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Exercises
(January 16th)

1. Read the text about “The Atlantic Slave Trade” following the instructions given by the
teacher.

PREVIEW

A.1. Which is the main objective of the text?

a. Inform about the Atlantic Slave Trade and its consequences.
b. Complete the information about what is known about the Atlantic
Trade.
c. Offer a different version of what is known about the slave trade.

A.2. How are the paragraphs distinguished?

a. Paragraphs are indented1 in the first line.
b. Every new paragraph starts with inverted commas [ “ ” ].
c. Paragraphs have a space between them and no indentation.

A.3. How many paragraphs in total constitute the text?

a. 7
b. 8
c. Less than 10

1“Sangrados” [SANGRAR: “Empezar un renglón más adentro que los otros de la plana, como se hace con el
primero de cada párrafo,” DEL].
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SKIM

"The Atlantic Slave Trade: That

Too Few Textbooks Told You"

Who What When Where

(Subject(s) (Context of (Context of
(Main topic)
of the text) topic) topic)

A. Which is the origin of the massive trade of slaves during the XV century?
I. The demand generated in the Portuguese and Spanish kingdoms to
labour sugar cane, tobacco, and cotton crops.
II. The high rate of mortality of the slaves, as well as the rapid expansion of
both Portuguese and Spanish kingdoms.
III. The Africans kings and merchants’ interest to strengthen their realms
and commerce.
IV. The low birth-rate of the moment, which couldn’t match the velocity on
which the slaves were dying.
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B. According to the context, what is a serf? [3rd paragraph]

I. A type of slavery where the person has no connection with the master’s
family, but has a limited term, buying their freedom is possible, as
well as the change in their status.
II. A type of service where the person isn’t part of the ruler’s family but is
subjected to their will. Nevertheless, they have free will and they can
change their status through meritocracy.
III. A type of service where a person is considered part of the ruler’s family,
even though they must obey their ruler’s will, and which allows them
to climb their social status.
IV. A type of slavery where slaves could be part of their master’s family and
climb their social status. Usually, this type of slavery has a limited
term and is possible to but freedom.

C. According to fourth paragraph, which were two of the consequences of

European’s massive demand for slaves?
I. The prosperity of African kingdoms and wars between them for the
competition.
II. It worsen the brutality on slaves and changed their cultures, as it became
part of their life.
III. It created more violence and incremented the demand of European
firearms.
IV. It created the property-human trade vision and all the violent attitudes
towards them.

D. Why did inland Africans thought white people where cannibals?

I. Because they had never seen that type of people before and were scared.
II. Because under white people’s watch, their people were mutilated or lost
forever.
III. Because that was on their folklore, that’s why they used suicide as a
spiritual scape.
IV. Because they constantly came to take people away and returned for
more.
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E. How did the more commercial version of slaves become the racist version?
I. The racial basis was a combination of the Christian association of criminal
punishment with the evil, and the reaction of the victims to the
brutality. In other words, through the victim-master play role.
II. When the slavery was outlawed, the Christian Europeans needed an
explanation for its permanence. Therefore, they constructed the idea
of Africans being inferior and destinated to slavery.
III. From the African perspective, the slavery had always been a legal
punishment or an intertribal warfare, but the Europeans developed
the idea of their inferiority as their colonies grew.
IV. The Christians developed the inferiority complex of Africans to justify
their colonies and the Church participation on them. Also, as time
past, the origins were lost.

F. Which are the facts that “few textbooks told you”?

I. The reality of some of the slaves during all this trade.
II. The real origins of the Atlantic slavery and how it became global.
III. The impact of the Atlantic slavery in Africa, both cultural and economic.
IV. The historical events that led to the racist argument for slavery.
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The Atlantic Slave Trade

Adapted from the listening: Hazard, A. (2014, December 22nd). The Atlantic Slave
Trade: That Too Few Textbooks Told You [Video file]. Narrated by Addison
Anderson. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/3NXC4Q_4JVg

Slavery, the treatment of human beings as property, deprived of personal rights, has
occurred in many forms throughout the world. But one institution stands out for both
its global scale and its lasting legacy. The Atlantic slave trade, occurring from the
late 15th to the mid 19th century and spanning three continents, forcibly brought more
than 10 million Africans to the Americas. The impact it would leave affected not
only these slaves and their descendants, but the economies and histories of large
parts of the world.

