Transatlantic Slave Trade History

A. Using Azevedo’s Chapter4 summarize the history of the transatlantic slave trade highlighting how and why it was conducted Transatlantic slave trade was conducted in the period between 1500 and 1900. It involved obtaining people from West and Central Africa and transporting them across the Atlantic Ocean to South America, North America, and Europe as an item of trade. The people that were obtained from Africa and exchanged with either gold, spices, or silver were termed as slaves. The transatlantic slave trade involved Europeans, Asians, and Africans. West Africa was the main supplier of slaves and the main trading regions for slaves were Gold Coast, and Benin. War captives, and people with socially unacceptable behaviors were the main

The victims were mostly men in their prime age. They had young families that were in the process of developing themselves in their region. The separation from their wives and young children with no hope of seen them again caused psychological torture to the slaves. They experiences the pain and guilty of leaving their parents when they needed them most in their old age. The fear of the unknown had negative physiological effects on the enslaved persons. They never knew much about the new land they were headed to. Even after arriving in the Europeans’ plantations, they could hardly bear with the totally new place and people. Some slaves developed illness and died on the way to America or shortly after landing due to the immense psychological

They started forming resistance movements to fight against the vise. Africans who cooperated with Asians and Europeans in the trade were sought and killed. However, because of the secretive nature of the business, it was difficult to eradicate slavery. Some strong kingdoms sold captives of war to the Europeans, and therefore could not be stopped from engaging in the trade. The need for the European manufactured products in West Africa forced middlemen to carry out their slaves search with determination. European investors offered protection to the middlemen and kingdoms that sold slaves to them. Disunity among Africans, and existence of rich middlemen and kingdoms that had interest in the transatlantic slave trade made it impossible to prevent slave trade in the West and Central Africa. The slave trade continued until the industrial revolution era when Europeans realized machines would work better and faster than human