The Atlantic Slave Trade

One of the great myths perpetuated after the slave trade was that European 's felt that Africans were in some way inferior to themselves When one studies the period before the slave trade , the reality emerges that Europeans did not think themselves superior . It was not until the slave trade began and Europeans needed to find a justification for taking people from their homes and forcing them into slavery that the myth began to be perpetuated . Incidentally , however it happened , and whatever people 's attitudes , the Atlantic slave trade had much influence

on those countries importing slaves from Africa (Davidson 3-5

When Europeans first started coming to North America to colonize , they lacked a workforce to develop the area as they saw fit . At first they used the Native Americans , but having never been exposed to the type of sickness which Europeans carried with them , and having no immunity to them , they began dying and proving themselves to be unable to keep up with the demands of the Europeans . Also , the Europeans were not used to the tropical climate of the area they first began settling and found it inconvenient to work in such an environment . Africans on the other hand were used to working in tropical climate conditions and often had experience in agriculture . They were also resistant to many of the diseases in tropical climates , to which many Europeans had succumbed (Boddy-Evans

By 1450 , Africans were being traded as slaves , with the full cooperation of African kings and merchants . For their help in capturing and transporting slaves , these kings and merchants would receive gifts of all sorts from Europeans . The most important of which were guns which would aid in the accumulation of even more slaves (Boddy-Evans And by 1502 , the first slaves had been reported in the New World

With slaves now coming to the Americas , the route from Africa to America became known as the Middle Passage ' On the boats destined for America , the slaves were kept in horrible conditions , although not as horrible as portrayed in modern media . The fact is the slaves were seen for their monetary value , so it was in the interests of the slave traders to keep them alive . The modern conception of the horrible conditions on slave boats most probably came from abolitionists who were attempted to portray slavery in the worst possible light . But this is not to say that the slaves were treated amiably . In fact , they were packed into the most dense configurations of any group transported by Europeans across the oceans in the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries (Klein

Because of the conditions on the ships , and the length of the voyage many slaves ended up dying in route . The passage to South America generally took about a month . And from Africa to North America the journey could have taken as long as two months . The cramped conditions combined with the length of the voyage led to deaths strictly related to being in these adverse conditions...