1. The Atlantic Slave Trade

2. Show me the money
Africans were sold for guns, iron, rum, cloth, & other goods
Slaves cost 1/10 (1680s) & 1/3 (1780s) of the value they produced in America
Britain exporting 300,000 guns annually to Africa in 1790s

3. Effects on Africa
Drained the wealth & people of Southern Sahara Desert
Diminishing cultural contact with the Islamic world
Growth of militaristic centralized states
Use of European goods

4. Effects on the African slaves
Change in class divisions
Change in gender relations
Eroding the dignity of human life
High blood pressure for future generations

5. The “Middle Passage”

6. Why turn to African slavery?
Why not Indians as slaves?
Indians outnumbered the settlers
Indians retaliated
Knew the land, could escape
Africans have been torn from their land & their culture
Whites were new to a continent but brought their culture with them.
Needed labor = $
H.Zinn
Left the Africans in a state of helplessness

7. American Slavery
American slavery was driven by a frenzy for limitless profit
Based on racial hatred, therefore slavery treated slaves as less than human
~H.Zinn

8. Total numbers Total slaves brought to the Americas- 10 – 15 million
Africa may have lost 50 million human being to death & slavery
H.Zinn

9. Fear & Racism Settlers feared slave rebellions
& feared that whites who were unhappy with the state of things might join with black to overthrow the social order
& feared that Indians would join blacks & rebel
H.Zinn

10. To combat these fears…
Bribed Indians to return runaway slaves & made it illegal for fee blacks to travel in Indian country
Gave a few new rights & benefits to poor whites
Money, food, & land
H.Zinn