Africa vs The Atlantic World
By: Doris, Grant, and Sanjana
Social Effects of The Slave Trade
In the time when the slave trade took popularity, it was creating this massive influence of ideas on separation and further racism in Africa. The idea was that if a slave is of a certain color, then people who aren't that color are not slaves. This was a basic idea started by many influential Greek philosophers that believed that slavery was hereditary and that some people were slaves, and some people were slave owners. This of course also created a separation not only between people of different colors and ethnicities, but it also created a rift between people who practiced the use of slaves, and those who opposed it. Africa also suffered from a loss of 16 million individuals and and imbalance of sex ratio(more women than men, due to the Atlantic Slave trade.
Political Effects of Slave Trade
During the slave trade, many African people faught for their rights, and freedom. These continuous battles between the African and European people would have never occurred in the absence of slave trade. When the African Kingdom, Dahomey, gained access to firearms similar to the European's, they were able to capture slaves and exchanged them for weapons. The kingdom expanded rapidly with the with a rapid flow of slaves which attracted many people. Dahomey helps illustrate the potential of slave trade to alter patterns of African politics and society.
Plantation System in The New World
The original purpose of the plantation system was to give small European farmers land to grow crops to export to Europe. Farmers grew tobacco and cotton, but Sugar became the main crop. Because sugar needed a lot of land and machinery to process, small farmers were forced out of settlements to make room for more land. In efforts to operate efficiently, plantations relied on slave labor. Because of this Europeans began enslaving blacks in Africa. Europeans also maintained gardens that produced food for the local community, but their main purpose was to produce commercial trade food. Overall, plantations in the New World differed region to region, where different crops were grown, and different work conditions were enforced.
Slave Resistance
The slaves did not easily accept their servile status, but resisted it in several ways. Slaves often worked slowly for their masters, but diligently in their own gardens. They occasionally sabotaged plantation equipment nor work routines. Some even ran away from the plantation community. These runaways were known as Maroons and gathered in secret locations where they built their own self governing societies. The most dramatic form resistance to slavery was the slave revolt. Slave revolts brought fear to plantation owners, and often resulted in widespread death and destruction. However, these revolts rarely freed slaves, because Europeans had access to arms, horses and military forces to extinguish the rebellions.