LECTURE ONE: The Demographic Impact of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade on African Societies The demographic effects of the slave trade are some of the most controversial and debated issues. Tens of millions of people were removed from Africa via the slave trade, and what effect this had on Africa is an important question. Walter Rodney argued that the export of so many people had been a demographic disaster and had left Africa permanently disadvantaged when compared to other parts of the world, and largely explains that continent's continued poverty. He presents numbers that show that Africa's population stagnated during this period, while that of Europe and Asia grew dramatically. According to Rodney all other areas of the economy were disrupted by the slave trade as the top merchants abandoned traditional industries to pursue slaving and the lower levels of the population were disrupted by the slaving itself.
Many slaves were transported illegally after the trade in human cargo was deemed illegal in England and America during the middle 19th century. It was during this period in the 19th century, that the trade in slaves reached its peak. According to Karl Marx, humankind's development can be categorized into stages of societal progression in regard to the relationships of production. The initial stage in human development is the communal stage, which is often described as primitive communism. The society at this stage is classless and the majority of the society's inhabitants work collectively for the benefit of the society as a whole.
Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade The Atlantic slave trade began in the early sixteenth century and extended all the way to the late nineteenth century. It involved the transportation of millions of Africans to the Americas. These Africans were forced to leave their countries in order to become the slaves of the newly found American colonies. Just the journey across the seas to the America’s was highly inhumane cramming hundreds of people onto small boats. The reason that the African slaves were needed was because they were strong and good workers.
Slavery, which was a major uproar from colonial America to the civil war, is the racial epidemic of the enslavement of people for money and cheap labor with extensive abuses. The question that could be asked is were the slaves dignified, did they still keep their dignity? The word dignity is the conducting of self-respect as a person sees himself or herself rather than, how others perceive that person. Slavery has been around for years and slaves have been treated unfairly for countless of reasons and situations. Did they still keep their self-respect?
Slavery built the U.S.’s economy. As we’ve learned through the readings and all the films and documentaries watched in this class, two of the largest exports out of the U.S. (the South, to be more specific) were cotton and tobacco, which were picked by the slaves. As the demands for cotton and tobacco increased, so did the number of slaves, which unfortunately led to (White Americans) believing to be superior and led to hate and discriminating against a group of people based on their skin color. This led the Civil Rights Movement in 1964, which changed history in America, with some important events that I’ve learned from taking this class. Nat Turner’s Slave Rebellion, (also known as the Southampton Insurrection), which was a slave rebellion that took place in Southampton county in Virginia in August 1831.
ssue: Behind of those shinny expansive beautiful diamonds, many of them has histories tied to violence and human suffering. There are ethical issues in current buying and selling of diamonds from countries associated with human rights abuses. The diamond miners who works in Africa have a poor condition living standard and those diamond wholesalers and retailers who live in United States are having a wealthy life. The unfair international trade of diamonds should be adjust to improve diamond miners living standard and raise their wage for their hard working. Related issues: All the conflicts in the diamond industry are come from one main factor -- profit.
They could be bought or sold as property in the same way one would sell beasts of burden. Most slaves were put to work cultivating the land in some agrarian way. Yet in Africa some slaves were given positions of moderate respect and responsibility. Some were put to work as soldiers, administrators or even highly placed advisers. “The Songhay emperors, for example, often employed slaves as administrators and soldiers, since the rulers distrusted free nobles, whom they considered excessively ambitious and undependable” (Bentley, and Ziegler ).
It is an important topic to look at because debt bondage is illegal worldwide and it is wrong as it abuses the human rights. Debt bondage is a type of slavery in which workers indentured to work cannot overcome the insuperable debt to the employers they work for, thus physically confining the workers to their jobs for life. (eHow, 2011). Just like slavery, debt bondage either controls the workers without rewarding them fairly, or forcing them to work without getting paid. (eHow, 2011) Enforcing this type of slavery are the landowners who give their workers only basic food needed in order to survive.
Runaway slaves were very common, slaves killing slave masters; and slavery as an established legitimate institution was cracking at its base. White people realized that most black people and mulattoes would prefer to return to their African motherland than to live in servitude. Thus in 1821 the American Colonization Society bought a large piece of land (43,000 sq. miles, almost half the entire new country) in the west coast of Africa "Cape Mesurado". The site then was called Grain Coast by the Portuguese because of its valuable crop called "Pepper."
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