The Slave Trade

In Context over time

• Most human societies have had slaves

• Africans had practiced slavery and sold slaves for centurieso Trans-Saharan trade took slaves to

Mediterranean worldo East African slave trade as well

Slavery took many forms

• Often assimilated into owner’s households

• Children of slaves were sometimes free

• Islamic world preferred female slaves

• Atlantic trade favored males

• Not all slaves had lowly positions– Ex. Muslim world many slaves had military or

political status

Distinctiveness of slavery in Americas

• Scale and importance was enormous• Largely based on plantation agriculture• Slaves denied any rights at all• Slave status was inherited• Widespread slavery in a society that valued

freedom and equality• Slavery wholly identified with Africa and

‘blackness’

Origins of Atlantic slavery

• Lay in Mediterranean and with sugar

• Sugar production was first ‘modern’ industry– Major capital investment, technology,

disciplined workers, mass market• Work very difficult and dangerous therefore

slaves were ideal

Mediterranean plantations

• At first, Slavs from Black Sea area provided most slaves for sugar plantations

• Portuguese found and an alternative slave source in West AfricaSlavs weren’t availableNatives died of European diseasesChristians ‘couldn’t’ be enslavedIndentured servants were expensive

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