Atlantic Slave Trade Research Paper
Patrick Duff
HI 10 D Toler
February 26, 2015
The Atlantic Slave Trade In the seventeenth and eighteenth century, the number of human exports from Africa began to soar. Over this time, 12.8 million Africans were forcibly enslaved and shipped to Atlantic ports to be used for trade and sale. By 1820, four slaves had crossed the Atlantic for every European. Salves were the most important reason for contact between Europeans and Africans. The Atlantic Ocean became a commercial highway that integrated the histories of Africa, Europe, and the Americas for the first time. Around 1670, the most populous English colony was not on the North American mainland, but on the Caribbean island of Barbados. Since sugar was so desirable, from the mid-seventeenth …show more content…
The English took Jamaica from the Spanish and made it the premier site of Caribbean sugar by the 1740s. When the French seized half of Santo Domingo in the 1660s, they created one of the wealthiest societies based on slavery of all time. This French colony’s exports eclipsed those of all Spanish and English Antilles combined. The capital, Port-au-Prince, was one of the richest cities in the Atlantic world. The colony’s merchants and planters built immense mansions worthy of the highest Europeans nobles. All of this, however, was very detrimental to many of the inhabitants of …show more content…
In some parts of Africa, the booming slave trade wreaked havoc as local leaders feuded over control of the traffic. In the Kongo kingdom, civil wars raged for over a century. Most important to the conduct of war and the control of trade were firearms and gunpowder, which made the capturing of slaves highly efficient. Also, kidnapping became so prevalent that field workers concealed weapons and left their children behind in guarded stockades. Some leaders of the Kongo kingdom fought back, such as Queen Nzinga. Nzinga was a masterful diplomat and a smart military planner. She managed to keep Portuguese slavers at bay during her long reign. Her message aimed to end the Kongo civil wars and re-create a unified kingdom. Although she gained many followers, she failed to win support of leading political figures. She was later captured and
HI 10 D Toler
February 26, 2015
The Atlantic Slave Trade In the seventeenth and eighteenth century, the number of human exports from Africa began to soar. Over this time, 12.8 million Africans were forcibly enslaved and shipped to Atlantic ports to be used for trade and sale. By 1820, four slaves had crossed the Atlantic for every European. Salves were the most important reason for contact between Europeans and Africans. The Atlantic Ocean became a commercial highway that integrated the histories of Africa, Europe, and the Americas for the first time. Around 1670, the most populous English colony was not on the North American mainland, but on the Caribbean island of Barbados. Since sugar was so desirable, from the mid-seventeenth …show more content…
The English took Jamaica from the Spanish and made it the premier site of Caribbean sugar by the 1740s. When the French seized half of Santo Domingo in the 1660s, they created one of the wealthiest societies based on slavery of all time. This French colony’s exports eclipsed those of all Spanish and English Antilles combined. The capital, Port-au-Prince, was one of the richest cities in the Atlantic world. The colony’s merchants and planters built immense mansions worthy of the highest Europeans nobles. All of this, however, was very detrimental to many of the inhabitants of …show more content…
In some parts of Africa, the booming slave trade wreaked havoc as local leaders feuded over control of the traffic. In the Kongo kingdom, civil wars raged for over a century. Most important to the conduct of war and the control of trade were firearms and gunpowder, which made the capturing of slaves highly efficient. Also, kidnapping became so prevalent that field workers concealed weapons and left their children behind in guarded stockades. Some leaders of the Kongo kingdom fought back, such as Queen Nzinga. Nzinga was a masterful diplomat and a smart military planner. She managed to keep Portuguese slavers at bay during her long reign. Her message aimed to end the Kongo civil wars and re-create a unified kingdom. Although she gained many followers, she failed to win support of leading political figures. She was later captured and