There had been centuries of contact between Europe and Africa via the
Mediterranean. But the Atlantic slave trade began in the late 1400s with Portuguese
colonies in West Africa, and Spanish settlement of the Americas shortly after. The
crops grown in the new colonies, sugar cane, tobacco, and cotton, were labour
intensive, and there were not enough settlers or indentured servants to cultivate all
the new land. American Natives were enslaved, but many died from new diseases,
while others effectively resisted. And so, to meet the massive demand for labour, the
Europeans looked to Africa.

African slavery had existed for centuries in various forms. Some slaves were
indentured servants, with a limited term and the chance to buy one’s freedom. Others
were more like Europeans serfs. In some societies, slaves could be part of a master’s
family, own land, and even rise to positions of power. But when white captains came
offering manufactured goods, weapons, and rum for slaves, African kings and
merchants had little reason to hesitate. They viewed the people they sold not as
fellow Africans but criminals, debtors, or prisoners of war form rival tribes. By
selling them, kings enriched their own realms, and strengthened them against
neighbouring enemies.

African kingdoms prospered from the slave trade but meeting the European’s
massive demand created intense competition. Slavery replaced other criminal
sentences, and capturing slaves became a motivation for war, rather than its result.
To defend themselves from slave raids, neighbouring kingdoms needed European
firearms, which they also bought with slaves. The slave trade had become an arms
race, altering societies and economies across the continent. As for the slaves
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themselves, they faced unimaginable brutality. After being marched to slave forts on
the coast, shaved to prevent lice, and branded, they were loaded onto ships bound
for the Americas. About 20% of them would never see land again.

Most captains of the day were tight packers, cramming as many men as possible
below deck. While the lack of sanitation caused many to die of disease, and others
were thrown overboard for being sick, or as discipline, the captain’s ensured their
profits by cutting slave’s ears as proof of purchase. Some captives took matters into
their own hands. Mainly inland Africans had never seen whites before, and thought
them to be cannibals, constantly taking people away and returning for more. Afraid
of being eaten, or just to avoid further suffering, they committed suicide or starved
themselves, believing that in death, their souls would return home.

Those who survived were completely dehumanized, treated as mere cargo. Women
and children were kept above deck and abused by the crew, while the men were
made to perform dances in order to keep them exercised and curb rebellion. What
happened to those Africans who reached the new World and how the legacy of
slavery still affects their descendants today is fairly well known. But what is not
often discussed is the effect that the Atlantic slave trade had on Africa’s future. Not
only did the continent lose tens of millions of its able-bodied population, but because
most of the slaves taken were men, the long-term demographic effect was even
greater.

When the slave trade was finally outlawed in the Americas and Europe, the African
kingdoms whose economies it had come to dominate collapsed, leaving them open
to conquest and colonization. And the increased competition and influx of European
weapons fuelled warfare and instability that continues to this day. The Atlantic slave
trade also contributed to the development of racist ideology. Most African slavery
had no deeper reason than legal punishment or intertribal warfare, but the Europeans
who preached a universal religion, and who had long ago outlawed enslaving fellow
Christians, needed justification for a practice so obviously at odds with their ideals
of equality. So, they claimed that Africans were biological inferior and destinated to
be slaves, making great efforts to justify this theory. Thus, slavery in Europe and the
Americas acquired a racial basis, making it impossible for slaves and their future
descendants to attain equal status in society.

In all of these ways, the Atlantic slave trade was an injustice on massive scale whose
impact has continued long after its abolition.