The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade

The Trans-Atlantic slave trade was a period in world history during the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, where African Slaves were transported across the Atlantic Ocean to sugar, cotton, coffee, and mining plantations located in the Caribbean and North and South America. Christopher Columbus had officially connected the "Old World" of Africa and Europe to the "New World" of North and South America, and the desire for spices, fabric and gold motivated the European Nations to pursue an alternate route so as to expand their Asiatic trade by developing new sea routes that would enable them to bypass the Muslim Saharan Caravan Routes across the Saharan desert. (Ross pg.159) Europe was in the beginning of an intellectual renaissance where they were recovering from nearly a thousand years of isolation and internal conflicts. However, after Columbus discovery, Europe had found new sources of riches and raw materials in the mines and the land of the Caribbean and North and South America that they did not possess, though they severely wanted. The hard and strenuous work that was required to exploit the riches from the New World needed a strong and reliable labor force, and with the decimation of the Native Amerindian populations and the lack of European migration, "Slavery or some form of coerced labor was the only possible option if European consumers were to gain access to more tropical produce and precious metals."(Eltris, 2007) Although Europeans were the primary beneficiary of the African Slave trade, African Chiefs and Arab Kings were also heavily involved and benefits immensely from the transportation of African Slaves to the new world of European colonialism.

Europe Prior to the beginning of the African Slave trade was recovering from the late middle ages and experiencing a renewal in intellectual thought, religious reformation and advancements in military technology. Clayton Drees states in Late Medieval Age of Crisis that, "Europeans discovered opportunity, and in crisis they found renewal, a rebirth of interest in ancient wisdom and human achievement that we have come to call the Renaissance". (Drees pg.9) European nations were experiencing a new rise of the monarchial state where they were looking to their Kings and Queens as more paternal figures vice the Church and the Holy Roman Empire. The concept of the European Middle Age Feudal Political system was still the dominate arrangement between the classes of people; however it was slowly moving into more capitalist driven lifestyle which would eventually lead them to the seas for exploration of new ways to create stronger economic systems and wealth. The protestant reformation, the Hundred years War (which was a savage and destructive period where armies were largely composed of mercenary troops who plundered freely and lived off the land rather than carry their own supplies), the expanding Muslim Empire, the Bubonic Plague and the reestablishment of intellectual though through the Renaissance, all had major influences on the desire for Europe to expand its border

Africa, the Caribbean, and North America Prior to Slave Trade were far from being uncivilized, as the Europeans would label them as. They all had seen the rise and fall of many empires and civilizations over thousands of years prior to European discovery. Before the devastation of the Transatlantic Slave Trade important diplomatic and trading partnerships had developed between the rulers of European countries and those of Africa who saw each other as equals. Some of the earliest European visitors to Africa recognized that many African societies were as advanced or even more advanced than their own. Despite the fact that Africa was more advanced than Europe at an earlier period, Europe by the beginning of the slave trade had surpassed Africa, especially in the capacity of its economy to produce goods like ships and guns. Africa had become a weaker socioeconomic system to the Europeans and when the profitable European need for labor was introduced, the human desire for personal elevation took hold on the African people as described by Borlot in his essay of the Transatlantic Slave Trade; "that Private land ownership was largely absent from pre-colonial African societies, and slaves were one of the few forms of wealth-producing property an individual could possess". (Borlot, 2007) The Arabs had already been exploring the coasts of Africa and had already been involved in the business of capturing and selling the African people since the seventh century.

There were two significant reasons for the development of the transatlantic slave trade: the first being the fact that the Europeans did not have the surplus of raw materials that they needed to increase their economic society and the second being the declination of a reliable workforce through either European migration or Amerindian participation.

The Europeans did not produce a significant amount of raw materials that would have entitled them to a more productive export system, so they began the concept of colonialism in Africa, the Caribbean and the Americas. Charles Bergquest states in The Paradox of American development that "Colonies outside Europe came to play a central role in mercantilist strategy" (Benjamin, Hall and Rutherford. pg155). This meant that the colonies of Europe would subsequently become the source of the raw material that the Europeans needed to continue with their international trade and economic superiority. The Caribbean, Africa and South American slave trade focused mainly on mining for gold, silver and other precious metals while in North America, agricultural crops such as sugar, tobacco, and cotton. The shift from the use of indentured servants in the North American colonies to slave labor was based on the ideology that European did not consider enslaving their own race for the hard agricultural work of the colonies, and that that type of work was more "suited" for the black, non-Christian Africans. (Bergquest pg. 158) The plantation agriculture of North America gave the European the raw material that they wanted, yet could not produce on their own. This was the effect of their transition to a highly productive, yet inhuman work force of relative free labor from slavery.

Another major reason for the development of the slave trade was the fact the expanding European empires in the New World lacked one major resource; a work force. The Native Amerindians had proven to be an unreliable, either through mutinous actions or simply because they were dying by the millions due to the fact they had no natural immune system to the European diseases. As Klein states in African Slavery in Latin America and the Caribbean "Indian slave labor, such labor would eventually prove too unreliable and costly to guarantee the necessary agricultural labor force needed to maintain