TheSlaveTrade

Slave Trad e From __Now Is Your Time! The African-American Struggle For Freedom__ by Walter Dean Myers, Myers explains what the North American land looked like when the settlers first came to the New Land. He said that "North America, incredibly rich and beautiful, stretching forever westward from the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, was irresistible. There were mountain ranges through which rivers coursed, bringing minerals to the lush valleys and plains below. That the climate was right for agriculture was evident from the crops of the brown- and copper-skinned people we call Native Americans." So, the new settlers found this new land as a great place to start in the ways of agriculture. In Great Britain, they had brought slaves from Africa to do their work, so the new settlers did the same. They captured Africans from their homeland and brought them to the New Land to do their work in the fields. The process of the slave trade is very large, complicated, brutal, and cruel. Some of the steps included Slave Auctions and the Middle Passage.

This picture depicts the ugliness of the process that took place in order to get the newly captured slaves into the slave boats.
 * "****Slave Trade"**, from the //Middle Passage//, envelope, #16, Sec 11, courtesy of [|The Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Historical Collection], Temple University

African colonies were invaded by Americans. Those African-Americans who lived in the "intrusion" were taken as slaves. The long and painful process of getting the slaves from Africa to America was considered The Middle Passage. Then, they were taken to slave aucions where they were sold to the highest bidder, almost as if they were selling cows instead of people. Also from __Now Is Your Time! The African-American Struggle For Freedom__ by Walter Dean Myers, Myers explains how slaves and indentured servants were treated in America: "At first, when both Africans and indentured whites were being brought to the colonies, there was little difference in the attitudes toward them. But the laws of Great Britain under which the most populous colonies lived, protected the indentured servants by clearly stating how much time they had to serve and declaring their children to be free. No such system protected the African captives. Slave trade lasted 236 years from 1619 to 1855, which was "long after the legal importation if Africans had ended." During that time the terrible trade in human beings plunged west Africa into chaos. Europe brought their guns to the ports of Africa and attacked small villages. They provided weapons for Africans who were willing - sometimes to avoid slavery themselves but often of pure greed - to start wars against their neighbors in order to supply captives for the waiting ships. Local governments fell, unable to defend their people against European guns. Entire villages were forced to leave their traditional lands to avoid the manufactured wars." Slave Trade was an ugly and brutal thing. Villages were burned to a crisp, many people died - some in their villages, some in the middle passage, and some in the New Land - and Africans were demoralized into mindless animals of people that almost none understood. Was slave trade a bad thing? Yes, it was a horrible and brutal thing. Even though it was outlawed, people didn't stop doing it until much later, and that still didn't stop people from owning slaves. Slaves were beaten, whipped, mistreated, and even killed, and no one ever did anything about it. It was quite a black past and something America doesn't look back on with a smile.

Here is a video all about the slave trade. It gives a good depiction on how the life of the slave isn't all that fun. It was a terrible thing for African Americans. It has some really good pictures about slavery from Africa to America. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cub1ghR-YU