Compare the motives for Transatlantic export slavery and the modern system of human trafficking. Also, compare the impact on the lives of individuals who are victimized by each system.
For hundreds of years, much of the world relied on slave labor to grow, build, and refine many essential materials. Commonly, slaves were captured in Africa and sent to the Caribbean, North America, or South America. There, slaves were forced into grueling manual labor and given little supplies to live on while being physically and verbally abused constantly by their white masters. By forcing slaves into these terrible conditions, white masters were able to easily produce valuable goods and sell them, sharing none of the profits with the hardworking slave laborers. Humans all around the world relied on the goods produced by slaves and, around the world, whites made large economic gains off the backs of forced slave labor. However, slavery
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One major reason that whites owned slaves was to show their power and wealth to their peers. While still using their slaves for economic reasons, white planters enjoyed amassing a large number of slaves to show off their power. In fact, it was common to see a white family “walking in the streets followed by a line of enslaved men, women, and children as a way to assert prestige and high social status.” (Araujo, 34). Owning a lot of slaves was seen as an accurate portrayal of one's social standing and prestige in the community. However, in the modern system of human trafficking, slaves are not used as a way to assert power. Since human trafficking “is a crime under federal and international law” those who use forced labor are not keen on letting others know about their illegal affairs. As time has progressed and countries have realized the atrocity that slavery is, human trafficking has been outlawed, henceforth taking away the previously mentioned motive of owning