W​ORLD​ H​ISTORY

T​HE​ S​LAVE​ T​RADE​ I​NVESTIGATION

L​EARNING​ G​OAL​: ​Analyze the demographic, cultural, and political impact of European oceanic travel, trade and
conquest on the rest of the world.

I​NVESTIGATION​ 1 - S​ELLING​ S​LAVES​ A​DVERTISEMENT

1. Describe what you see on this document. (Characteristics, images, style, words that stand out, the language). ​To
sell slaves they need to be healthy and Europeans also had more men than women

2. What kinds of things are ​sold? S​ laves

3. If you sell something, what is the outcome? Is it beneficial or not? ​Yes, and the outcomes were slaves and they
helped on anything you asked for it to do

4. If this advertisement is ​selling ​slaves, than what is the author of this document referring to slaves as? ​Healthy

5. Based off of this document, how do you think Europeans saw slaves as? What was their opinion of slaves?
I think that Europeans viewed slaves with contempt and that they were also worthless.

I​NVESTIGATION​ 2 - AFRICANS ​ON​ ​THE​ S​LAVE​ S​HIPS​:

1. Describe what you see in these pictures and in the video. ​Europeans carried a bunch of slaves in a boat

2. Based off what you see, what do you think the conditions were like on the slave ships? ​Horrible
3. How do you think these conditions affected the Africans? ​These horrible ship conditions affected Africans
mentally and physically.

4. What impact did this inhumane treatment have on the demographics (or population) of Africans? ​Europeans
that migrated to the Americas came here in search of wealth. They ended up almost putting the Native American
into extinction. They also enslaved them, tricked them, and forced them to live on reservations.

I​NVESTIGATION​ 3 - PERRY’S E​XCERPT​ & T​HE​ P​LANTATION​ C​OMPLEX

F​ROM​ M​ARVIN​ P​ERRY​’​S​ E​XCERPT​:

1. Describe where and how slavery was practiced before the Atlantic Slave Trade began. ​Slavery was prevalent in
many parts of Africa for many centuries before the beginning of the Atlantic slave trade. There is evidence that
enslaved people from some parts of Africa were exported to states in Africa, Europe, and Asia prior to the
European colonization of the Americas.

2. Why did you think the Europeans chose Africa as their source for slaves? ​Because they saw someone that didn’t
look like them and since blacks were not considered their equal they were considered to a lower ranking which
was a slave

3. What aspect of the African culture allowed them to keep up with the European demand for slaves? ​Working in
mines and on tobacco plantations in south america and on sugar plantations in the west indies.

4. Why did the African traders participate in the slave trade? What was their benefit?​ Africans played a direct role
in the slave trade, selling their captives or prisoners of war to European buyers. The prisoners and captives who
were sold were usually from neighbouring or enemy ethnic groups.

F​ROM​ “T​HE​ P​LANTATION​ C​OMPLEX​?”

1. Why the Europeans need slaves? ​Europeans use slaves because they want to expand their empires
2. How were they benefiting? It what ways? ​Europeans benefited from slaves because they sold slaves to North
America and helped them expand their territory.

3. How did the slave trade affect the African population? ​Several African states became increasingly dependent on
the trade for European goods.

F​ROM​ ​BOTH​ ​ARTICLES​:

1. Why was slavery the path chosen? ​I think they chose slavery because the Europeans needed money and more
territory

I​NVESTIGATION​ 4 – N​ETWORKS​ ​OF​ T​ HE​ A​TLANTIC​ S​LAVE​ T​RADE

1. What does this picture represent? ​Networks of the Atlantic Slave Trade

2. What do networks create or produce for an economy? ​Network economics refers to business economics that
benefit from the network effect. It is also known as Netromix. This is when the value of a good or service
increases when others buy the same good or service.

3. How do you think this trading network benefited Europe? ​It benefited Europe in earning more money and
territory

4. How is this trading network different than all of the other networks that we have studied so far? ​Idk?

5. Why was slavery the path chosen? ​I think they chose slavery because the Europeans needed money and more
territory

I​NVESTIGATION​ 5 - E​XCERPTS​ ​FROM​, ​T​HE​ I​NTERESTING​ NA​ RRATIVE​ O​ F​ OL​ AUDAH​ EQ​ UIANO​ ​BY​ O​LAUDAH
E​QUIANO

1. Sourcing:
 a. Who is Olaudah Equiano? ​He was a former enslaved African, seaman and merchant who wrote an
autobiography depicting the horrors of slavery and lobbied Parliament for its abolition.

b. What do you know about his life? ​That he was a slave

c. Why is his memoir significant to the history of the slave trade? ​They were significant because they
represented the horrors of slavery.

