The Slave Trade And Its Effects On Early America Essay -- essays resea

The Slave Trade and Its Effects on Early AmericaSlavery contend an important role in the development of the Americancolonies. It was introduced to the colonies in 1619, and spanned until theEmancipation Proclamation in 1863. The trading of break ones backs in America in theseventeenth atomic number 6 was a large industry. Slaves were captured from their homesin Africa, shipped to America under extremely poor conditions, and then sold tothe highest bidder, put to work, and forced to live with the new conditions ofAmerica.There was no mercy for the slaves and their families as they werecaptured from their homes and forced onto slave ships. Most of the Africans whowere captured lived in small villages in West Africa. A typical villagetakeover would occur early in the morning. An enemy tribe would raid thevillage, and then burn the huts to the ground. Most of the people who were takenby surprise were killed or captured few escaped. The captured Africans werenow on their way to the s lave ships. Bound together two by two with heavywooden yokes fastened around their necks, a long line of calamitous men and womenplodded down a well-worn path through the dense forest. Most of the men wereburdened with huge elephants tusks. Others, and many of the women too, borebaskets or bales of food. microscopical boys and girls trudged along beside theirparents, eyes wide in fear and wonder (McCague, 14).After they were marched often hundreds of miles, it was time for them tobe shipped off to sea, so that they could be sold as cheap labor to help harvestthe new world. But before they were shipped off, they had to pass through aslave-trading station. The slave trade, which was first controlled by Portugal,was now controlled by other European nations. In the late 1600s, Spain,Holland, England, France and Denmark were all sending ships to West Africa. Theslave trade was becoming big business (Goodman, 7).Selection of the slaves by the traders was a painstaking process. Shipsfrom England would pull up on the coast of Africa, and the captains would setoff towards the coast on small ships. If the slave trader was a black chief, at that place always had to be a certain amount of palaver, or talk, before getting downto business. As a rule, the chief would expect some pr... ...m for slave owners, because they wanted the mostefficiency out of their slaves as possible. In some places doctors were calledin to treat blacks as well as whites.The slave trade play an important role in the growth of the Americancolonies. Without the trading of slaves in the seventeenth century, Americanplantations would not have prospered into the export empire that they were.Works CitedBuckmaster, Henrietta. let My People Go. Boston Beacon Press, 1941.Davis, David Brion. Slavery and Human Progress. crude York Oxford UniversityPress,1984.DuBois, William Edward Burghardt. The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade totheUnited States of America. New York Schocken Books, 1969.Goodman, Wa lter. Black Bondage the Life of Slaves in the South. New YorkFarrar,Straus & Giroux, 1969.Howard, Richard. Black Cargo. New York G. P. Putnams Sons, 1972.McCague, James. The Long Bondage 1441-1815. Illinois Garrard PublishingCompany, 1972.Stampp, Kenneth M. The Peculiar Institution. New York Borzoi Books, 1982.