*The Atlantic Slave Trade

*Before the 1400s•A person could become a slave for many reasons:

•Captured in war

•Could not pay debts

•Criminals

•Parents sold children into slavery

•Slaves held a variety of jobs

•Slaves were usually freed after the paid their debts or reached a certain age

*After 1400s*Ships from Europe brought guns, cloth, and cash to Africa

*Africans traded other Africans as slaves for these goods

*Sugar, cotton, and molasses are brought from America to Europe

*Triangle Trade

*Name for series of trade routes between Europe, Africa, and America.

*Middle Passage: leg of the trade during which African slaves were taken to America

*System allowed Europeans to dominate trade and make large profits.

*Why Africans?

*The Pope declared that only non-Christians could be slaves.

*Most non-whites were not Christian so they became slaves

*Eventually this transferred to race/skin color.

*Thriving businesses*Industries that supported trade

thrived:

*Shipbuilding

*Fishing

*Tobacco plantations

*Processing sugar

*Towns like Nantes, France and Salem, Massachusetts become wealthy port cities

*The Process

*Africans were taken from inland villages and forced to march to coastal ports.

*Some walked thousands of miles to the coast.

*Men, women, and children were bound together with ropes and chains to prevent escape.

*Aboard “Floating Coffins”*Africans were packed

below the decks of ships.

*Trips lasted three weeks to three months.

*Disease was the biggest threat to life, and threatened a merchant’s profits.

*Suicide was more common than mutiny.

*African reaction to slavery

*Affonso I: ruler of Kongo, tried to convert subjects to Christianity to avoid slavery

*Ultimately unsuccessful since the demand for slaves was large.

*Osei Tutu: Asante leader who captured rival Africans and sold them into slavery, saving his own country from this fate.

*Impact of slave trade*African states and

societies were torn apart

*African lives cut short and brutalized.

*By the mid 1800s an estimated 11 million slaves had been sent to America.

*Another 2 million had died on the journey.

*Columbian Exchange

*Explorers travelling from the Americas brought back plants and animals to Europe.

*They returned to the Americas with goods from Europe to trade.

*This exchange of goods across continents is known as the Columbian Exchange (after Chris Columbus)

From America

From Europe

*Population Growth?*The exchange of food created a healthier diet

for many people.

*This caused the population to rise quickly.

*The Columbian Exchange also sparked the migration of people to America, searching for a new life or opportunities.

*Other groups, such as Natives and Africans, experienced higher death rates due to brutal European control.

*Vocabulary

*Capitalism: economic system in which most businesses are privately owned.

*Entrepreneurs: person who takes on a financial risk for a profit.

*Mercantilism: exporting more than you import to build up a supply of gold and sliver.