Slavery has existed for as long as we know. Many people assume it started with Europeans bringing Africans to the Americas. Then assuming this was done due just to the fact that they were black. However, there have been slaves of all colors across the world. “The basis, of the Atlantic economy was the slave trade and the new products it enabled.” Through history we can see how “slavery began, the factors that made it both possible and economically valuable to the European trading states, and the products produced by the slaves.”
Slavery in South/Central America began with the natives doing much labor for those such as the Spanish. Planting, and tending to the crops the Spanish wished to trade. With much of the South and North Americans died out due to diseases, the U.S decided it was time to search out for a new mass number of slaves. They
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The Middle Passage is what we know as the voyages of bringing over of the African slaves, 12.5 million to be exact. Gin and Tonic was another creation out of the cultural exchange and allowed disease to be put at ease. The Silk Road is what enticed the African Rulers to trade their own slaves. Thinking they would benefit from gunpowder, and weapons to fight their own enemies.
Factors that economically were valuable to the European trading states was cheap (basically free) labor, greater wealth, draining Africa of its wealth and people. Also, that European lives became more valuable because they lived longer due to more calorie intakes, and products produced by the slaves. The number one product favored by Europeans, and produced by slaves was sugar. Europeans referred to it as “sweet salt”. Others were nicotine, alcohol, cannabis, and caffeine. They gave the dirtiest and hardest work possible to the slaves, only to benefit