Slave Trade

 Between 1600 and 1750, slave trade, especially from Africa, increased substantially with the discovery of the New World because Europeans needed labor for their newly acquired sugar plantations.

Historical Context

With the growing demand for sugar, the Europeans began setting up sugar plantation in the New World. At first, they used Native Americans as the plantation slave laborers. However, many of them began dying from diseases like smallpox that the Europeans brought with them when they conquered the land. Because of this, the Europeans needed to find another source of labor that was more resistant to their diseases: Africa.

Slave trade began slowly. Its main purpose was to provide enough slave laborers to work on the sugar plantations, though sugar was not a sought after commodity at first. However, once Europeans developed a taste for sugarcane, the demand for it increased and so did the need for slaves. The Portuguese, who were also the leaders in overseas excursions, were the ones who really starting overseas slave trade. Close behind them were the Spanish, the Dutch, the English, and the French, who had all claimed land in the New World.

Once they arrived in the Americas, slave laborers were sent to work on the plantations were thousands died of disease and exhaustion. Because of this, slave owners were constantly in need for more slaves. The need for slaves increased substantially between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Slaves were not only mistreated once they reached the Americas, coming over; they were forced onto ships that were overcrowded, filthy, and disease ridden. Most of the slaves who were taken were men because the plantation owners did not want to have to feed and provide for children, so the slave trade gave way to a huge gender imbalance in both the Americas and Africa.



Global Context

The transportation of slaves had a severe economic impact on Africa, but the wealthy Europeans benefitted greatly from it because they profited off of the sugarcane that was harvested. The environment was also impacted because the Europeans had to destroy forests, vegetation, and habitats to make room for their plantations. The sugarcane plant ate up a lot of the nutrients in the soil, making it extremely hard for other plants and trees to grow. One of the biggest things that came away from the African slave trade was the dominance that the Europeans, especially Great Britain, established for themselves.

Works Cited

Tignor, Robert, Jeremy Adelman, Stephan Aron, Stephan Kotkin, Suzanne Marchand, Gyan Prakash, and Michael Tsin. Worlds Together Worlds Apart: A History of the World, From 1000 CE to Present. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, Inc, 2011

(Image)

http://www.slaverysite.com/Body/maps.htm