Zamba Zembola's The Atlantic Slave Trade

The Slave Ship, by Marcus Rediker was wrote in 2007 about the cruel and brutal actions the slaves endured on their journey across the Atlantic Ocean. He states, “this has been a painful book to write, if I have done any justice to the subject, it will be a painful book to read.” Marcus Rediker accomplished exactly that. This book was not only compelling but emotional, heartbreaking, and makes a reader think, how could someone be so cruel to another living being. Within the first couple pages, the book brought me to tears. He mainly focused on the 1700’s when Britain controlled most of the slave trade throughout the world. During the book, Rediker informs the reader about the tortured slaves as they were shipped from West Africa to the new world. Marcus Rediker, a professor at the University of Pittsburg, taught history and starting researching the slave trade by

During the early eighteenth century slavery was a common practice in the United States, which was used to justify forced labor of African Americans. African people were captured and forced to migrate from their homes and families in Africa to become slaves in America. While on the ship to America many of these African captives were chained up and stacked on top of each other without access to necessities. Such things that these people were deprived of was access to food, water, restrooms, showers or any sanitation. This lack of proper living conditions during the forced migration of Africans to America caused many on board the ships to get diseases or die. Once the remaining African captives reached America they were sold on the docks to slave owners and separated from their spouses, children, parents and other loved ones. After an African American was purchased they were no longer

They are like polar opposites-like water and fire, or north and south. On page three, Captain Canot claims that slaves are treated-well and that slave-holders look after their health, hygiene, and well-being. “These hints will apprise the reader that the greatest care, compatible with safety, is taken of a Negro’s health and cleanliness on the voyage. In every well-conducted slaver, the captain, officers, and crew, are alert and vigilant to preserve the cargo. It is their personal interest, as well as the interest of humanity to do so. The boatswain is incessant in his patrol of purification, and disinfecting substances are plenteously distributed. The upper deck is washed and swabbed daily; the slave deck is scraped and holy-stoned; and, at nine o’clock each morning, the captain inspects every part of his craft; so that no vessel, except a man-of-war, can compare with a slaver in systematic order, purity, and neatness.” However, Fredrick Douglass would strongly disagree with that statement. In the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, much of Fredrick Douglass’ evidence and information on the immorality of slavery come from his own life experiences of being born a slave. Douglass goes into immensely deep, gruesome, and gut-wrenching detail on the injustice that slaves endured. For instance, on pages eleven and twelve, Douglass describes how slaveholders often used violence as a tactic keep slaves submissive and to instill fear and terror. This counters Captain Canot’s false, fairy-tale like claim about how slaves weren’t not abused or mistreated by their

The Atlantic Slave Trade was the movement of Africans to the Americas as slaves. The slave trader, Captain Thomas Phillip in document B he says “ We endure twice the misery; and yet by their mortality our voyages are ruined.”(Phillips). He is saying that they are dying and that it isn’t a good thing, but for a different reason. He also says “But what the smallpox spared, the flux swept off, to our great regret, after all our pains and care to give [the slaves] their messes,... keeping their lodgings as clean and sweet as possible…”(Phillips). That is saying the conditions that they live in and how they “try” to keep it clean.

The Middle Passage is the part of the trade, where Africans, tightly packed on ships, were transported across the Atlantic Ocean to the West Indies. The journey lasted for several months, at this time the enslaved people basically lay in chains in rows on the floor of the ship 's hold. Genocide, in turn, does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of the nation, except for the massacres of all members of the nation. So can we identify the Middle Passage as an act of genocide?

In the 1700-1800’s, the use of African American slaves for backbreaking, unpaid work was at its prime. Despite the terrible conditions that slaves were forced to deal with, slave owners managed to convince themselves and others that it was not the abhorrent work it was thought to be. However, in the mid-1800’s, Northern and southern Americans were becoming more aware of the trauma that slaves were facing in the South. Soon, an abolitionist group began in protest, but still people doubted and questioned it. When Frederick Douglass published his self-written narrative, people finally got a fully comprehensive view of the life of a slave. To debunk the mythology of slavery, Douglass presents the cold, hard truth, displays slaves true intelligence,

The Trans-Atlantic slave trade impacted and changed the world by misplacing and separating thousands of individuals from their families and homes. Thousands of people lost their lives when they were abducted and forced into slavery. Many did not survive the ship rides to the Americas. Many were murdered and tortured. Some were thrown of boats and died from diseases caught on the ship. Nonetheless, the Trans-Atlantic trade brought African culture to the Americas and the Caribbean.

