The Causes Of The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade

One of the largest forced movements of humans was via the Trans-Atlantic slave trade route between the mid-fifteenth century and nineteenth centuries, which transported about 10-12 million African slaves into the Americas. The Trans-Atlantic slave trade formed a devastating relationship between the Europeans and Africans through slavery, an inhumane act of forcing drudgery among other humans. At first Africans themselves were enslaving each other through the freehold system. The freehold system was a way for African slave owners to employ slaves by giving them land in exchange for their labor. By 1441, Portuguese began to abduct Africans and forced them to work in Portugal as slaves with the help of African slave traders. Unlike freehold slavery,

During the slave trade, African chiefs aided the Europeans in capturing slaves from their own people in exchange for goods such as metal tools, fine textiles, and guns. This created a defined hierarchy and conflicts within clans. Hundreds of years later, Africans today are segregated because of their ethnicity. Arrogances of racism, discrimination, and prejudice were strengthened towards Africans today (Rezek 105). The millions of African slaves who were taken to modern day South and North America were cut off from their African roots and eventually their culture was diluted and replaced by foreign beliefs. For example, modern-day Brazil was taken over by the Portuguese and the African slaves who were transported to Brazil began to develop a new race with the mulattoes and Natives of the land. Not only did a new race form but also the national language of the country is now Portuguese and their main religion is Christianity. African-Americans or Latin Americans have a lineage, which most probably dates back to an ancestry involved with the African diaspora, which causes racism in the workplace or in everyday life. The Africans who were transported through the trans Atlantic weren’t treated as humans but as goods. When the millions of Africans were torn away from their home, the population of Africans decreased dramatically, while violence increased this resulted in the dying of cultures like

Adi (1). Mali had so much gold that the value of gold decreased dramatically and hasn’t returned to its normal price until 12 years later (Adi 1). “Africans were economically self-sufficient and socially stable when Europeans came to trade with them” they had so many resources and managed them so well such as; gold, resin, spices, orchil, and cattle (M’Baye 611). The forced diaspora of African people challenged the diminishing populations survival as they were stripped of their resources and many were either killed by the Europeans or left to starve (Lovejoy 1). Dr. Hakim Adi states, “the human and other resources that were taken from Africa contributed to the capitalist development and wealth of Europe” however, the loss of potential population and resources in Africa was a major factor of its economic underdevelopment (Adi 1). During the slave trade, people emigrated as far away from slave factories and spent their time defending themselves, which is the cause of their hindered technological and economic development (Lovejoy 1). Another factor of the economic aridity would be the population of bandits newly formed in West Africa because of European demands for more captives; the developing states that never fully settled were also another factor of the underdevelopment (M’Baye 611). “Once slave