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Racism: The Rise Of The Slave Trade

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Beginning in the 15th century, the slave trade was a dehumanizing and absolutely immoral system that was founded on racism and greed. Human beings were traded, shipped, and sold like inanimate objects with the sole intention of gleaning the highest profits for traders. Because of their race, the africans that were captured and traded were looked at as less than human, and the slave trade allowed racism to continue for years after it was first started. The transatlantic slave trade was the introduction of institutionalized racism towards African Americans in the western hemisphere, and through every stage of the process, Africans were mentally and physically abused. The slave trade first began in 1442 when the captains of a portuguese ship …show more content…

Surgeons on the ships carried supposed medications such as gum camphor, rhubarb, and cinnamon water. The crews on the slave ships were usually young, poor men because of the low pay and appalling conditions. John Newton, the captain of a slave ship, thought the slave trade ruined the sensitivity of his crew. He said, “the real or supposed necessity of treating the Negroes with rigor gradually brings a numbness upon the heart and renders those who are engaged in it too indifferent to sufferings of their fellow creatures.” Deaths on the slaves ships were rarely less than one-fifth of the crew. The death toll amongst slaves was extremely high, and around twenty percent of slaves who crossed the Middle Passage died from various diseases or from committing suicide. In all, upwards of 300,000 voyages across the Middle Passage have been …show more content…

Children were no exception from this rule, and they were forced to do whatever tasks they could such as cleaning, carrying water, and collecting livestock feed. Women were expected to work in the fields, or they could work as servants or child-minders. Mothers could be separated from their children at any time, causing constant fear and paranoia. Punishments on plantations were extremely harsh, and slaves found guilty of violence against the plantation owner or destruction of property were put to death. More minor offenses, such as not working hard enough or being unruly, were often punished with beatings and whippings and sometimes the use of neck collars and leg irons. The life expectancy for slaves was around seven to nine years, and slaves would live out this time in a constant state of fear and sorrow. The transatlantic slave trade was a grotesque institution which benefitted from the extreme suffering of others. The reason the slave trade was allowed to go on for so long and the reason why some people felt no remorse stripping innocent people of their freedom and identity, is the racist attitude Europeans and Americans harbored towards Africans. America has come a long way since then, and maybe one day all people can see each other for what we are:

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When they were getting ready to be sold, they would have marches for several miles and some of them would be shackled around the neck. Once they reached the coast of where they would board ships, the slaves would be put into cages just like animals are today. After boarding the ships, they were cramped in so tight that hundreds of them would die because they would not being able to breath. Inhuman conditions like these went on for thousands of year. Incidents such as running away or sleeping with a black slave would appear during this time.

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Slavery, an institutional system that dehumanizes all the people, such as the Africans and inhabitants of the new world, through hard agricultural labor and harsh treatment. It originated in the European continent. Slavery then was brought to the new world to be used as a working force. The main customers for the slaves were the people amongst the Spanish and American colonies. The slaves were brought to these colonies for similar reasons, for example, agricultural labor.

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African Americans were captured by people called slavers in Africa and would be shipped to the US to be bought. 3.What were conditions like for the enslaved Africans being transported on the Middle Passage? Approximately 15 percent of slaves died on the ships because conditions were horrible. There were so many people packed into one place and there were diseases that would go around from person

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The use of slaves has always been present in the world since the beginning of civilization, although the use and treatment of those slaves has differed widely through time and geographic location. Different geographies call for different types of work ranging from labor-intensive sugar cultivation and production in the tropics to household help in less agriculturally intensive areas. In addition to time and space, the mindsets and beliefs of the people in those areas affect how the slaves will be treated and how “human” those slaves will be perceived to be. In the Early Modern Era, the two main locations where slaves were used most extensively were the European dominated Americas and the Muslim Empires. The American slavery system and the

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All of the slaves slept on bare wood and the motion of the ship caused the elbows of the slaves to wear down to the bone. There were two different philosophies among the slave ship captain which were the “loose packers” and the “tight packers (The Slave Trade). The loose packers thought carrying less African American would mean more of them survive the voyage and they would get more money out of them. Tight packers thought more money would come out of overcrowding the hold of the ship and if a few slaves die they die. If the weather is good they will allow the slaves to come out on the deck just during the day.

