A class divided
Forum #2 (Chapters 2 and 3):
How did the Atlantic slave trade began, and how did the slave trade within Africa compare/contrast to the later slave trade with the Europeans?
In order to operate huge tracts of land as effective farms, the white land owners of the New World, which included what later became America, the Caribbean, and South America, sought slaves from Africa to do the work required to make the white men rich. Slave trade between Africa and the Americas began soon after Columbus arrived in the New World, but it grew slowly at first. For about the first hundred years, starting in the early 1500s, it was mainly indentured white servants brought from Europe, and Native Americans, who worked the farms, partly because slaves were too expensive at the time to be bought in mass numbers.
Slavery had already existed worldwide for thousands of years, including in Africa, before the first slaves were brought to America. Black slaves in the millions were captured by other blacks, as well as by Arabs and others, in the interior of the African continent, and sent to other countries, largely to Muslim nations.
Though Africans had also enslaved other Africans for thousands of years before slave trade with the Americas, and slaves living in Africa were sometimes subject to abuse and death that non-slaves were not, it was not marked by the same kind of lifelong servitude as occurred to African slaves outside Africa. Slavery as practiced by Africans was originally similar to European serfdom, which was the condition of most white Europeans at the time. Slaves could marry, own property and even own slaves, and slavery usually ended after a certain number of years of servitude. Also, African slavery was never passed from one generation to another.
However, since the slave trade between Africa and other countries was rather different from European serfdom, largely because slaves were less often allowed to become free, were more often considered property, and it was
How did the Atlantic slave trade began, and how did the slave trade within Africa compare/contrast to the later slave trade with the Europeans?
In order to operate huge tracts of land as effective farms, the white land owners of the New World, which included what later became America, the Caribbean, and South America, sought slaves from Africa to do the work required to make the white men rich. Slave trade between Africa and the Americas began soon after Columbus arrived in the New World, but it grew slowly at first. For about the first hundred years, starting in the early 1500s, it was mainly indentured white servants brought from Europe, and Native Americans, who worked the farms, partly because slaves were too expensive at the time to be bought in mass numbers.
Slavery had already existed worldwide for thousands of years, including in Africa, before the first slaves were brought to America. Black slaves in the millions were captured by other blacks, as well as by Arabs and others, in the interior of the African continent, and sent to other countries, largely to Muslim nations.
Though Africans had also enslaved other Africans for thousands of years before slave trade with the Americas, and slaves living in Africa were sometimes subject to abuse and death that non-slaves were not, it was not marked by the same kind of lifelong servitude as occurred to African slaves outside Africa. Slavery as practiced by Africans was originally similar to European serfdom, which was the condition of most white Europeans at the time. Slaves could marry, own property and even own slaves, and slavery usually ended after a certain number of years of servitude. Also, African slavery was never passed from one generation to another.
However, since the slave trade between Africa and other countries was rather different from European serfdom, largely because slaves were less often allowed to become free, were more often considered property, and it was