Slavery in the spanish colonies first started when settlers enslaved natives using then to work on local labor. When the portuguese had an increase in the demand of agricultural products they needed workers but many lives were being talke from native slave, they were not working hard, and diseases from the new world were killing them. this was when they noticed that Aficans were immune to the conditions and diseases. Being a slave in Africa was good for some but ever since the Portuguese came in to the slave trade, life for a slave became harsh. The main reason why the portuguese enslaved aficans was so they can have men to work on plantations.
These were exchanged at a profit on the coast of Africa for Negroes, who were traded on the plantations, at another profit, in exchange for a cargo of colonial produce to be taken back to the home country. As the volume of trade increased, the triangular trade was supplemented, but never supplanted, by a direct trade between home country and the West Indies, exchanging home manufactures directly for colonial produce. Most significant, however, is the fact that the trade in slaves was the key aspect of the triangular trade in which the increasing demand for goods led to the expansion and further development of capitalist industry in Europe. It is important to understand the historical though costly contribution of
But as demands for labor grew, so did the cost of paying indentured servants. Numerous plantation owners and white colonists also felt threatened by newly freed servants demand for land (Feature Indentured Servants In The U.S., (n.d.)) The colonial elite understood the “problems” of indentured servitude and agreed with property-owners and turned to slavery as a more profitable and renewable source of cheap labor. The change from indentured servants to racial slavery had initiated. A 1662 Virginia law dictated Africans would remain servants for life, and a 1667 act stated that "Baptisme doth not alter the
Also, the Europeans developed benevolent treatment towards slaves to prolong their health and ensure their survival in order to increase margins of profit. The African slave trade began in 1444 when the first successful shipment of slaves was transported from West Africa to Portugal. The beginning of the slave trade proved to be uncivilized and inefficient. The Portuguese captains evoked nothing but fear upon their arrival, and barbarically “killed and seized as many as they could.” (Document 1, pg 7) To avoid being captured, some Africans resorted to suicide by drowning themselves in the water. The Portuguese had captured 165 Africans, including women and children.
One of the most prominent sources for slaves was Africa. In Africa, slaves would be taken to port cities and thrown into the cargo of ships headed across to the New World and Europe. Due to the fact that no trader cared for these humans as people, they were packed into the cargo of ships, trying to fit in as many as possible. Of course, seeing as the ships had trips that were usually over a month across to the New World, the poorly-treated slaves would end up foul smelling, filthy, ill, and even dead. Conditions aboard these ships after weeks of sailing
The beginning of slavery began as punishments for crimes in Africa, leading to Europe wanting them. Which also lead to the United States also wanting them because of economic problems which started the triangular trade. Free slaves came to happen because of the Confiscation Act of 1862, but even when freed, they were still discriminated and lacked choices to choose from to live their lives. Also, the freed slaves didn’t know what to do to survive on their owns. Slaves were better off than freedmen because they had food and shelter, some slave owners were kind to the slaves, and slaves knew what they had to do.
The arrival of the Portuguese and the growing demand for labor in the New World and islands of the Atlantic initiated the enslavement and transportation of Africans by boat to such destinations.4 The experience of the slave became extraordinarily different during such times, with many intense hardships endured, and as a result, an effect on African society that would last into the times of present day society. Before the Atlantic slave trade was initiated, Africa knew of slavery to a reasonably large extent. Slavery had been a relatively minor institution throughout pre-Roman to modern times.5 Many of Africa’s states were free to buy and sell slaves, and traders searching for gold deposits began transporting slaves along caravan routes that lead across the Sahara to the North of Africa to work in mines.6 The expansion of Islam in the eighth century saw an increase in the trade. The number of slaves one had was a
Puerto Rico, an island in the Caribbean, off the coast of the United States was discovered in 1493 by Christopher Columbus and his entourage, who claimed the small island for Spain. Unlike any other nation in the Western hemisphere that was involved in the slave trade, Puerto Rico initially began with the African freemen who came with the Spanish conquistadors. Originally populated by about sixty thousand Taino Indigenous people, benign diseases and attempted sucides soon decreased the population. As a result, African peoples were forced into slavery to help build fortifications, work the fields, and carryout slave owner’s domestic work thus entering Puerto Rico in the Transatlantic Slave Trade. However, the enslaved African peoples didn’t just contribute to the development of this new island; their traditions are what inspired the culture that Puerto Rico is built upon today.
What Lay Behind The Horrors Of The Slave Trade? In order to clearly understand what lay behind the horrors of the slave trade, we firstly need to acknowledge how the slave trade worked and took place. The slave trade, was set out like a triangle which was covered by a ship, set from Britain to Africa and then to the West Indies. However, the Slave Trade started like this… In Britain, many powerful and wealthy merchants carried several types of merchandise which were manufactured in Britain, some of them to name were; Guns, Alcohol, Iron Bars. All of these items were very cheaply made, but in Africa they were considered as very expensive and so all of these goods were then to taken to the docs in; Glasgow, Liverpool or Bristol.
Most people don’t realize that slavery didn’t start in the United States, it was actually started sometime in the 16th century, but the first Africans were sold in Jamestown around 1619. These people were brought over in huge disease ridden ships, with hardly any food or water, stuffed next to one another, unable to move for days upon weeks. They were then sold to the white man, a life of threats and beatings, forced to work and to reproduce to increase profits on the white’s so called free labor. Africans were tossed into the white plantation owner’s fields, farming products the ranged from tobacco to cotton, even farmed foods such as corn, rice, and sugar cane, depending on the region they were in. Most of these slaves