ORIGINS OF SLAVE TRADE.   Term Paper ID:26305 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Examines effects of slavery on Africa, U.S. & Europe, economics, racist justification, servants, Indian slaves.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Examines effects of slavery on Africa, U.S. & Europe, economics, racist justification, servants, Indian slaves. Paper Introduction: Slavery developed in the American context beginning in the seventeenth century, and the institution was continued with various justifications for more than two and one-half centuries. The slave trade in Western Europe developed in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Slavery had a long history by that time, and slavery in Africa was a well-established institution. African slavery had one difference for most of its history: At least in some portions of Africa there was no racial basis of slavery. The Egyptians enslaved whatever peoples they captured. At times they were Semitic, at times Mediterranean, and at other times blacks from Nubia. Historians have offered differing perspectives on the reason why Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. Basil Davidson traces the developmentof attitudes on the part of European settlers not only toward black slavesbut toward the Indians encountered on the frontier. [2]Basil Davidson, The African Slave Trade (Boston: Little, Brown andCompany, 1961), 99. The townsstarted as fortified walled villages and then evolved into largercommunities serving different purposes: Here, of course, were the center of governments and the teeming markets filled with goods from distant regions. and Sandra W. Even if it had been, it would have been insufficient for the robust agricultural life that the Europeans colonies were fostering in the seventeenth century. [4]Ibid., 277-278. [11]Ibid., 252. Haggerty, Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies(Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1989),4-5.----------------------- 9 New York: Da Capo, 1993.Wood, Betty. Obviously,though, the attitude was a two-edged sword in that a reaction built inwhich those who saw the moral wrong of slavery and who consideredthemselves morally superior had to fight against the institution and all itrepresented. Spielvogel, World History: VolumeI (New York: West Publishing, 1994), 249. New York: West Publishing, 1994.Franklin, John Hope and Alfred A. From Slavery to Freedom. Moss Jr., From Slavery to Freedom(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1994), 27. Banking houses, shipyards, mercantile establishments, and the homes of the newly rich could use only a limited number of slaves.[5]Blacks arrived in the New World first as crew members and explorers and notonly as slaves. Economic need thus led to the English coloniesjoining in a practice already in place. However,Franklin and Moss seem to agree with Davidson and others that the attitudeof racial superiority developed over time in part as a function of theexistence of slavery. As noted, Indians wereused first because they were available, but the Indians were alsosusceptible to diseases brought by Europeans and were also not ready forthe kind of work required under the plantation economy: Nowhere was Indian slavery profitable. Theeconomic needs of agriculture in the New World had much to do with slaverythere, but the Spanish and Portuguese were already engaged in slavery inEurope when they first enslaved the Native Americans of the region and thenbrought slaves from Africa to work the sugar plantations of Haiti andsimilar regions.[13] The system was unrealistic and highly destructive tothe Indian population, which died off rapidly from exhaustion, starvation,disease, and other causes. African servants were easier to control and could becaught because they were of a different color. Hanratty and Sandra W. Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies. [7]Ibid., 32. Both were strangers, both were apparently uncivilized, and both were dark-skinned.[9] Europeans came to see both groups as inferior and so could justifyslavery and other actions taken against them. Betty Wood takes a different view and sees a racialcomponent from the beginning: The enslavement of West Africans by the English in the New World was a seventeenth-century phenomenon, but the roots of that enslavement lay in racial attitudes that took shape during the course of the previous century. The settlers wereprimarily interested in the exploitation of the natural resources of theNew World, and to this end cheap labor was needed. Other sources of labor supply would have to be tapped if agricultural development in the New World wa snot to be retarded by an insufficiency of workers.[6]Africans were employed at that time, but the colonists did not yet see themas a solution to the problem, and instead resorted to poor whites fromEurope, often indentured servants who signed over their lives for a periodof time. The supply was also insufficient in any case. While slavery in America was instituted by European settlers, theAfrican slave trade was never of much note in Europe itself: Although Europe was undergoing drastic economic change in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, its new economic institutions did not utilize Africans on a sufficiently large scale to make the trade excessively profitable. Many whiteservants ran away. Slavery: A World History: Volume II. Indeed,there was actually some gain from contact with Europe, especially inagriculture as the ships from South America introduced new and useful cropsthat would become of importance to Africa.[4] The slave trade itself droveEuropean attitudes as they came to see the people of Africa not as peoplebut as commodities to be capture, bought, and sold. and Jackson J. My own perspective on the slave trade was that it was transplanted tothe North American economic scene from origins in the Caribbean. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1988.Meltzer, Milton. African slavery had one difference for most ofits history: At least in some portions of Africa there was no racial basis of slavery. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1994.Haggerty, Richard A. Moss Jr. This did not necessarily mean that they would enslave Africans, but it did mean the colonists were likely to turn to Africans to satisfy their labor requirements.[8]Wood also finds that the people of Europe had a low opinion of the peopleof West Africa based on the image of the latter region developed insixteenth-century England. The decimation of the Indian population hadprofound consequences for the settlers needed a new source of labor to meetthe growing demands of sugarcane cultivation. The result was theimportation of African slaves beginning in 15 3, and by 152 , black Africanlabor was used almost exclusively.