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This was referred to as the “middle passage”. It is estimated that somewhere between 12-15 million Africans were taken to the Americas. During the Middle passage it is estimated that 1 in every 5 Africans

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In the Americas, the main exports were silver and cash crops, both of which required work that was terribly tedious and exhausting. This led to the overwhelming predominance of slavery in the Americas, since the Europeans were not willing to carry out the hard work themselves. When the Europeans found they lacked a workforce, the sought slaves elsewhere. While the people who were called slaves changed, the institution never did. The same mistreatment, torture, and horrible conditions were evident in American slavery until it was abolished centuries later.

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The introduction of slavery to the New World was an important aspect that shaped and influenced American culture to what it is today. The introduction of slaves set up the scene for white superiority and domination amongst American society. Slavery started in 1619, when Africans were brought from Africa over to the New World, through a transport system called the “Middle Passage”, to serve as free labor for tobacco production. African slaves became essential to tobacco production and the economy, as the Native Americans that were previously used as slaves, died off from smallpox and other European diseases. With no other option for free laborers, they looked to Africans.

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In America, slavery was an institution which was very peculiar because of how it was operated and how slaves lives were mortified, this is evident in the narratives “Incidents In the Life of a Slave Girl” and “Twelve Years a Slave”. Slavery was extremely wrong in all ways possible and demeaned all of the male and female slaves who fell victim to it. Along with this, lots of disgraceful acts were of normal occurance amongst large plantations and the slave market. While large plantations contained tremendous fieldwork, with little to no break, and no nutritional food. The slave market itself was a very controversial part of the slave system since it was the leading cause of families being forcibly split apart and it aided in the human trafficking of free blacks.

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The Slave Voyages The Atlantic Slave Trade, starting in 1650 and ending in 1807, was the massive shipment of African Americans from their homes in Africa to America where they would be sold as slaves and forced to work on Plantations. During its time there were over 36,000 voyages to the Africa and back resulting in the capture and the enslavement of over 12 million people. With so many excursion happening during this timeline, it has helped create a long list of history that historians can study to get a better understanding of what was going on during this period. One of the many voyages that took place during the Slave voyages was is listed as Voyage 25488 starting in Charleston and traveling to the Congo River to purchase slaves and return to Charleston to have them sold.

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However, over the next several decades, the African population had increased greatly and by 1750 slaves constituted over 40 percent of the population (Takaki, 1993, p. 61). The demand for the enslavement of Africans began to increase rapidly during the latter half of the 1700s due to the fact the Industrial Revolution was arising, resulting in a critical need for labor. To satisfy the demand for labor, slave ships began to evolve to accommodate multitudes of African slave laborers. These slave ships were essentially seagoing prisons and the prisoners were treated as cargo (Rediker, 2007, p. 43-45). Subjected to overcrowding and sullied conditions, many of the slaves didn’t survive the voyage to America.

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The Trans-Atlantic slave trade impacted and changed the world by misplacing and separating thousands of individuals from their families and homes. Thousands of people lost their lives when they were abducted and forced into slavery. Many did not survive the ship rides to the Americas. Many were murdered and tortured. Some were thrown of boats and died from diseases caught on the ship.

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Some people tried to starve, but the crew forced them to take food, beating them, tormenting them with hot coal or forcing them to open their mouths with special tools or break their teeth. The mortality caused by various diseases was very high. More than 20 percent have died from various epidemics or committed suicide. Venture Smith, describing his test, wrote: "After the usual passage, except for the great death from pox that erupted on board, we arrived on the island of Barbados, but when we reached it, out of two hundred and sixty that sailed from Africa, not more than two hundred alive.

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There was created a circle Europe provided Africa by manufactured goods; from Africa to America were trafficking slaves; and Europe gave raw materials from America. The slave trip across the Atlantic Ocean was called “Middle Passage“. Typically to cross Atlantic took 60-90 days but sometimes it take four months. People were suffered from hunger and diseases. A lot of people died in the way to the ship.

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The history of African Americans in the United States is a subject that embodies the majority of attention. When we are taught about the slave trade in the United States general focus tends to primarily gravitate to North America. We know that Slavery was the prominent product in the colonies which helped the economy to flourish. The forceful and horrendous transition slaves faced from Africa to Colonial America is exemplified as the prevalent victimized diaspora in U.S. history. There has been an ongoing struggle for black’s rights in the south Americas for several decades, Latin America is a region that imported over ten times as many slaves as the United States, and kept them in bondage far longer.

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