1. English Trade and the Growth of Slavery
Coach Kuntz
United States History

2. Origins of Transatlantic Slavery
-European slave traders would set up trading posts along the West African coast.
-At these posts, Europeans would trade guns and other goods to African slavers in exchange for slaves.
-As the slave trade grew, Africans on the coast would travel inland, capture people, and trade them to the Europeans as slaves.

3. The Middle Passage
Middle Passage- The passage of slave-trading ships west across the Atlantic Ocean.
-African slaves would be packed onto ships below deck, where they would spend a majority of the trip to the Americas.
-Slaves resisted this journey by trying to revolt, refusing to eat, or by committing suicide.
-Approximately 10% of the slaves aboard the ships died during the journey.

4. The closeness of the place, and the heat of the climate, added to the number in the ship, which was so crowded that each had scarcely room to turn himself, almost suffocating us. This produced copious perspirations, so that the air soon became unfit for respiration, from a variety of loathsome smells, and brought on a sickness among the slaves, of which many died, thus falling victims to the improvident avarice, as I may call it, of their purchasers. This wretched situation was again aggravated by the galling of the chains, now become insupportable; and the filth of the necessary tubs [large buckets for human waste], into which the children often fell, and were almost suffocated. The shrieks of the women, and the groans of the dying, rendered the whole a scene of horror almost inconceivable.
-The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano

5. English Trade Policy
Mercantilism- The belief that nations become strong by keeping strict control over its trade.
-People who believed this economic policy thought that countries should export more than they import.
-In 1650, British Parliament passed the Navigation Acts which regulated trade between England and America– the law listed products that could only be traded between England and the colonies.
-The acts helped colonial merchants because they were not forced to compete with foreign merchants to sell their goods– they would always have a market in England.
-Not all colonists were happy with the acts– some colonists believed it hurt their ability to make money through trading with other nations.

6. Triangular Trade
-The Triangular Trade was a trade route between New England, the West Indies, and Africa. It was named this because of the shape of the trade route.
-Make sure you are familiar with the chart!
-The transatlantic slave trade and middle passage were one leg of the trade route.