The Beginning of the Slave Trade

Aim: Understand how the discovery of sugar played a key role in the development of the Slave Trade. Success Criteria: You can name three valuable crops grown in the West Indies. You can identify two reasons why slaves were brought from Africa to the West Indies.

Sugar and Spice A key ingredient in the story of how the slave trade began is SUGAR. Today many of the things we eat contain sugar that has been added to improve the taste. 500 years ago, people in Europe did not have sugar because sugar cane, can only be grown in a hot, tropical climate

Make a list of six things that have sugar added to them before they are sold to you. You have been given one example to start you off: 1.Breakfast cereals 2.______________ 3.______________ 4.______________ 5.______________ 6.______________

500 years ago, people used honey and spices the way we use sugar today. People used spices to flavour food such as meat and drinks such as wine. Spices came to Europe from the Far East – places such as India, China and the Spice Islands.

The map below shows how the continent of Europe looked around The Turks gained control of the area known as the Middle East. They cut off the supply of spices to Europe. Countries needed to find new routes to lands that grew spices.

This map shows how the world looked to Europeans by the 1400s.

Out of the main European countries, the Spanish and the Portuguese were the most interested in supporting explorers who wanted to discover new lands. In the years after 1450, ships funded by the Portuguese prince, Henry the Navigator made their way south along the coast of Africa. Then in 1498 Vasco da Gama found a sea route round the Cape of Good Hope and landed in India. A young Italian explorer, called Christopher Columbus was convinced that the world was round and he could reach the lands in the East by sailing West.

In 1492 Columbus sailed West into the unknown Atlantic Ocean. After six weeks at sea, Columbus spotted a large island. He thought this island was close to India and there were other islands nearby so they were given the name West Indies. Columbus had discovered a new continent – the New World of the Americas.

The West Indies did not have the spices the Europeans wanted – however it could grow something just as valuable – SUGAR. Soon Spain, Britain and France owned islands in the West Indies. They wanted to grow sugar and other valuable crops such as tobacco and cotton. However this kind of farming was very hard work and white farmers all had problems finding workers for their large farms or PLANTATIONS. The natives of the West Indies – Caribs and Arawaks - were treated very cruelly and most of them died. Others ran off to live in the forests.

The Solution At first convicts and bondservants brought over from Europe worked on plantations. Bondservants agreed to work for a period of three to five years in return for a grant of land at the end of their bond. But the work of sugar production was a hard backbreaking grind, disliked and resisted by most Europeans. As the demand for sugar grew so did the need for a large supply of cheap labour. This came from the shores of Africa. From the 1650s onwards the number of black slaves shipped across the Atlantic from Africa to the Americas steadily increased. ‘The Transatlantic Slave Trade’ By David Killingray (1987)

Slavery Begins The first European to bring slaves from Africa to the New World was the Englishman, John Hawkins. In 1567 he attacked the coast of West Africa and captured 250 Africans. ‘We landed 150 men hoping to get some slaves. We only got a few, but with some damage to our men from poisoned arrows’. One of Hawkins Officers

Slavery Begins Hawkins managed to sell his slaves to the Spanish planters or plantation owners in the West Indies at a large profit. Other nations such as France and Spain, who owned islands in the Caribbean also began to bring slaves from Africa. The slave trade had begun. Film Clip