Slavery and the atlantic slave trade Research Paper

Slavery and the atlantic slave trade - Research Paper ExampleThe importation of African slaves became an essential, acceptable and profitable part of European commerce. Taking advantage of the internecine warring amidst African nations, Europeans forcefully removed Africans from their homeland, with the largest numbers from the Gold, Ivory and West Coasts. The cruel system of African slavery was uniquely different from other forms of slavery due to the brutal manner in which it was conducted, the treatment of African slaves as goods or personal property, and the great numbers of people who were captured as slaves, believed to be over 50 million. The unidirectional trip to the Americas was known as the Middle-Passage. One of the major debates among historians about the transatlantic slave trade argues the particular(prenominal) reasons for Europeans to enslave Africans during an ample period spanning the 15th to the early 19th century. Thesis Statement The purpose of this root w ord is to determine whether European motivation for the slave trade was related to profits, racism, or had another explanation. The Significance and long-run Effects of the Slave Trade Historian Marcus Rediker has explored not only the transatlantic slave trade, but in addition the slave ships by which the trade was carried out for centuries. The transportation of enslaved Africans and business transactions of slaves towards their use as strained labor, forms historys greatest imposed migration. ... Contrastingly, the loss of large numbers of its people led to extensive decline in Africas economy and semipolitical situation. Despite rich natural resources, the continents inability to overcome its low levels of development towards progress is attributed fully to its past of enslavement and depletion of its population3. However, other reasons such(prenominal) as the siphoning away of world financial aids meant for Africas development, by politicians in the weak political system, f urther undermines the continents future. Racism and the Brutality of the Transatlantic Slave Trade Significantly, racism is delineate as white supremacy4, because no other race in the world has asserted itself to be the spiffing race and used political or economic resources to impose oppression on others on the fanny of race. The Europeans considered themselves as the superior race on the basis of their light skin color, and believed that shadowy skin genetically predetermined Africans as inferior, and suitable only for the status of slave. Thus, the Europeans developed deeply ingrained discrimination against the dark coloured Africans as others belonging to a lower class of humanity. This approach is also evident in the fact that Europeans did not enslave other Europeans because of an underlying commitment to individual rights. They considered other whites as akin(predicate) to themselves, and consequently their equals. Since Africans were considered as different both physical ly and culturally, this otherness was the rationalization for enslaving, ill-treating and enforcing hard labor on them. Carl Degler5 and Winthrop Jordan6 supported this view of racism being key to Africans enslavement by the white Europeans.