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The Origins of Slavery
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Sojourner © 2009
The Beginnings of Slavery
• A majority of the world’s
cultures in pre-industrial times
practiced some form of forced
labor.
• People were enslaved for many
reasons. These reasons
included: being captured in
battle, being a debtor, being
born into slavery, or being
punished for a crime.
Slave market in early medieval
Eastern Europe.
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Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade
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The Atlantic Slave Trade involved the forced
migration of enslaved Africans to the New
World.
An estimated ten to fifteen million Africans were
transported between the fifteenth and nineteenth
centuries.
These captives were transported from Africa to
Europe, the West Indies, and tropical and
subtropical regions of the Americas. A majority
of these Africans were forced to work on
plantations.
The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade vastly changed
the racial, social, economic, and cultural makeup
of the American nations; and it left a legacy of
racism in the Americas that endures today.
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Roots of the Trans-Atlantic
Slave Trade
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The slave trade was largely fueled by the
demand of New World plantation owners who
sought abundant and inexpensive labor.
They experimented with English laborers and
Native-American laborers, but these workers
proved problematic.
English indentured servants retained their rights
as English citizens and could only be held in
servitude for a limited time. Native Americans
were not resistant to European diseases and
could escape easily.
African labor filled the plantation owners’ needs.
These laborers had strong immune systems; and
since they were so far from their homelands,
their chances of escape were decreased. Also,
because of their darker skin, Africans could be
easily segregated and identified as slaves.
A diagram of a Trans-Atlantic Slave Ship
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The Middle Passage
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The trip from the west coast of Africa
to the Americas was called the Middle
Passage.
Depending on the place of origin, the
final destination, and the weather, the
trip could take twenty-five to sixty
days.
An estimated 2.5 million men,
women, and children died during the
Middle Passage.
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The Middle Passage
Continued
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Before their horrific voyage, Africans were
captured in slave raids; and many had to march
up to 500 miles to the coastline. Once they
reached the coast, captured Africans were
imprisoned in fortresses until they were loaded
onto ships.
On board the ships the captives were kept below
decks at night. These decks were only four or
five feet high, and people were stacked on top of
one another.
Male captives were left shackled at all times, but
women and children were relatively free on the
ship. Many female captives fell prey to sexual
abuse from the ship’s crew.
On average, captives were given two meals a
day and a pint of water.
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Conditions Aboard the Ships
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The conditions aboard the cargo ships
were extremely unsanitary, and enslaved
Africans often became sick by consuming
contaminated food and water.
Although the ship’s doctors often
segregated the sickest captives from
everyone else, diseases spread rapidly.
Dysentery was the deadliest of the shipborn diseases.
Slaves generally arrived at their
destinations so weak and covered with
sores that they had to be placed in special
barracks called barracoons to be restored
to health before they could be sold.
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Africans Arrive in the Americas
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If they survived the perilous Middle
Passage, captive Africans faced a host
of new challenges. These included
acclimating to new climates, new
diets, new languages of their captors,
and a new array of deadly diseases.
Mortality rates for enslaved Africans
were very high. However, many
Africans brought with them a fierce
determination to survive, to retain the
critical elements of their own culture,
and to build new families despite
difficult conditions.
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Slaves on the Plantations
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Most of the enslaved Africans labored on
plantations in Latin America and on
Caribbean islands.
Here they faced some of the harshest
living conditions and suffered extremely
high mortality rates. Slaves working on
sugar plantations in the Caribbean had a
life expectance of only two to three years.
Fewer than six percent of all Africans
were brought to the British North
American colonies.
By 1775, about 800,000 African slaves
labored in the thirteen colonies that
became the United States.
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Abolition of the Slave Trade
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By the late 1700s in both Great Britain and
America, religious leaders were attacking the
slave trade as immoral. In America the Quakers
led many of these attacks.
Additionally, the American Revolution’s and the
French Revolution’s declarations about human
freedom undermined slavery’s legitimacy.
Also, in the late 1700s Europe’s economy began
shifting from agricultural to industrial. This
economic shift reduced the demand for slave
labor.
The slave trade ended in the early nineteenth
century. It ended first in Great Britain, and in
1808 the United States formally ended the
Atlantic slave trade. However, illegal smuggling
of Africans continued until the 1850s.
President John Adams fought to end the slave
trade for nearly twenty years.
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Legacy of the Atlantic Slave Trade
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The millions of transported Africans
affected the Americas racially, socially,
culturally, and intellectually.
Today, people of African descent dominate
the populations of the islands of the
Caribbean.
African influence is particularly notable in
the United States in the performing arts,
cuisine, building styles, and language.
Often forgotten is the impact of the
Atlantic slave trade on Africa. During the
three centuries when West Africa was
about to enter its own industrial
revolution, millions of people were
kidnapped; and entire societies disrupted
or destroyed.
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Sojourner © 2009