THE ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE

Mr. McCaskill

SETTING THE STAGE

Sugar and tobacco plantations required a large supply of
workers to make them profitable.
European owners had planned to use Native Americans as
a source of cheap labor.
Therefore, the Europeans in the Americas soon turned to
Africa for workers.
This demand for cheap labor resulted in the brutalities of
the slave trade.

THE CAUSE OF SLAVERY

Beginning around 1500, Europeans needed
workers so they began using slaves on plantations.
Slavery had existed in Africa for centuries.
In most African and Muslim societies, slaves had
some legal rights and an opportunity for social
mobility.

THE DEMAND FOR AFRICANS

After the colonization of the Americas, millions of
natives died due to disease.
As a result, Europeans began trading for African
slaves to do work.

THE DEMAND FOR AFRICANS CONT.

The use of African slaves were perfect for several
reasons:
Many Africans had been exposed to European diseases
and had built up some immunity.
Many Africans had experience in farming and could be
taught plantation work.
Africans were less likely to escape because they did
not know their way around the new land.
Their skin color made it easier to catch them if they
escaped and tried to live amongst others.

ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE

Buying and selling Africans for work in the Americas became
known as the Atlantic Slave Trade.
By the time the Atlantic slave trade ended around the year 1870,
Europeans imported about 12 million Africans to the Americas.
More than 40 percent of all Africans brought to the Americas went
to Brazil.

THE MIDDLE PASSAGE

Africans were shipped to be a part of a trade network.
Along the way, millions of Africans died from untreated diseases,
physical abuse, and suicide.
The voyage that brought Africans to the Americas was known as the middle
passage.
Sickening cruelty characterized this journey.
European traders packed Africans into the dark holds of large ships.
Roughly 25% of the people on the ships never made it to the Americas.

THE TRIANGULAR TRADE

Africans delivered other Africans to the Europeans in
exchange for gold, guns, rum, and other goods.
There, traders exchanged these goods for captured Africans.
The Africans were then transported across the Atlantic and
sold in the West Indies.
Merchants bought sugar, coffee, and tobacco in the West Indies
and sailed to Europe with these products.
Upon arriving in the Americas, Africans usually were
auctioned off to the highest bidder.

SLAVERY IN THE AMERICAS

Slaves lived a very hard life.
They worked long days and suffered many
beatings.
Slavery was a lifelong condition, as well as a
hereditary one.

CONSEQUENCES OF THE SLAVE TRADE

In Africa, cultures lost generations of their fittest
members.
Countless African families were torn apart.
Many of them were never reunited.
The slave trade devastated African societies by
introducing guns to the continent.

SLAVERY TODAY

Today there are more than 27 million people

in slavery.
We have more slaves in our world today than
in any other time period in history.
It is illegal in most of the world.
However, slavery in our world today is not
seen by most people.

HOW TO STOP IT
Research organizations such as
Not For Sale
End Child Trafficking
Polaris Project
End Slavery Now
NC-Stop