American History - Impact of the slave trade on African society

AMERICAN HISTORY
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American History
Section 1: global exploration and the development of the Atlantic World slave trade and
their interconnectedness.
The Atlantic world describes the relationship between the people of Europe, America, and Africa
through different relationships that took place between the 15th and the 19th centuries. These
three regions constituted a single system that was integrated through trade which was defined as
the triangular system of trade. The slave trade developed after the discovery of America where
Europeans invested heavily in agriculture (Klein p.34). This led to the need for human labor to
take care of the agricultural plantations that had been formed in this region. This meant that the
Europeans started a new system of trade that was based on the relationship where the Europeans
brought manufactured goods and weapons to Africa in exchange for slaves from their leaders,
the slaves were then transported to America work in the farms and then the produce from the
farms were transported to Europe. This triangular trade connected three continents in a system of
trade that was different. This meant that the Africans were the ones who were negatively affected
since they were forced into slavery while the other two parts of the triangle flourished well. Thus
the Atlantic trade defined an interconnected system that allowed Africa, Europe, and America
which had never been connected before to exist as one thing that was defined by the middle
passage that connected these two worlds (Bradley and Cartledge p.29). Like any other trade,
strong communities began rising in the West due to the benefits of the slave trade. Africans

AMERICAN HISTORY
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slowly started developing and improving their economic system as they got connected to the
developed world of Europe. These effects of trade are defined by the importance of contact
between one region and the other through the transfer of information, resources, ideas, and
technology.
Section 2: The impact of the slave trade on African society and the human experience of
the Middle Passage.
Slave trade had the biggest impact on African societies since it led to the transfer of many people
from Africa to America. It is estimated that around 12 million Africans were transported from
Africa through the middle passage that greatly affected the Africans. During the transport on
ships in the middle passage, slaves suffered through many diseases that were associated with the
conditions in which they were transported making most of them die during the journey. African
societies that lost most of their productive people to the trade were affected since they became
impoverished with the lack of enough food that was to be produced by those who had been
transported (Domingues p.4). The forceful removal of the slaves from their families emotionally
and psychologically affected their families since they were disconnected and taken to a new
environment that they never understood. On the other hand, the family members who were left
behind were affected by the idea of losing their children and never seeing them again. This
horrible experience changed African societies since it weakened most of them and led to the
experience of trauma that could not be forgotten due to the loss of their loved ones. However,
Cardoso, Spake and Wasterlain (p.2014) add that Africa also benefited from this trade since
goods were brought in exchange for slaves which created a new enlightenment era. As the
Africans made more contact and trade with Europeans, African states started growing especially