As Europeans fought for control of the trade on the African Coast, new battles of conquest began in the Americas. In 1492, Columbus mistakenly landed in America in his search for India. His mistake opened a new world of discovery and conquest for the Europeans and a world of devastation for the native Americans and Africans. Spain carried on a prosperous trade with its colonies throughout the sixteenth century. The discovery of vast silver mines in the 1540s enriched the colonial inhabitants and increased the volume of trade across the Atlantic. .
But the colonization of this new world was not easy. Many European traders who crossed the Atlantic did not want to colonize, but only to profit from the trade. It is reluctantly that many traders decided to live away from their native countries. For example, England's initial plan for the Americas was to put as few people as possible overseas for the efficient running of their trading systems. But soon, the European countries were pushed into a colonial administration by their drive for profit. With the success of sugar and tobacco in the new world, small farmers and profiteers came in droves to the new world to gain from the prosperous new trade. This was only the beginning of the colonization process. To work the large plantations which soon formed, the English and other Europeans sent over white indentured servants. At the same time, the Spanish and Portuguese planters especially were exploiting Indian labor against the will of their governments and of the Catholic Church. The conquistadors raided the interior to find more Indians to exploit. Soon, most of the Indians, unused to the work, died of disease or were worked to death. To replace their dwindling resource, the Portuguese began to import slaves from their African ports. Thus, the African slave trade came to the new world. .
From 1441 to 1888, the trans-Atlantic slave trade created an African Diaspora in the forced migration of some 12 million people from many diverse societies and cultures in west and west central Africa to European colonies in the Caribbean Islands, in Central and South America, and in North America.
South Atlantic System Sugar was the most important product of South Atlantic System. ... Slavery played a crucial role in the development of the modern world economy. ... American ship-owners, farmers, and fisherman also profited from slavery. Slavery played a pivotal role in the growth of commercial capitalism in the colonies. ...
However, the number of persons held in slavery in Africa, was very small, since no economic or social system had developed for exploiting them (Manning 97). The new system-Atlantic slave trade-became quite different from the early African slavery. ... As the Atlantic route expanded, accounting for nearly two thirds of all Africans leaving the continent, it created systems for the gruesome work of collecting and exporting slaves and brought the expansion of a system of slavery in Africa itself. ... For example, in some cases such as Kingdom of the Kongo to the south of the Zaire or Congo River,...
As the above figures suggest, slavery and the slave trade were the linchpins of this process. ... To pose the question differently, why slavery, and why were the slaves carried across the Atlantic exclusively African? ... Without this dissonance, there would have been no African slavery in the Americas. ... But the central question of which peoples from Africa went to a given region of the Americas, and which group of Europeans or their descendants organized such a movement cannot be answered without an understanding of the wind and ocean currents of the North and South Atlantic. There are two...
During the era of the Atlantic trade, slave importation had become an extremely popular commodity among colonists. ... Even though the Northern colonies were opposed to the exploitation of Africans, the Atlantic slave trade system greatly influenced the structure of the colonies, particularly the South because they were greatly contingent on the frequent importation of slaves and slave labor. ... The South was obviously for slavery because it brought the southerners great prosperity and the North completely despised the idea of slaves to be used for economical enhancement. ... Some histor...
These formations of tariffs began to increase the need for slaves in the south, who depended more and more on slavery agriculturally as the tariffs created additional competition for money. Slavery became such a problematic issue that the legislature created the gag rule, which was a rule created to lessen the time spent discussing or debating on the issue of slavery. ... Henry Clay began to promote this plan as the American System. ... The American System began to affect the U.S. positively. ... This 363 mile long project connected the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes. ...
These formations of tariffs began to increase the need for slaves in the south, who depended more and more on slavery agriculturally as the tariffs created additional competition for money. Slavery became such a problematic issue that the legislature created the gag rule, which was a rule created to lessen the time spent discussing or debating on the issue of slavery. ... Henry Clay began to promote this plan as the American System. ... The American System began to affect the U.S. positively. ... This 363 mile long project connected the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes. ...
He says they "have much to tell us about slavery, and about the plantation economy, and the South, but they have little to tell us about the black man" (1971: xii). ... In Capitalism and Slavery (1944) Williams discusses the "origins of Negro slavery". ... Many economic accounts discuss the profitability of slavery, for the slaveholders individually and for the South's economy but vary on their conclusions (Aitken 1971: xii). ... David Landes (1998) criticises this view, claiming that important advances that led to the industrial revolution (for example steam engines, mechanised wool spin...
This system uses the investment of money or 'capital' to produce hefty profit for its owners and shareholders to reinvest in the system to generate a seemingly endless cycle of wealth1. ... There is no query as to whether such a system exists today as that much is clear. ... The second step and the one that cost the lives of so many African slaves were the crossing of the Atlantic or 'the middle passage'. ... It is estimated that between 25 and 30 million people, were taken from their homes and sold into a life of slavery. ... Trade across the Atlantic over this time was...
Europeans developed a "new agricultural and commercial order - the South Atlantic system" (Henretta 74). ... This system that the merchants created brought a lot of wealth to themselves and the economy. Sugar was a very important aspect of the South Atlantic system. ... The new slavery in America was considered better than slavery in the West Indies. ... Fairly soon, slaves counted for a good portion of the population in Virginia and South Carolina. ...
