The Slave Trade

1. The Slave Trade

2. Objectives Students will be able to: • Identify why Europeans became interested in Africa.  • Explain why millions of Africans were sent to the Americas as slaves.  • Investigate how the Atlantic slave trade affected Africa. 

3. Exploration • Prince Henry of Portugal wanted to find a sea route around Africa to India. • He sent explorers to Map the coast of west Africa and to find gold. • 1488 - Bartholomeu Dias rounded the southern tip of Africa (Cape of Good Hope) • 1498- Vasco da Gama took Dias’s route and reached India by Sea.

4. Exploration • Europeans built small trading posts on the coast. • Traded with west Africans for sugar, Ivory, gold and pepper. • The Europeans brought Christian missionaries to Africa. • The goal of the missionaries was to convert Africans to Christianity.

5. Slaves in Africa • Slaves in Africa were either people who were captured during war or people who sold themselves into slavery during times of famine. • Slaves were viewed as part of village. • They were treated as servants. • Slaves could become full members of society.

6. The Beginning of the Slave Trade • In the 1400’s the Europeans began to bring a small amount of slaves to Europe. • When the Europeans began to settle the Americas the need for slaves grew. • At first, Native Americans were used to mine silver, gold and to work on plantations. • Many of the Native Americans died so they needed to find new sources of cheap labor.

7. The Atlantic Slave Trade • Europeans began to capture Africans and ship them to the Americas. • As the demand for slaves grew, so did the profits.

8. Racism • Whites began to look at the Africans as inferior beings. • Racism was a tool used to justify slavery.

9. How did the Europeans get Slaves? • Local African rulers supplied the Europeans with slaves. • They were paid with guns and other manufactured goods. • Once the African slave traders had guns they were able to attack entire villages, capturing even more slaves.

10. Resistance • Some Africans tried to rebel on the ships. • Some Africans jumped overboard to avoid slavery.

11. Conditions on Slave Ships • Africans were tightly packed onto the ships. • Many Africans died of diseases on the ships.

12. Ending the Slave Trade • People in Europe began to speak out against slavery. • In the 1700’s important European thinkers began to talk about human rights and began the abolition movement. • Groups such as the Quakers began to support abolition.

13. Ending the Slave Trade • Many freed Africans such as Fredrick Douglas in America began to tell their own stories of slavery. • 1807- Britain outlawed the slave trade. • Britain was able to convince other nations to join the ban. • The ban did not end slavery.

14. Ending the Slave Trade • Britain passed a law banning slavery in 1833. • The United States ended slavery in 1865 with the 13th Amendment.

15. Effects of the Slave Trade • Europe began to industrialize and no longer needed slaves. • Instead they needed Africa’s raw materials. • The slave trade encouraged wars and created tensions between neighboring tribes.

16. Economic Impacts of the Slave Trade • Raiders took healthy young men and women. • Without these young men and women there was no one to reproduce and grow the crops.

17. African Diaspora • The African Diaspora spread ideas, customs and beliefs to other continents. • African musical traditions, proverbs, foods, religious beliefs and artistic styles took root in these new regions.

18. Going Back to Africa • Some Africans wanted to return to Africa when slavery was abolished. • In 1787 the British established Sierra Leone for freed slaves. • The United states organized Liberia for freed slaves which became independent in 1847.