increased raids and wars on neighboring peoples.

Impact of the Slave Trade - 2 The use of enslaved Africans remained largely acceptable to European society. Europeans continued to view Africans as inferior beings fit chiefly for slave labor. Not until the Quakers, began to condemn slavery in the 1770s did feelings against slavery begin to build in Europe.

Impact of the Slave Trade - 3 Even then, it was not until the French Revolution in the 1790s that the French abolished slavery. The British ended the slave trade in 1807 and abolished slavery throughout the empire in 1833. Slavery finally ended in the United States in the 1860’s with the oncoming Civil War.