[14] This set a precedent later followedin the English colonies. With the supply of Africans apparently inexhaustible, there would be no more worries.[7] The view taken by Franklin and Moss emphasizes the economic element,and most theories of why slavery developed includes this component as areason why a large amount of labor was needed in the first place. For one thing, slaves in the African context were warprofits, and while this may have been true of initial forays by Muslims, inthe long run, slaves for Muslims and Europeans were an economic matterbased more on need at home than an accumulation of power over neighboringstates. BibliographyDavidson, Basil. They could also bepurchased outright so that in the long run they were cheaper thanindentured servants: African slavery, then, became a fixed institution, a solution to one of the most difficult New World problems. World History: Volume I. Spielvogel. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1961.Duiker, William J. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1989.Hanratty, Dennis M. . The idea of thenoble savage would give way to the view that the savage was simplyinferior, but in the beginning explorers like Charles Wheeler saw thesavage as closer to nature and thus more noble and happier in contrast tothe European: A Guinean. As aconsequence, two opposing conceptions developed in Europe: Henceforward, Europeans would be increasingly divided into two opposed views: one, the traditional, tending to hold that Africa had never possessed cultures that were worthy of respect or even of serious investigation; the other, the scientific, tending to argue the reverse.[3] Davidson discusses the slave trade from the point of view of aEuropean examining the damage done to Africa. Davidson saysexplicitly that the trade and the bitterness and contempt it brought laidthe foundation for future legends of "savage Africa." As long as Europeanswere superior in morality they could view their actions in the slave tradeas benefiting the enslaved people rather than harming them. England at the time was not advocatingenslavement of Africans but knew that slaves were being taken by Spain andPortugal, England's main European rivals. However, Franklin and Moss note that England came to see that whiteservants were unsatisfactory and might become more interested in industrythan agriculture. [13]Dennis M. [6]Ibid., 31. Slavery developed in the American context beginning in theseventeenth century, and the institution was continued with variousjustifications for more than two and one-half centuries. [14]Richard A. . The slave tradedeveloped at the same time as Europe began exploring new realms andencountering new peoples, and it was necessary for the white European todevelop some philosophical attitude which placed himself and the "noblesavage" he encountered in the wild on some sort of scale. Franklin and Moss find that Europeans did not at first seeAfricans as a solution to the growing labor problem. At times they were Semitic, at times Mediterranean, and at other times blacks from Nubia.[1]Historians have offered differing perspectives on the reason why slaverydeveloped in the Americas and what differences may be found between slaveryin Africa and slavery in America. [1 ]William J. Duiker and Jackson J. [12]Milton Meltzer, Slavery: A World History: Volume II (New York: DaCapo, 1993, 17). He is not considering theeffects on the slaves themselves so much as on the continent from whichthey were taken, and he finds that the consequences of the trade weredevastating to Africa, in no small part because of the racist attitudesdeveloped in white settlers there causing them to create as muchdevastation in the environment as they had done in the population. In the American context, most slavery did have a racial componentthough one that developed over time. The slave tradein Western Europe developed in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.Slavery had a long history by that time, and slavery in Africa was a well-established institution. by treading in the paths prescrib'd by his ancestors, paths natural, pleasant, and diverting, is in the plain road to be a good and happy man; but the European has sought so many inventions, and has endeavour'd to put so many restrictions upon nature, that it would be next to a miracle if he were either happy or good.[2]This attitude would be brought to bear in antislavery campaigns as someEuropeans fought against the institution, and ennobling the victims was oneway of showing how pernicious the institution itself might be. Meditz. There is some suggestion that, even before they embarked on their colonization of the North American mainland and the Caribbean, the English were already predisposed to regard west Africans as suitable candidates for enslavement. The Egyptians enslaved whatever peoples they captured. [3]Ibid., 1 . Wood agrees that the Englishturned first to the Native American population, but she also finds in thiselements similar to the African trade to come: In many respects, sixteenth-century English images of native Americans were not entirely dissimilar to those they were simultaneously constructing of West Africans. New York: Hill & Wang, 1997.----------------------- [1]John Hope Franklin and Alfred A. . [5]Franklin and Moss, 29. They took prisoners in war and forced them into domestic service, as they did to their criminals.[12]There was thus a historical difference in the way slavery developed and wasmaintained in Africa and the way it was developed and maintained by Muslimsand europeans. The Origins of American Slavery. The Africans like other peoples throughout the world, had practiced slavery since prehistoric times. . Colombia: A Country Study. The African Slave Trade. Slave tributes were exacted by the powerful from the weak . In truth, though, thepeoples of Africa were not as backward as Europeans liked to believe andhad developed major civilizations even before Europe did. [9]Ibid., 21. Meditz, Colombia: A Country Study(Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1988),12. [8]Betty Wood, The Origins of American Slavery (New York: Hill & Wang,1997), 2 . Here also were artisans, skilled in metal or wood working, pottery making, and other crafts, as well as some farmers who tilled the soil in the neighboring fields.[1 ]Africa had long had its own slave trade, a trade which reached "enormousproportions in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when Europeanslave ships transported millions of unfortunate victims to new homes inEurope or the Americas.[11] The slave trade in Africa was a function of war as the empires of theregion fought one another and gained control over other tribes: The superstate was built with military and monetary support furnished by the conquered tribes. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.