Ivan Carrion Mr. Michael Campbell HIST 3201 10/10/22 African Slavery in the New World Slavery has been all around the world existing for millennia in varying forms affecting all types of races, genders, and age groups. Only in recent times was slavery outlawed globally by the United Nations Assembly by adopting the declaration of human rights in 1948 which specified that freedom from slavery is a universal human right and it is prohibited to be executed in any way or form. Now to this day slavery was looked back and considered a horrible thing to do to anyone but why was African slavery justified in the new world? Well, the answer is actually quite simple. As the Americas were being discovered by the Europeans there was a huge demand in mining gold, in growing sugar and tobacco as well. Initially the first slaves to be working would be in the goldmines which would be indigenous people from the Caribbean for example the Tainos. Tainos were hard labored, gathered diseases from the Europeans and were treated horribly which led to an eventual need of labor since their numbers were eventually reduced. As Diego Colon thought and said: “Indian slaves do not work hard enough”. This need of labor lead to the first African slaves to be sent to mine in the Americas in 1501 or 1502. Eventually more African slaves were sent to the Americas as more production of these materials was very profitable and most importantly slaves were considered disposable and easy to take care of since they were only fed to work and were put through very harsh and intense conditions to work. The Portuguese were thought to be the first to capture and enslave Africans who were brought to the Americas and other Europeans followed this practice, but the Spanish also began to capture indigenous slaves and bring them back to Spain in small amounts. Later on the Dutch began to break the monopoly and started to dominate for some time while the French and the English entered the Atlantic slave trade in the late 17th century. These countries benefited greatly from the Atlantic trade since it allowed them to: “amass raw materials that fed the industrial Revolution to the detriment of African societies whose capacity to transform their modes of production into a viable entrepreneurial economy was severely halted”. As these countries benefited from this, Africa on the other hand suffered drastically from this and their potential to develop economically was severely impaired. As you can see African slavery played a crucial role in the development of the modern world we see today and its economy. Slaves provided the labor power necessary to settle and develop the New World. Slaves also produced the products for the first mass consumer markets as mentioned before of tobacco, sugar but also cotton, cocoa, and coffee throughout the years. Without slaves there wouldn’t have been a great economy and the world we see today in the Americas would have been greatly underdeveloped. This doesn’t mean that these practices were morally right, but it is an important to think where we would we be today without slavery. References “Slavery in History.” The History Press, https://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/articles/slavery-inhistory/. Timmons, Greg. “How Slavery Became the Economic Engine of the South.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 6 Mar. 2018, https://www.history.com/news/slavery-profitablesouthern-economy#:~:text=Archives%2FGetty%20Images,Slavery%20was%20so%20profitable%2C%20it%20sprouted%20more%20millionaires%2 0per%20capita,engine%20of%20the%20burgeoning%20nation. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10848770600918091?journalCode=cele20#:~:t ext=The%20Europeans%2C%20on%20the%20other,entrepreneurial%20economy%20was%20se verely%20halted. https://sistemauprmy.sharepoint.com/personal/michael_campbell_upr_edu/_layouts/15/stream.aspx?id=%2Fper sonal%2Fmichael_campbell_upr_edu%2FDocuments%2FRecordings%2FSlavery%20%20Translatlantic%20Slave%20Trade-20220916_145131-Meeting%20Recording%2Emp4&ga=1
