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Slavery And The South Atlantic System

 

            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.


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