2. What did Olaudah Equiano and other Africans have to endure on the way to the Americas? ​food shortage almost
dying

3. What consequence of the slave trade does he describe? ​Olaudah Equiano went through various tests as he
became so ill that he did not want to eat for several days

L​EARNING​ G​OAL​: ​Analyze the demographic, cultural, and political impact of European oceanic travel, trade and
conquest on the rest of the world.

W​HAT​ ​WERE​ ​THE​ ​CONSEQUENCES​ ​OF​ ​THE​ ​SLAVE​ ​TRADE​? ​[​THINK​ ​DEMOGRAPHIC​, ​CULTURAL​, ​AND​ ​POLITICAL​]
INVESTIGATION 1 ​S​ELLING​ S​LAVES​ A​DVERTISEMENT

INVESTIGATION 2
A​FRICANS​ ​ON​ ​THE​ S​LAVE​ S​HIPS
INVESTIGATION 3

E​XCERPTS​ ​FROM​ M​ARVIN​ P​ERRY​’​S​ ​WE​ STERN​ C​IVILIZATIONS:​ I​DEAS,​ PO​ LITICS,​ ​AND​ S​OCIETIES-​ 8​ ED​ ITION
TH​

“The plantation system based on slave labor was an Italian import; only now the slaves were black Africans instead of Slavs as
they had often been in the eastern Mediterranean.” – Pg. 339

“One group suffered even more than the Indians: the Black slaves originally brought over from West Africa. During the long
period of their dominance in North Africa and the Middle East (from the seventh to the nineteenth century), the Muslim states
relied on slave labor and slave soldiers from black Africa south of the Sahara. Blacks were captured and transported across the
Sahara to be sold in the slave markets of North Africa. It was common for such slaves, especially soldiers to be eventually freed
by their Muslim masters, a practice sanctioned by the Koran. So it was necessary to replenish the stock of slaves from the south
of the Sahara in every generation.” - Pg. 341

“On the African side, how did suppliers continue to meet this large and growing New World demand? First the demand was
greater for males than for females, and males constitutes two thirds of those transported. Since all African peoples were
polygamous (men might take more than one wide), the women and girls left behind in Africa continued to breed, so the
populations did not shrink, and there was always a supply of blacks to be captured and enslaved. Second, by 1700, a new factor
was introduced, which proved decisive: guns, imported from Europe, were now commonly traded for slaves. Which the guns,
the West African rules built armies for capturing other peoples to sell the Europeans, which protecting themselves from being
enslaved by rival forces. The desire for profit led to the need for more captives to sell for still more firearms to take still more
slaves. All the ingredients were now in place for a deadly arms race (competition between rivals for superiority in development
and weaponry), and the result was a spiral of mounting violence, which could not be broken. But from the point of view of the
Atlantic trade, the grisly (causing disgust) scenario guaranteed a steady supply of human cargo to satisfy a steeply rising New
World demand.” - Pg. 343

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
T​HE​ P​LANTATION​ C​OMPLEX
The Great Dying of the Amerindian population coincided with the growth of the ​Plantation Complex​. This was the European
economic and political enterprise to develop commercial agriculture in the tropical Americas. It arose in response to growing
international market demand for sugar, tobacco, cotton, indigo, and other products. American Indians who survived the Great
Dying tended to resist working on European sugar or other plantations. They would sometimes starve themselves rather than
be forced to provide the labor. A sugar plantation demanded a hardy and strong labor force. Europeans brought Africans to the
Americas as slaves in order to meet the enormous labor requirements of the sugar and other industries in the Atlantic world.
African slave traders aimed to capture and sell mainly young women and men because they were the age group best fit to work
and reproduce. The African slave trade drained African societies of millions of productive people. The success of American
plantations, however, came to depend absolutely on a steady supply of slave labor from Africa.

