Europe, Africa, and the Americas interact
What happens when people are forced to migrate against their will?
Vocabulary- plantation, triangle trade, Middle Passage, racism.
African Societies grew rich in the 1500’s by trading spices, ivory, cloth, tools, and
slaves.
Arrival of Europeans brought changes to kingdoms of Kanem-Bornu, Benin, Oyo,
Ashanti, Dahomey, Kongo.
The Portuguese were the first Europeans to establish settlements.
African rulers allowed the stations as long as they were paid part of any profits.
Catholic priests taught the Africans about Christianity.
The Portuguese first traded for spices, gold and ivory
Slaves were eventually the main export of African trade.
The Settlers in American colonies demanded labor to work in mines and on the huge
farm plantations.
Europeans were not willing to do the hard farm work growing sugarcane, pineapples
cotton, tobacco, and coffee
Slaves provided that labor.
The Slave Trade
Conquered people have been enslaved throughout history. Usually they were treated
fairly and might win freedom.
European slavery was inhumane. Slaves were property to be bought and sold.
The Portuguese and other Europeans took part in the transatlantic slave trade.
Slave catchers went into the countryside and captured anyone they could.
The slaves were sold then loaded like cargo into ships bound for the Americas.
The trip was horrible. The system was known as the triangle trade. Europeans took
good to trade in Africa for slaves, shipped them to the Americas, and traded for
American plantation products to ship back to Europe .
The Middle Passage was the trip across the Atlantic where the slaves were traded or
sold for good to go back to Europe.
Olaudah Equiano was a former slave that has made the trip as a slave from Nigeria.
He wrote a a book about his life as a slave and became a leader in the movement to
end slavery.
12 million enslaved Africans were taken to the Americas. Many died.
Africa’s economy suffered because so many people were taken away.
Slavery caused racism and conflicts among people.
Slave traders had to think of the Africans as less than human
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo79PHVI-ck
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/1p277.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/1p277.html
The "Middle Passage" was the journey of slave trading ships from the west coast of Africa,
where the slaves were obtained, across the Atlantic, where they were sold or, in some cases,
traded for goods such as molasses, which was used in the making of rum. However, this voyage
has come to be remembered for much more than simply the transport and sale of slaves. The
Middle Passage was the longest, hardest, most dangerous, and also most horrific part of the
journey of the slave ships. With extremely tightly packed loads of human cargo that stank and
carried both infectious disease and death, the ships would travel east to west across the Atlantic
on a miserable voyage lasting at least five weeks, and sometimes as long as three months.
Although incredibly profitable for both its participants and their investing backers, the terrible
Middle Passage has come to represent the ultimate in human misery and suffering. The
abominable and inhuman conditions which the Africans were faced with on their voyage clearly
display the great evil of the slave trade.
Even before the first Africans were brought to the shores of Virginia in 1619, the slave trade had
become the basis for most aspects of the Atlantic economy. The Middle Passage across the
Atlantic became the essential part of a system of trading routes between Europe, Africa, and
North America. The exchange of goods along these routes became known collectively as the
triangular trade. Developed primarily by sea captains from England and New England, ships in
the triangular trade carried goods between Europe, Africa, and the new world, although not
necessarily in that order. The triangular trade system was highly successful because each region
produced goods which were not produced elsewhere, and therefore were considered extremely
valuable to the others, hence netting a great profit for the seamen who transported these goods.
England produced both textiles and manufactured goods which were not available in either North
America or Africa. These products, along with rum obtained from New England would be traded
in Africa for slaves and various riches such as gold and silver. Next, England would trade slaves
and their domestic goods to the West Indies, where sugar and molasses were available. From
there the sugar, molasses, and the remainder of the slaves, textiles, and domestic goods would be
traded in America for tobacco, fish, lumber, flour, foodstuffs, or perhaps rum which had been
distilled in New England. The triangular trade was obviously quite necessary at this time because
none of the regions were truly self-sufficient, each depended on the others for goods they could
not provide for themselves.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAs_ZmtuKOg&feature=endscreen&NR=1