The Slave Trade

Africa has a long history of slavery. Until the early 1500s, most slaves were prisoners of war. Some were sold to Arab traders. The Europeans visited the coasts of Africa and began shipping slaves to the New World.

European explorers to the New World set up colonies on mainland America and the islands of the Caribbean. They grew crops such as sugar cane on large plantations, and in many places enslaved the native population to do the work for them. But terrible conditions and European diseases killed many native people, so the colonists started to look elsewhere for workers to replace them. Some convicts were brought from Europe, but they soon fell ill and died. The colonists then looked to Africa for slaves.

A SLAVE AUCTION

When African slaves arrived in the Caribbean, South America or the colonies of North America, they were sold at auction to the highest bidder. Africans from different cultures and with different languages were grouped together to work.

Soon huge numbers of people were being captured in central Africa. Chained together, they were forced to march to the coast, where they were sold to European slave traders. Then, still chained, they were crammed into slave ships and taken across the Atlantic. Conditions on board ship were terrible, with not enough light, air, food or water, and as many as a third of the slaves died on each eight-week journey to America.

Slaves faced a hard life on the plantations. They were often badly fed and whipped for the smallest mistake. Many died soon after arriving at the plantations. The strongest rarely survived for more than ten years, and few ever saw Africa again.

The slave trade reached its peak in the 18^th century, when between six and seven million people were shipped from Africa to America. The impact on some traditional African societies was devastating. From the 1780s, European reformers at last began to realize how cruel slavery was and started to campaign against it.