“The people of the great vessel were wicked: when we had been shipped, they took away all the small pieces of cloth which were on our bodies, and threw them into the water, then they took chains and tethered two together. Every morning they had to take the man, and throw them into the water,” (First Hand Accounts Case Study). This quote suggests that the crew expressed little sympathy to slaves. This is demonstrated in the novel by Paula Fox The Slave Dancer. Many of the sailors were accurately portrayed by their actions, by throwing slaves into the ocean, flogging, beaten, tortured, and other forms of cruel punishment. “Alexander Falconbridge was a surgeon on slave ships in the 18th century. An abolitionist and governor himself is guilty of all the violent attacks towards slaves. A disgraces to human nature, and profound language were brutal examples sailors often used towards slaves.” ( First Hand; Accounts Study). This is an example of history because many crew members hated slaves, which clearly bleeds through their thoughts and language. In The Slave Dancer the crew’s disgust is shown through their inappropriate phraseology, disregard to the slaves, and acquisitions to the

This unprecedented global tragedy claimed millions of lives over four centuries, and left a terrible legacy that continues to dehumanize and subjugate people around the world to this day. The forced movement of West Africans across the Atlantic to the Caribbean happened on cutting-edge scale of brutality and inhumanity, killings and massive abuses. Millions died without a burial, without a trace. These Europeans paid no monetary price for their progress, but they incurred a terrible cost in the form of the of the root racism that we still battle today. The slave trade left an ineradicable mark. Considering the enormous historic proportions and impact, it is a cruel irony that little is known about the slave trade. That is why today is so

Douglass gives us a critique of slavery by describing the mistreatments of slavery he was forced to endure. Throughout the book Douglass describes the physical abuse he endured while a slave but to more accurately capture the atmosphere of slavery he explained the mental abuse he sustained as well. At a certain point in the narrative he talks about how he was eventually allowed to work at a ship yard as a caulker. While he worked there he received a weekly wage but at the end of the week he was obligated to give all of his earnings to his master. This ritual was accompanied with the idea that if a slave is deprived of his earnings he will not desire them at all but sometimes Douglass’ owner would give him some money to encourage him to keep working but instead, “[I]t had the opposite effect. I regarded it as a sort of admission of my right to the whole. The fact that he gave me any part of my wages was proof, to my mind, that he believed me entitled to the whole of them.” (Douglass, 97) Douglass is showing how this is mental abuse

Quakers- Quakers condemned extravagance. They were prosecuted in England because they refused to serve in the military or pay taxes. Quakers tried to rectory Christianity. Buy they did not support the Puritans Calvinist doctrines.

David Walker acknowledged that slavery had long been practiced in Africa, but he charged white Christian slaveholders with greater crimes against humanity and greater hypocrisy in justifying those crimes than any prior slave system had been guilty of. Twentieth century scholarship has lent much support to the contentions of Walker’s and others in the African American antislavery vanguard that slavery as perpetrated by the European colonizers of Africa and the Americas brought man’s inhumanity to man to a level of technological efficiency unimagined by previous generations.

The scope of slavery varied based on how practical and profitable slaves would be in that time period and location. Slavery had many impacts on society as a whole and influenced political, economic, and cultural aspects which all demonstrate the development of slavery in the 17th and 18th century.

Over twelve million Africans were captured and taken against their will by Europeans in the Atlantic slave trade from about 1525-1866. The experience that the slaves endured was horrendous, unsanitary and overall the worst time of their lives. The middle passage was where the slaves were taken from Africa to the Americas via ships. After they arrived in the Americas, they were sold and forced to work for their new owners. Due to strong European force, slaves experienced dehumanization through being captured from their villages and tortured, living with awful conditions on ships, and being sold against their will to Americans.

Throughout the 16th and 19th centuries, slave trade had become one of the most crucial parts for changing the world. Everything during this period was reliant on the slave trade. Consequently, it ended being beneficial for Europeans and disastrous for Africans.