The Slave Trade And Its Effects On

Early America Essay, Research Paper

The Slave Trade and Its Effects on Early America

Slavery played an important role in the development of the American

colonies. It was introduced to the colonies in 1619, and spanned until the

Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. The trading of slaves in America in the

seventeenth century was a large industry. Slaves were captured from their homes

in Africa, shipped to America under extremely poor conditions, and then sold to

the highest bidder, put to work, and forced to live with the new conditions of

America.

There was no mercy for the slaves and their families as they were

captured from their homes and forced onto slave ships. Most of the Africans who

were captured lived in small villages in West Africa. A typical village

takeover would occur early in the morning. An enemy tribe would raid the

village, and then burn the huts to the ground. Most of the people who were taken

by surprise were killed or captured; few escaped. The captured Africans were

now on their way to the slave ships. ?Bound together two by two with heavy

wooden yokes fastened around their necks, a long line of black men and women

plodded down a well-worn path through the dense forest. Most of the men were

burdened with huge elephants’ tusks. Others, and many of the women too, bore

baskets or bales of food. Little boys and girls trudged along beside their

parents, eyes wide in fear and wonder? (McCague, 14).

After they were marched often hundreds of miles, it was time for them to

be shipped off to sea, so that they could be sold as cheap labor to help harvest

the new world. But before they were shipped off, they had to pass through a

slave-trading station. The slave trade, which was first controlled by Portugal,

was now controlled by other European nations. In the late 1600’s, Spain,

Holland, England, France and Denmark were all sending ships to West Africa. The

slave trade was becoming big business (Goodman, 7).

Selection of the slaves by the traders was a painstaking process. Ships

from England would pull up on the coast of Africa, and the captains would set

off towards the coast on small ships. ?If the slave trader was a black chief,

there always had to be a certain amount of palaver, or talk, before getting down

to business. As a rule, the chief would expect some presents, or dash? (Stampp,

26). Once the palaver was over, the slaves had to be inspected. The captain of

the ship usually had a doctor who would check the condition of the slaves. They

would carefully examine the slaves, looking in their mouths, poking at their

bodies, and making them jump around. This was done so that the doctor could see

how physically fit the slaves were. If the slaves were not of the doctors

standards, they were either killed or kept to see if another ship would take

them.

In the 1600’s, the journey across the Atlantic for the African slaves

was a horrible one. It was extremely disease-ridden, and many slaves did not

survive the journey. The people were simply thrown into the bottom of the ship

and had to survive the best they could. Often, many slaves had to wait in the

bottom of the ship while they were still docked at the harbor, so that the

traders could gather up more and more slaves. There were usually 220 to 250

slaves in each ship. Then they had to stay down there for the long trip across

the Atlantic Ocean to the New World. ?Women and children were allowed to roam

at large, but the men were attached by leg irons to chains that ran along the

ship’s bulwarks. After a breakfast of rice or cornmeal or yams, with perhaps a

scrap of meat thrown in, and a little water, there came the ceremony of ?dancing

the slaves? -a compulsory form of exercise designed, it was said, for the

captive’s physical and mental well being? (Howard, 23). Even though there was

ventilation, the air in the crowded hold area quickly grew foul and stinking.

Fierce tropical heat also added to the misery of the slaves. Seasickness was

also a problem.

Conditions on the ships improved as the slave trade continued, but

thousands of Africans still lost their lives on the journey to the new world.

When slaves would try to rebel on the ship, they were immediately killed and

thrown overboard. Some slaves preferred death over slavery. Watching their

chance while on deck, they often jumped overboard to drown themselves (Davis,

67).

Africans were brought to America to work. ?They worked the cotton

plantations of Mississippi and in the tobacco fields of Virginia, in Alabama’s

rich black belt, in Louisiana’s sugar parishes, and in the disease-ridden rice

swamps of Georgia and South Carolina? (Buckmaster, 153). Most slaves were

worked extremely hard, because they had the job of cultivating the crops on the

plantations. It began before daybreak and lasted until dark, five and sometimes

six days a week. ?An Alabama man said ‘Sunup to sundown was for field Negroes.’

Men and women alike were roused at four or five a.m., generally by the blowing

of a horn or the ringing of a bell? (Goodman, 18). By daybreak, the slaves

were already working under the control of Negro drivers and white overseers.

They plowed, hoed, picked, and performed the labors appropriate to the season of

whatever they were harvesting. For example, during the harvest season on a

sugar plantation, slaves were worked sixteen to eighteen hours a day, seven days

a week. That is longer hours than convicts were permitted to work in several of

the Southern states (DuBois, 35). This was not only limited to sugar. Cotton

and tobacco workers had the same harsh hours in the hot southern sun.

Even children were put to work on the plantations. ?By the age of six

or seven, children were ready to do odd jobs around the plantation-picking up

trash in the yard, raking leaves, tending a garden patch, minding babies,

carrying water to the fields. By the age of ten, they were likely to be in the

fields themselves, classed as ?quarter hands? (McCague, 35).

Often there were health problems among the slaves in early America. ?

The combination of hard, sometimes exhausting toil and inferior diet, scanty

clothing and unsanitary housing led, predictably, to health problems? (Goodman,

31). This caused a problem for slave owners, because they wanted the most

efficiency out of their slaves as possible. In some places doctors were called

in to treat blacks as well as whites.

The slave trade played an important role in the growth of the American

colonies. Without the trading of slaves in the seventeenth century, American

plantations would not have prospered into the export empire that they were.

Buckmaster, Henrietta. Let My People Go. Boston: Beacon Press, 1941.

Davis, David Brion. Slavery and Human Progress. New York: Oxford University

Press,

1984.

DuBois, William Edward Burghardt. The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to

the

United States of America. New York: Schocken Books, 1969.

Goodman, Walter. Black Bondage: the Life of Slaves in the South. New York:

Farrar,

Straus & Giroux, 1969.

Howard, Richard. Black Cargo. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1972.

McCague, James. The Long Bondage 1441-1815. Illinois: Garrard Publishing

Company, 1972.

Stampp, Kenneth M. The Peculiar Institution. New York: Borzoi Books, 1982.