How did European traders get slaves?
According to John K. Thornton, Europeans usually bought enslaved people who were captured in endemic warfare between African states. Some Africans had made a business out of capturing Africans from neighboring ethnic groups or war captives and selling them.
How did Europe get slaves from Africa?
Africans were either captured in warring raids or kidnapped and taken to the port by African slave traders. There they were exchanged for iron, guns, gunpowder, mirrors, knives, cloth, and beads brought by boat from Europe. When Europeans arrived along the West African coast, slavery already existed on the continent.
How did Europe benefit from the African slave trade?
The profits gained from the slave trade gave the British economy an extra source of capital. Both the Americas and Africa, whose economies depended on slavery, became useful additional export markets for British manufacturers. Certain British individuals, businesses, and ports prospered on the basis of the slave trade.
How was the African slave trade before European involvement?
The slave trade was not so massive before the arrival of the Europeans. Before Europeans, slaves were mostly prisoners who worked for the rich, worked on irrigation, or were artists, soldiers, or merchants. After the arrival of the Europeans, slaves were bought en masse to work as the main labor force in the colonies.
Why did slavery start in Africa?
Slavery in northern Africa dates back to ancient Egypt. The New Kingdom (1558–1080 BC) brought in large numbers of slaves as prisoners of war up the Nile valley and used them for domestic and supervised labour. Ptolemaic Egypt (305 BC–30 BC) used both land and sea routes to bring slaves in.
What did Africa trade with Europe?
During the so-called triangular trade that ensued from European colonization of Africa, slaves were purchased in West Africa, shipped to the Americas to produce cotton etc. The cotton was then shipped to Europe and converted into textiles. The textiles were then shipped to Africa in exchange for more slaves.
Who benefited from the slave trade?
Slave owners in the Lower South profited because the people they purchased were forced to labor in the immensely productive cotton and sugar fields. The merchants who supplied clothing and food to the slave traders profited, as did steamboat, railroad, and ship owners who carried enslaved people.
What effect did the slave trade have on Africa?
The effect of slavery in Africa Other states were completely destroyed and their populations decimated as they were absorbed by rivals. Millions of Africans were forcibly removed from their homes, and towns and villages were depopulated. Many Africans were killed in slaving wars or remained enslaved in Africa.
How were slaves treated in Africa?
Slaves were often treated as part of their owner's family, rather than simply property. The distribution of gender among enslaved peoples under traditional lineage slavery saw women as more desirable slaves due to demands for domestic labour and for reproductive reasons.
How did slave trading start in Africa?
In the fifteenth century, Portugal became the first European nation to take significant part in African slave trading. The Portuguese primarily acquired slaves for labor on Atlantic African island plantations, and later for plantations in Brazil and the Caribbean, though they also sent a small number to Europe.
How were African slaves captured and sold?
The capture and sale of enslaved Africans Most of the Africans who were enslaved were captured in battles or were kidnapped, though some were sold into slavery for debt or as punishment. The captives were marched to the coast, often enduring long journeys of weeks or even months, shackled to one another.
How did slavery start in Africa?
Slavery existed in Africa before Europeans arrived. However, their demand for slave labour was so great that traders and their agents searched far inland, devastating the region. Powerful African leaders fuelled the practice by exchanging enslaved people for goods such as alcohol, beads and cloth.
What was the main cause of slavery?
European settlers brought a system of slavery with them to the western hemisphere in the 1500s. Unable to find cheap labor from other sources, white settlers increasingly turned to slaves imported from Africa. By the early 1700s in British North America, slavery meant African slavery.
How did the slave trade work?
The transatlantic slave trade generally followed a triangular route: Traders set out from European ports towards Africa's west coast. There they bought people in exchange for goods and loaded them into the ships. The voyage across the Atlantic, known as the Middle Passage, generally took 6 to 8 weeks.
What was the difference between African slavery and European slavery?
Another difference between transatlantic and modern slavery is related to profitability and disposability. In the transatlantic slave trade, the focus of slave traders was on Africa and the high cost of transporting these people meant that once they were enslaved they were often maintained and reproduced.
What was slavery like in Africa?
Domestic service. Many slave relationships in Africa revolved around domestic slavery, where slaves would work primarily in the house of the master, but retain some freedoms. Domestic slaves could be considered part of the master's household and would not be sold to others without extreme cause.
Who started slavery?
Sumer or Sumeria is still thought to be the birthplace of slavery, which grew out of Sumer into Greece and other parts of ancient Mesopotamia. The Ancient East, specifically China and India, didn't adopt the practice of slavery until much later, as late as the Qin Dynasty in 221 BC.
What were three reasons for the growth of slavery?
High European demand for cash crops (Tobacco, sugar, and rice), Difficulty in enslaving Natives, and lack of indentured servants were the reasons for growth of slavery.
How were slaves traded in Africa?
In African ports, European traders exchanged metals, cloth, beads, guns, and ammunition for captive Africans brought to the coast from the African interior, primarily by African traders. Many captives died just during the long overland journeys from the interior to the coast.
How was slavery practiced in Africa?
Slavery within Africa was different. A slave might be enslaved in order to pay off a debt or pay for a crime. Slaves in Africa lost the protection of their family and their place in society through enslavement. But eventually they or their children might become part of their master's family and become free.
What did slaves do?
Besides planting and harvesting, there were numerous other types of labor required on plantations and farms. Enslaved people had to clear new land, dig ditches, cut and haul wood, slaughter livestock, and make repairs to buildings and tools.
When did slavery start in Europe?
Beginning in the 16th century, European merchants initiated the transatlantic slave trade, purchasing enslaved Africans from West African kingdoms and transporting them to Europe's colonies in the Americas.
What methods were used to obtain slaves?
Many African slaves were taken by force, or kidnapped, even if it was not a time of war for the people of that nation. If a European found a village that looked particularly weak or few in numbers, the entire population of that village could be taken by force with the use of firearms.
How did African slaves keep their culture alive?
And yet, even though they were forbidden from practising anything that related to their African culture and heritage, the native Africans kept it and their languages alive in America. One important way of doing this was through folk tales, which the African slaves used as a way of recording their experiences.
How did slavery begin in Africa?
Slavery existed in Africa before Europeans arrived. However, their demand for slave labour was so great that traders and their agents searched far inland, devastating the region. Powerful African leaders fuelled the practice by exchanging enslaved people for goods such as alcohol, beads and cloth.
How did slaves cope with slavery?
Slaveholders depended on involuntary labor to keep their businesses solvent, and enslaved workers often used work slowdowns and absenteeism to negotiate some of the terms of their labor. Many enslaved African Americans defied the slave system by leaving it.
How did enslaved people create community and a culture that allowed them to survive in an oppressive society?
How did enslaved people create community and a culture that allowed the to survive in an oppressive society? Slaves often practiced their religion, a combination of traditional African beliefs and Christianity, secretly with their own ministers.
How were the slaves acquired in Africa?
The capture and sale of enslaved Africans Most of the Africans who were enslaved were captured in battles or were kidnapped, though some were sold into slavery for debt or as punishment. The captives were marched to the coast, often enduring long journeys of weeks or even months, shackled to one another.
How did enslaved Africans cope?
Enslaved people adopted a variety of mechanisms to cope with the degrading realities of life on the plantation. They resisted slavery through everyday acts, while also occasionally plotting larger-scale revolts.
What methods were used to control slaves?
It included whippings, slave laws called slave codes, the use of religion, as well as constant punishment and intimidation. All these methods were designed to control slaves and keep them working. None of them were completely successful, but they help explain why slavery lasted for 250 years.