But the steady supply of slave labor from Africa ensured that European planters and merchants could make huge profits. The
slave/sugar complex began early in the sixteenth century. At that time, African slaves were brought to America by the
Portuguese, the first to begin sugar production in Brazil. By the end of the seventeenth century, sugar production was growing
greatly in efficiency. New plantation societies emerged on Barbados, Jamaica, Haiti, and other islands of the Caribbean, as well
as the lowland coasts of Mexico. Though estimates vary, it is believed that between 1492 and about 1870, 12-14 million
Africans were forced into slavery to work in the Americas on plantations, in mines, and in European households and shops. In
the Caribbean islands, slaves were likely to survive only six or seven years. One fact not well known is that comparatively few
slaves were sent to North America.

T​HE​ ​CHART​ ​BELOW​ ​ILLUSTRATES​ ​BY​ ​PERCENTAGE​, ​WHERE​ ​THE​ 12-14 ​MILLION
​ RRIVED​ I​ N​ T​ HE​ A​MERICAS​ B​ ETWEEN​ 1450 A​ ND​ 1810:
SLAVES​ A

Caribbean islands (Barbados, Jamaica, Puerto 42%

Rico, Haiti, Cuba, and others)
Brazil 38%
North America 5%
Other 15%
INVESTIGATION 4

Networks of the Atlantic Slave Trade

INVESTIGATION ​5
E​XCERPTS​ ​FROM​, ​T​HE​ I​NTERESTING​ NA​ RRATIVE​ O​ F​ OL​ AUDAH​ E​QUIANO​ ​BY​ O​LAUDAH​ E​QUIANO

One eighteenth-century African, Olaudah Equiano (c. 1745-1797), an Ibo from what is now Nigeria, wrote about his kidnapping
and enslavement in Africa, his subsequent sale to English slave merchants, and his voyage to and first impressions of the West
Indian port of Bridgetown, Barbados. Equiano’s subsequent life diverged from the pattern of most slaves. He educated himself,
engaged in petty trade, purchased his freedom, and traveled to England, Nicaragua, Syria, and New England. In 1786, he was
involved in planning the first free black colony, at Freetown, Sierra Leone, in Africa and he took an active part in the antislavery
movement in England. The following excerpt is from his memoir, ​The Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano ​or​ Gustavus Vasa
the African, ​published in two volumes in London in 1789:

(​Bolded ​words are followed by definitions)

…When I was carried on board I was immediately handled, and tossed up, to see if I were sound, by some
of the crew; and I was now persuaded that I had got into a world of bad spirits, and that they were going to
kill me. …. Indeed, such were the horrors of my views and fears at the moment, that, if ten thousand
worlds had been my own, I would have freely parted with them all to have exchanged my condition with
that of the meanest slave in my own country. When I looked round the ship too, and saw a large furnace
or copper (pot) boiling, and a multitude of black people of every description chained together, every one
of their ​countenances​ (facial expression) expressing dejection and sorrow, I no longer doubted my fate;
and, quite overpowered with horror and anguish, I fell motionless on the deck and fainted. When I
recovered a little, I found some black people about me, who I believed were some of those who brought
me on board, and had been receiving their pay; they talked to me in order to cheer me, but all in ​vain
(showing an excessively high opinion of oneself). I asked them I if we were not to be eaten by those white
men with horrible looks, red faces, and long hair. They told me I was not…

…Soon after this, the black who brought me on board went off and left me abandoned to despair. I now
saw myself deprived of all chance of returning to my native country, or even the least glimpse of hope of
gaining the shore, which I now considered as friendly; and I even wished for my former slavery, in
preference to my present situation, which was filled with horror of every kind, still heightened by my
ignorance of what I was to undergo. I was not long suffered to indulge my grief; I was soon put down
under the decks, and there I received such a salutation in my nostrils as I had never experienced in my life;
so that, with the ​loathsomeness ​(disgust) of the stench, and crying together, I became so sick and low
that I was not able to eat, nor had I the least desire to taste anything. I now wished for the last friend,
death, to relieve me; but soon, to my grief, two of the white men offered me eatables; and, on my refusing
to eat, one of them held me fast by the hands, and laid my across, I think, the ​windlass (​pulley system​)​,
and tied my feet while the other ​flogged​ (beaten with a whip) me severely. I had never experienced
anything of this kind before; and, although not being used to the water, I naturally feared that element the
first time I saw it; yet, nevertheless, could I have got over the nettings, I would have jumped over the side;
but I could not; and, besides, the crew used to watch us very closely who were not chained down to the
decks, lest we should leap into the water: and I have seen some of these poor African prisoners most
severely cut for attempting to do so, and hourly whipped for not eating. This indeed was often the case
with myself…