Blacks in America, (Afro-Americans)- Origins/Migrations.

Over the years, Blacks in America has suffered subjugation, neglect and discrimination from

their white counterparts. Most whites in America hates the Black with passion and sees them as a

threat to their very existence because of the Black man's natural ability to survive and thrive

under any circumstance, yet, the black man did not just appear in America over the night. Some

of them were moved forcefully from their original homes in Africa while some others migrated

for want and needs.

Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade:

The Atlantic slave trade, transatlantic slave trade, or Euro-American slave trade involved

the transportation by slave traders of various enslaved African people, mainly to the Americas.

The slave trade regularly used the triangular trade route and its Middle Passage, and existed from

the 16th to the 19th centuries. The vast majority of those who were enslaved and transported in

the transatlantic slave trade were people from Central and West Africa, who had been sold by

other West Africans, or by half-European "merchant princes" To Western merchants.

It was European slave traders (with a small number being captured directly by the slave traders

in coastal raids), who brought them to the Americas. Except for the Portuguese, European slave

traders generally did not participate in the raids because life expectancy for Europeans in sub-

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Saharan Africa was less than one year during the period of the slave trade (which was prior to the

widespread availability of quinine as a treatment for malaria). 

The South Atlantic and Caribbean economies were particularly dependent on labour for the

production of sugarcane and other commodities. This was viewed as crucial by those Western

European states that, in the late 17th and 18th centuries, were vying with each other to

create overseas empires.

Early Beginning of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.

The Portuguese, in the 16th century, were the first to engage in the Atlantic slave trade. In 1526,

they completed the first transatlantic slave voyage to Brazil, and other Europeans soon

followed. Ship owners regarded the slaves as cargo to be transported to the Americas as quickly

and cheaply as possible, there to be sold to work on coffee, tobacco, cocoa, sugar, and

cotton plantations, gold and silver mines, rice fields, the construction industry, cutting timber for

ships, as skilled labour, and as domestic servants.

However, The first Africans kidnapped to the English colonies were classified as indentured

servants, with a similar legal standing as contract-based workers coming from Britain and

Ireland. However, by the middle of the 17th century, slavery had hardened as a racial caste, with

African slaves and their future offspring being seen legally as the property of their owners, as

children born to slave mothers were also slaves (partus sequitur ventrem).

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As property, the people were considered merchandise or units of labour, and were sold at

markets with other goods and services.

The major Atlantic slave-trading nations, ordered by trade volume, were the Portuguese,

the British, the Spanish, the French, the Dutch, and the Danish. Several had established outposts

on the African coast where they purchased slaves from local African leaders. These slaves were

managed by a factor, who was established on or near the coast to expedite the shipping of slaves

to the New World. Slaves were imprisoned in a factory while awaiting shipment. Current

estimates are that about 12 million to 12.8 million Africans were shipped across the Atlantic over

a span of 400 years.

The number purchased by the traders was considerably higher, as the passage had a high death

rate with approximately 1.2–2.4 million dying during the voyage and millions more in seasoning

camps in the Caribbean after arrival in the New World. Millions of people also died as a result of

slave raids, wars, and during transport to the coast for sale to European slave traders.

End Of the Trade.

Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade came to an end in the early 21st century.

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Near the beginning of the 19th century, various governments acted to ban the trade, although

illegal smuggling still occurred. In the early 21st century, several governments issued apologies

for the transatlantic slave trade.

Abolition of Slave Trade.

The struggle to the transatlantic slave trade and slavery was achieved by African resistance and

economic factors as well as through humanitarian campaigns.

The most prominent abolitionist in Britain notably Thomas Clarkson and William Wilberforce a

great publicist. Wilberforce led the British parliamentary campaign to abolish the transatlantic

slave trade and slavery.

Opinion in Europe was also changing. Moral, religious and humanitarian arguments for and

more and more support. A vigorous campaign to achieve abolition began in Britain in 1783 and

also developed in North America and the Caribbean, often led by the Black churches. In Britain

Thomas Clarkson was another prominent campaigner who was principally responsible for

collecting evidence against the trade. Clarkson was a founder member of the society for effecting

the abolition of the slave trade in 1787.

An active counter campaign was mounted by those who profited from slavery. The West India

lobby of plantation owners and their supporters in the British Parliament fought abolition.

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Although ultimately unsuccessful, they gained 20 million pounds compensation for plantation

losses and the loss of their slaves. Former enslaved people were not compensated.

Despite their abolition of slave trade in Britain and other countries from 1807 onwards, illegal

trading continued for a further 60 years. About a quarter of all Africans who were enslaved

between 15000 and 1870 were transported across the Atlantic in the years after 1807 much of

this illegal trade was to the sugar plantations of Cuba and Brazil.

Although humanitarian considerations were important, economic interest you are also at stake

Cuba and Brazil we are competitors to British West Indian sugar production. Merchants

developing the palm oil trade with West Africa who were largely based in Liverpool also feared

illegal slaving will damage their interest.

Abolition of Slave Trade in the United States.

The transatlantic slave trade was abolished in the United States from 1st January 1808. however

some slaving continued on an illegal basis for the next 50 years. The campaign to end slavery

itself in the United States was long and bitter the struggle was advanced by the efforts of more

than hundred anti slavery societies.

Frederick Douglas escaped from slavery and became one of the foremost anti-slavery

campaigners of his generation. his writings were influential and he also visited Britain and

Europe lecturing and gathering support.

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However, the ending of slavery in 1865 did not improve the lot of most black Americans. white

people develop the new forms of discrimination such as segregation, over the next hundred

years. The civil rights movement led by such figures as Martin Luther King, eventually achieve

success in establishing legal equality. however despite the undoubted achievement of individual

black people most Americans of colour still face economic and Social discrimination and

disadvantage

Abolition of slavery in the Caribbean and South America.

Despite the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade by several European states in the early years

of the 19th century and the subsequent attempts to suppress it. Unicorns live in continued until

the 1870s. the largest proportion of this trade operated directly between Africa and the Americas.

Notably Brazil and Cuba. The last known slave ship landed its cargo in Cuba in 1867.

However, abolition Bruno improvement for the majority of people who had been enslaved.

Indeed, the development of sugar beet and other sources of sugar so economic depression and

hardship throughout much of the Caribbean. The economic and political history of many of the

former slave colonies of Latin America and the Caribbean has continued to be one of little

improvement for the majority of the population.

Conclusion.

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The brutality of slavery caused many writers of the African Origin to write about it, they needed

to tell the world what they passed through in the hands of these masters of theirs. Their works

were referred to as the Afro-American Literature.

 African-American literature is the body of literature produced in the United States by

writers of African descent. It begins with the works of such late 18th-century writers

as Phillis Wheatley. Before the high point of slave narratives, African-American literature

was dominated by autobiographical spiritual narratives. The genre known as slave

narratives in the 19th century were accounts by people who had generally escaped from

slavery, about their journeys to freedom and ways they claimed their lives. The Harlem

Renaissance of the 1920s was a great period of flowering in literature and the arts,

influenced both by writers who came North in the Great Migration and those who were

immigrants from Jamaica and other Caribbean islands. African-American writers have

been recognized by the highest awards, including the Nobel Prize given to Toni

Morrison in 1993. Among the themes and issues explored in this literature are the role of

African Americans within the larger American society, African-American

culture, racism, slavery, and social equality. African-American writing has tended to

incorporate oral forms, such as spirituals, sermons, gospel music, blues, or rap.