Colonization: Labor, Slavery, and the Atlantic Trade

• European owners initially planned to use Indigenous people as a source of cheap labor.
• Millions of Indigenous people died due to disease, warfare, and brutal treatment.
• Sugar and tobacco plantations needed a large labor force to be profitable.
• Europeans turned to Africa for labor in Brazil, the Caribbean, and the southern colonies of North America.
• This demand for cheap labor caused the brutal Atlantic slave trade.

Muslim Prisoners

• Muslim rulers in Africa justified enslavement based on the belief that non-Muslim prisoners of war could be bought and sold as slaves.
• Slavery had existed in Africa for centuries.
• Between 650 and 1600, Muslims transported about 17 million Africans to Muslim lands in North Africa and Southwest Asia.
• Some slaves had legal rights and opportunities for social mobility.

Effects of Colonization

• Portuguese traders were initially more interested in trading for gold than enslaved Africans.
• This changed with the colonization of the Americas, as native populations began to die in large numbers.
• The Portuguese were the first Europeans to explore Africa in the 1400s.

Causes of Slavery

• Europeans saw advantages in using enslaved Africans in the Americas.
• Africans had developed some immunity to European diseases.
• Many Africans had experience in farming.
• Africans were less likely to escape because they were unfamiliar with the new land.
• Their skin color made them easier to catch if they escaped.

Atlantic Slave Trade

• The buying and selling of Africans for labor in the Americas became a large enterprise known as the Atlantic slave trade.
• Nearly 300,000 Africans were transported to the Americas between 1500 and 1600.
• By the next century, this number rose to almost 1.3 million.
• By 1870, when the Atlantic slave trade ended, Europeans had imported approximately 9.5 million Africans to the Americas.

Spain and Portugal

• The Spanish initially took the lead in importing Africans to the Americas.
• The Portuguese surpassed the Spanish in the importation of Africans to the Americas.
• As the Spanish colonized mainland America, they increased their use of enslaved people for labor on plantations and in gold and silver mines.
• Portugal owned Brazil, which dominated the European sugar market, increasing demand for cheap labor.

England Dominates

• As England's presence in the Americas grew, they came to dominate the Atlantic slave trade.
• Enslaved Africans were brought to what is now the United States.
• As other European nations established colonies in the Americas, their demand for cheap labor grew, leading to the importation of large numbers of Africans.
• From hundreds of thousands of enslaved people during the time of Britain's North American colonies, the number reached over 2 million in the early 1800s.

Triangular Trade

• The "triangular" trade network included routes crisscrossing the northern and southern colonies, the West Indies, England, Europe, and Africa.
• The network involved the trade of various goods.
• Europeans transported manufactured goods to West Africa, where they were exchanged for enslaved Africans.
• Enslaved Africans were transported across the Atlantic and sold in the West Indies.
• Merchants bought sugar, coffee, and tobacco in the West Indies and sold them to Europe.
• Another route involved merchants carrying rum and other goods from New England to Africa.
• These goods were exchanged for enslaved Africans, who were then transported to the West Indies and sold for sugar and molasses.
• These goods were then sold to rum producers in New England.

The Middle Passage

• The voyage that brought enslaved Africans to the West Indies and later to North and South America was known as the Middle Passage.
• The Middle Passage was considered the middle leg of the transatlantic trade triangle.
• This journey was characterized by cruelty, whippings, beatings, and sickness.

Impact on Africa

• Numerous African cultures lost generations of their fittest members to European traders and plantation owners.
• The Atlantic slave trade had a profound impact on both Africa and the Americas.
• Countless African families were torn apart, and many were never reunited.
• The slave trade devastated African societies by introducing guns into the continent.

Impact on America

• Enslaved Africans' greatest contribution was their labor, expertise in agriculture, and culture.
• African slaves contributed greatly to the economic and cultural development of the Americas, despite their enslavement.
• The art, music, religion, and food of enslaved Africans influenced American societies.
• The influx of Africans to the Americas has left its mark on the population itself.
• Many nations in the Western Hemisphere, from the United States to Brazil, have substantial African-American populations.
• Many Latin American countries have sizable mixed-race populations.