The Trans Atlantic Slave Trade

How would you feel if you and your family were held captive on a ship with hundreds of other helpless people for long periods of time? African slaves were put in horrible conditions and treated with no respect as they were boarded on ships to be shipped to America like box packages. The ship image from the assignment along with the support of sources highlights the inhuman treatment of Africans and what they went through as slaves. From the depiction of the slave ship image, you can see how close and tight it was for slaves on the ships. They were literally stacked on top of each other or layed down next to each other almost all the time.

I feel like the image is a blueprint for how to set slaves into each ship, and each ship had layers to hold a maximum capacity. My guess on the audience for this image is that it would be white slave owners which is probably the only feasible conclusion to that question. There was probably nothing special used to make this image besides a pen and measuring tool to graph proper sketches to scale so it was as close as possible to the real measurements. Looking at this image I can see that the people in that day and age were not concerned with the lives they were ruining. Their only worry was getting as many slaves across the ocean as possible so they could make their money. If someone were to try and transport slaves on a ship in today’s age, it would probably be more humane with the technology we have access to now. That being said, it’s likely that more slaves will survive the voyage than back when the transatlantic slave trade was prevalent. Also the amount of time it would take to transport would be much 1shorter, again because of the technology we now have access to.

The only things that are really the same are the fact that they would still be transporting slaves and that they are on ships. I feel like the image really presents the true nature of the founders of America. The meaning behind this image only emphasizes the significance of racial issues in America. The fact that minorities are basically against white supremacists and police, police brutality, poverty rates, etc. From this also stems the idea that America as a country thinks that it is better than others and that people will bend to their rules or they will establish their dominance. “Millions of Africans were torn from their homes, deported to the American continent and sold as slaves. ” Again, the slave trade era was one of the more inhuman things that was done on a global sale. People were literally separated from their homes in order to satisfy the needs of other people and they were treated with no respect. “In the transatlantic slave trade alone the estimate of those deported is believed to be approximately 17 million. ” This does not include the amount of slaves that died on the ships and in different political events surrounding slave trade. These slaves were traded for many different resources in Africa including food, gunpowder and other necessities. These slaves were used for manual labor by their European and American buyers. “European planters spread sugar, cultivated by enslaved Africans on plantations in Brazil, and later Barbados, throughout the Caribbean. ” They were made to pick different plants and food such as cocoa, coffee, rice, tobacco, and one of the more used crops like cotton. Their owners would work them all day with minimal rest and if they did not complete their work they were beaten or killed as an example.

The slave trade era lasted about four centuries and the earliest it 2started was around 1619 when half a million slaves were transported to Brazil. The era of the transatlantic slave trade was a very gruesome and inhuman time period. Africans were sold off by their own people which led to them being taken from their families and stripped from their homes to go off and do manual labor for the rest of their life. Slaves were put in horrible conditions while on trade ships and most of them died throughout the journey which lasted anywhere from one to two months. The slave trade really brought out the true colors of many societies across the world and most importantly the American society.x