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Carol Massey

African American Studies 004

The African American in The History of The U.S. 1

The enslavement of human beings was a painful event in world history. The

freedom and abuse of human right was a tragic event in American history.

During the 1400 Europeans explored land for wealth and profit. This route

was called the Ivory Coast, Grain Coast, and the Gold Coast. Wealth and

profit came from the sale of sugar, tobacco and other natural resources.

Europe sought labor from Africa which led to the Indigenous people who

occupied the land. The enslavement of the Indigenous people led to a shift

in power and authority in the Kongo and the African society. With this trade

it destroyed the lineage and kinship of the African society.

The transatlantic slave trad was mostly productive African adults which had

disrupted the African society. The ships that trafficked the enslaved the

people, were of thousands. The conditions were so bad that there were

slaves dying of disease, injuries, starvation, and of suicide.

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According to the text “It has been estimated that 69% of all African people

transported in the transatlantic slave trade between 1517 and 1700 A.D.

were West Central Africans and between 1701 and 1800, people from West

Central Africa comprised about 38%, of all African brought to the West to

be enslaved. (Curtin 1969)”

Enslaved slaved black people brought in to the Mid-Atlantic area, were

given a variety of labor duties to perform, they harvested grain, meat, dairy,

they built homes, they were blacksmiths, butchers, tanning, leatherwork,

carpentry, cooking, cleaning, and mining. Tobacco farming was a large

investment in the Transatlantic slave trade.

The labor of Africans enslaved during the transatlantic slave trade made it

possible to work the gold mines, grow sugar cane on Caribbean

plantations, tobacco, rice, indigo and cotton in North American plantations.

These slaves themselves became a commodity by being brought and sold

by their owners,