Lesson 3: The African
Slave Trade
UNIT 5: THE ECONOMY OF RESOURCES
What do you think?
What is Slavery?
Slavery is when a person owns or has complete control of
another person or people.
The African Slave Trade was a mass involuntary migration of
Africans to the Americas.
Atlantic/African Slave trade
The Portuguese began exploring the western coast of Africa
in the 1400’s. They were interested in Africa’s gold. They
established trading posts along the western coast. Soon after
they arrived, they also began to ship black Africans back to
Portugal so they could sell them as slaves.
Atlantic/African Slave trade
At the time, the new world in the Americas was growing by
leaps and bounds. European colonists were establishing
plantations in North and South America. They wanted slaves
to do the hard, undesirable labor. Portugal sold slaves to
work on sugar plantations that its colonists had developed in
Brazil. Spain also sold slaves to work on its sugar plantations
in the Caribbean. As America’s colonies grew, Europeans
wanted slaves to work there, too.
Atlantic/African Slave trade
But Europeans weren’t the first to buy and sell slaves.
Africans sold slaves to Asia and Europe long before the
Portuguese arrived. In most cases, the slaves were captured
in warfare. The Portuguese and Spanish obtained slaves
from black Africans who continued to sell their war
prisoners. They would trade slaves for a range of goods,
especially guns. Many Africans used guns when warring with
neighboring peoples.
Atlantic/African Slave trade
European colonists tried to use Native Americans as slaves
as well. However, most of these slaves became very ill. They
couldn’t handle the foreign diseases brought over by the
Europeans. Eventually, only Africans were used in slavery.
From the 1500’s to the mid-1800’s, over ten million slaves
were shipped across the Atlantic Ocean. The trip from Africa
to the Americas took several months and the conditions
were brutal. Slave ships were overcrowded and filthy. Over
two million slaves died during the voyage.
Atlantic/African Slave trade
About 500,000 African slaves were brought to what is now
the United States. Most worked in the south on cotton and
tobacco plantations. By the mid 1800’s, one third of the
south was inhabited by slaves. In 1807, it became illegal to
import slaves into the United States. Not long after, other
countries followed suit. Slavery was abolished in Europe. It
was also banned in South America and the Caribbean.
Read and annotate
Although other people, both white and Native American,
have been held as slaves in North America, the experience
of the African people who were forced to come to North
America as slaves was more unusual, because there are
more slaves living in the new countries they were being
brought to than natives or European settlers…
What were they? The 5 W’s!
Who?
What?
When?
Where?
Why?
Independent Work
Write 10 sentences explaining what the 5 W’s. Make sure to
include TWO pieces of evidence from the reading to show
how you know what you’re talking about!
Exit Ticket (answers on an index card)
1. What was the Great Dying?
2. Which continents were involved in the African Slave
Trade?
3. How do you know that the slave trade was involuntary?
4. What is the most important fact you learned about the
African Slave Trade today?