The Atlantic Slave Trade Effects On Africa

Debates over the economic, social, and political meaning of slavery and the slave trade have persisted for over two hundred years. The Atlantic Slave Trade brings clarity and critical insight to the subject. In fourteen essays, leading scholars consider the nature and impact of the transatlantic slave trade and assess its meaning for the people transported and for those who owned them. Among the questions these essays address are: the social cost to Africa of this forced migration; the role of slavery in the economic development of Europe and the United States; the short-term and long-term effects of the slave trade on black mortality, health, and life in the New World; and the racial and cultural consequences of the abolition of slavery. Some of these essays originally appeared in recent issues of Social Science History; the editors have added new material, along with an introduction placing each essay in the context of current debates. Based on extensive archival research and detailed historical examination, this collection constitutes an important contribution to the study of an issue of enduring significance. It is sure to become a standard reference on the Atlantic slave trade for years to come. Contributors. Ralph A. Austen, Ronald Bailey, William Darity, Jr., Seymour Drescher, Stanley L. Engerman, David Barry Gaspar, Clarence Grim, Brian Higgins, Jan S. Hogendorn, Joseph E. Inikori, Kenneth Kiple, Martin A. Klein, Paul E. Lovejoy, Patrick Manning, Joseph C. Miller, Johannes Postma, Woodruff Smith, Thomas Wilson

For review see: J.R. McNeill, in HAHR, 74, 1 (February 1994); p. 136-137.

Debates over the economic, social, and political meaning of slavery and the slave trade have persisted for over two hundred years. The Atlantic Slave Trade brings clarity and critical insight to the subject. In fourteen essays, leading scholars consider the nature and impact of the transatlantic slave trade and assess its meaning for the people transported and for those who owned them. Among the questions these essays address are: the social cost to Africa of this forced migration; the role of slavery in the economic development of Europe and the United States; the short-term and long-term effects of the slave trade on black mortality, health, and life in the New World; and the racial and cultural consequences of the abolition of slavery. Some of these essays originally appeared in recent issues of Social Science History; the editors have added new material, along with an introduction placing each essay in the context of current debates. Based on extensive archival research and detailed historical examination, this collection constitutes an important contribution to the study of an issue of enduring significance. It is sure to become a standard reference on the Atlantic slave trade for years to come. Contributors. Ralph A. Austen, Ronald Bailey, William Darity, Jr., Seymour Drescher, Stanley L. Engerman, David Barry Gaspar, Clarence Grim, Brian Higgins, Jan S. Hogendorn, Joseph E. Inikori, Kenneth Kiple, Martin A. Klein, Paul E. Lovejoy, Patrick Manning, Joseph C. Miller, Johannes Postma, Woodruff Smith, Thomas Wilson

Seminar paper from the year 2011 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 2,7, University of Kassel, language: English, abstract: In the sixteenth century, when Europe's interest in Africa moved away from deposits of gold to the need of work force, the Atlantic Slave Trade began. Because of expansion to the New World, Europeans needed reliable workers who were not suffering seriously from diseases and who were used to a tropical climate. After indigenous peopled had proved unreliable and unsuited, African people emerged as excellent workers because they were used to the climate, resistant to tropical diseases, and also hard working on plantations (Boddy-Evans). The Atlantic Slave Trade took place across the Atlantic ocean, from the Western coast of Europe where goods were brought to the Western part of Africa. Slaves were then shipped through the Middle Passage to the New World and were traded with goods, which were brought to Europe. The so-called triangular trade ended in the nineteenth century through the abolition of slavery. Considering the forced migration of African people, the continent suffered great losses. About 13 million people were shipped to the Americas. There are still debates as to how much the continent was, and still is, affected by the trade. Due to the fact that slavery was not new to Africans and the influx of goods, the continent gained material benefits. But the loss of people and, therefore, the loss of work force for the continent itself, prove that Africa still suffers from that period. In particular, continuous poverty and underdevelopment play a major role (Boddy-Evans). The following will be focused on the effects on the economy, society, and people in Africa due to the Atlantic Slave Trade. It will be clarified how Africa changed and how great the effects on African society were and still are today. A working paper on a conference about reparations will be included to illumina

We all know the story of the slave trade—the infamous Middle Passage, the horrifying conditions on slave ships, the millions that died on the journey, and the auctions that awaited the slaves upon their arrival in the Americas. But much of the writing on the subject has focused on the European traders and the arrival of slaves in North America. In Crossings, eminent historian James Walvin covers these established territories while also traveling back to the story’s origins in Africa and south to Brazil, an often forgotten part of the triangular trade, in an effort to explore the broad sweep of slavery across the Atlantic. Reconstructing the transatlantic slave trade from an extensive archive of new research, Walvin seeks to understand and describe how the trade began in Africa, the terrible ordeals experienced there by people sold into slavery, and the scars that remain on the continent today. Journeying across the ocean, he shows how Brazilian slavery was central to the development of the slave trade itself, as that country tested techniques and methods for trading and slavery that were successfully exported to the Caribbean and the rest of the Americas in the following centuries. Walvin also reveals the answers to vital questions that have never before been addressed, such as how a system that the Western world came to despise endured so long and how the British—who were fundamental in developing and perfecting the slave trade—became the most prominent proponents of its eradication. The most authoritative history of the entire slave trade to date, Crossings offers a new understanding of one of the most important, and tragic, episodes in world history.

15 originale essays om den globale betydning af ophævelsen af den atlantiske slavehandel

Forced Migration, first published in 1982, examines the impact of the slave trade on Africa. There has been much debate over recent years about the effect of the Atlantic slave trade on Africa, with some authorities claiming that there were huge figures involved, and that these set back Africa's development for many years. Other historians reach lower estimates of the figures involved in the Atlantic trade, and hence argue that the effects on the political economy of Africa were more limited. Had widespread slavery existed long before the growth of the European slave trade? How important was the trans-Saharan traffic? Dr Inikori is the most authoritative voice in Africa to take part in this controversial international debate. He has done much original research into records, and here has made and introduced a selection of key papers. He has added elucidating editorial comments that place each paper in its context and link it to the other contributions.

This watershed study is the first to consider in concrete terms the consequences of Britain's abolition of the Atlantic slave trade. Why did Britain pull out of the slave trade just when it was becoming important for the world economy and the demand for labor around the world was high? Caught between the incentives offered by the world economy for continuing trade at full tilt and the ideological and political pressures from its domestic abolitionist movement, Britain chose to withdraw, believing, in part, that freed slaves would work for low pay which in turn would lead to greater and cheaper products. In a provocative new thesis, historian David Eltis here contends that this move did not bolster the British economy; rather, it vastly hindered economic expansion as the empire's control of the slave trade and its great reliance on slave labor had played a major role in its rise to world economic dominance. Thus, for sixty years after Britain pulled out, the slave economies of Africa and the Americas flourished and these powers became the dominant exporters in many markets formerly controlled by Britain. Addressing still-volatile issues arising from the clash between economic and ideological goals, this global study illustrates how British abolitionism changed the tide of economic and human history on three continents.