The Contribution of the African Slaves into the Making of America



The Contribution of the African Slaves into the Making of America

Introduction

The paper attempts to focus on the contribution of African slaves in the making of the United States of America. It presents a brief history of the Slave trade of African slavery. It also presents an overview of the situation in the times of slave trade and attempts to relate it with the making of the United States of America. The paper also mentions the various reasons as to why the slave trade can be considered as a contribution for the making of the United States of America. It presents an overall point of view of the relation between the African slaves used in the slave trade and the development of the United States of America in the early centuries after it was discovered.

Discussion

Slave Trade

The exploration of the coast of Africa, the discovery of America in the fifteenth century and its colonization in the next three centuries significantly boosted the slave trade. The slave trade was done through the areas surrounding the African continent (Finkelman, 2007). At first this trade was basically conducted by pirates who would capture ships and sell the people as slaves; however, by the seventeenth century various companies started engaging in the activity of slave trade (Horton & Horton, 2009). These slaves were used for the purpose of cultivation and reaping on the huge fertile lands of landlords. The slave trade was a little different in the comparison of trafficking in the East and West. The East covered small areas, while the West was from where huge numbers of slaves were brought and sold (Dattel, 2009).

On the west coast of Africa, the transatlantic slave trade began in the fifteenth century, specifically in the year 1441 with the traffic of the first African slaves conducted by the Portuguese. Slaves were captured generally by other Africans and transported to the west coast of Africa (Horton & Horton, 2009). Spain, soon imitated this practice, but for over a century, Portugal continued to monopolize trade. In the late sixteenth century, the United Kingdom began to compete for the right to supply slaves to the colonies overseas wielded by Portugal, France, Holland and Denmark. At this time, the English, who came to delay the race, begin to dominate the seas, claiming leadership in the slave trade. In 1713, the British South Sea Company obtained the exclusive right to supply slaves to the colonies transoceanic, which remained legal until the late nineteenth century (Finkelman, 2007).

Before the wide spread concept of slavery, the owner of the slave, who acquired the slave, possessed not only the slave but also had rights over the offspring of that slave. Much of the work in the colonies was held with groups of workers recruited by the method of indentured servitude. Between 1680 and 1700 slaves workers began to replace many of the debtors in the American colonies (Anderson & Stewart, ...