Summary: The Atlantic Slave Trade

Most of the men had scars on their back. The scars were from the ship owners tying them up to a pole and hitting the slaves on the back with a whip. Also the slaves were very dirty. They were covered by other peoples waste because there wasnt any room for them to do their buisness. You could only lay on your side because there is too many people.

The Atlantic Slave Trade was the movement of Africans to the Americas as slaves. The slave trader, Captain Thomas Phillip in document B he says “ We endure twice the misery; and yet by their mortality our voyages are ruined. ”(Phillips). He is saying that they are dying and that it isn’t a good thing, but for a different reason. He also says “But what the smallpox spared, the flux swept off, to our great regret, after all our pains and care to give [the slaves] their messes,... keeping their lodgings as clean and sweet as possible…”(Phillips).

Many slaves died of measles, smallpox, malaria, and dysentery (The Slave

The prisoners were abducted from their homes or surrounding areas and used in the triangle trades as slaves. The conditions were horrendous. They were bound with ropes and chains and forced to walk long distances, sometimes thousands of miles, to the slave ships. Often they had to carry heavy items as they walked. Men often had thick iron bands around their throats.

Economic factors created an enormous market for African slaves. Slave traders found it very profitable to send slaves to the New World, where slaves were needed to work on the farms. Without laws in place to prevent this trade, slavery became crucial.

Exploration to the New World led to greedy rulers wanting more. There were many new resources and opportunities to make money; for example tobacco, sugar, and even minerals. Because of the demand for these crops, the Europeans needed someone to do the work. With the Native American population drastically declining, the Europeans had to find another source of labor so they turned to the African Americans. This began the slave trade where millions of slaves were taken from Africa to other areas as a source of income.

Slaves endured an extreme amount of physical abuse. Some were whipped daily while others were starved. Slaves don't get to eat much each day. They were given a food allowance once a month. Some days they might not eat at all because they made their owners mad or they were being punished for doing something wrong.

At the beginning of their slavery, the unfortunate Africans were thrown onto unsanitary slave ships that were so overcrowded slaves were often piled on top of one another. Europeans did not treat the slaves like humans, who deserve and need their own space, they abused them and heaped them together in unsanitary piles. The fullness of these ships is depicted in the picture of a slave ship in Document 5 that shows how the bodies were sorted together. The close proximity and the unsanitary conditions, that resulted from the neglect of slave traders, lead to disease and sickness that broke their internal body and often stole their lives. Many slave traders tried to hide a slaves sickness in order to sell them at a market.

The Atlantic Slave Trade was one of the largest and inhumane human slavery systems in history. William Wilberforce played a key part in its abolishment, however; he was not the sole person responsible for its downfall. William Wilberforce can be seen as the leader of the ‘abolitionist’s’, so it can be said that he had a large part to play in the slave trades abolition although there were other key people involved in its abolition like; Olaudah Equiano, John Newton, Thomas Fowell Buxton and Thomas Clarkson. There were also groups involved such as the Quakers and Women and Women’s groups. The abolishment of slavery was not due solely to the work of William Wilberforce because there were many people who aided him in his fight for its abolition

When the British colonized North America, there was a large demand for labor. This labor came in two forms, indentured servitude and slavery. Indentured servitude was very popular at first but slavery soon became a huge market. With the importation of hundreds of slaves from Africa, it became the easiest and cheapest way to supply labor to plantations. But these slaves were seen as property, not people.

Many of the sailors were accurately portrayed by their actions, by throwing slaves into the ocean, flogging, beaten, tortured, and other forms of cruel punishment. “Alexander Falconbridge was a surgeon on slave ships in the 18th century. An abolitionist and governor himself is guilty of all the violent attacks towards slaves. A disgraces to human nature, and profound language were brutal examples sailors often used towards slaves.” ( First Hand; Accounts Study).

26. they Triangular trade was the name given to the trade route the Europeans took to trade with Africa and the Americas. The trade route was known as the triangular trade because of the shape the trade route was in. The route went from Europe to Africa for slaves, the next was the "Middle Passage" the journey to the Americas to trade slaves for goods, and the next was the transportation of goods back to Europe.

Slavery took place in almost every country around the world; each country participated in slavery in one way, shape, or form. When the American Colonies began to from by English settlers, the idea of indentured servitude was brought over with them. Elite families depended on indentured servants to serve until their debt was paid, but as more settlers came, less people choose to come over and serve as indentured servants. As indentured servitude began to become less accepted, slavery was becoming more reliable through the slave trade. Slavery was introduced in Jamestown, Virginia in 1690 to help with the production of tobacco.

Diseases of all kinds and the lack of food plague the slaves and kill many. Equiano relives his trauma in great detail to give the reader an image of the slave ships. He does this to convince people that slavery ultimately must come to an

Living conditions for slaves were dreadful, with long work hours and low wages. Slave masters separated families and sold off children from their parents, or vice versa. Slaves were prone to severe punishment for even trivial offenses. Whippings and beatings were prevalent. Running away allowed them to get away from all the hostility, if only for a while.