Slavery and Slave Trading - Research Paper Example

The paper highlights the contribution of black Africans towards the civil war and their struggle for their rights through reconstruction, which was further instigated by the Freedman’s Bureau. the paper addresses the sufferings of the African American slaves during the Middle Passage and their struggle towards freedom which showed results in the Reconstruction period.

Middle Passage refers to the transfer of African slaves from the coast of West Africa, through the Atlantic sea to America for slavery. After the Portuguese ships first arrived on the Guinea Coast to trade gold, ivory, and pepper, they also wanted slaves. In 1441, a Portuguese named Antam Goncalves enslaved Berber and West Africans as servants and took them home to gift them to the Portuguese prince. In the following decades, the Portuguese captured hundreds of Africans to Portugal and Spain for service as domestic slaves. The Portuguese, European, and white Americans instead of capturing and enslaving the African people wanted to purchase them as slaves from the African traders.

Slavery was prohibited nationally and internationally and different societies have designed their laws and customs to abolish slavery. In 1652 Rhode Island General Court passed a law to abolish slave trading, which stated “no black mankind could be forced to serve a master for longer than ten years, after which they would be free, as the manner is with English servants”, but this was never enforced. In 1784 the Rhode Island legislature enacted the “The Gradual Abolition Act” which stated “every person born in the state after March 1 of that year would be free”, but it could not do anything for those who were born before March 1. Finally, in the year 1787, the state law prohibited “residents of the state from trading in slaves, federal statutes of 1794 and 1800 barring Americans from carrying slaves to ports outside the United States, and the 1807 Congressional act abolishing the transatlantic slave trade”. While the United States made a small effort in banning the trade, Great Britain made a major effort towards dispatching a naval squadron to the coast of Africa and at the same time negotiating with other nations to allow inspection of vessels suspected to carry slaves.

The Civil War on April 12. 1861, was the war between the North and South Americans, which was of special interest to the slaves because this war was regarded to be the deciding factor about the issue of slaves. By the end of the war, it was roughly estimated that about 179,000 black men serves as soldiers and 19,000 served as navy in the US Army. Those who couldn’t serve as soldiers served as cooks, guards, nurses, scouts, surgeons, steamboat pilots, guards, etc, contributing towards the war. Black women who joined the war but couldn’t serve as soldiers served as nurses, scouts, and spies. Estimation shows that about 40,000 black soldiers died in the course of the war and about 30,000 died of infection and disease, contributing hugely towards the war.

Reconstruction is the effort made to reconstruct and reorganize the South “politically, economically and socially” after the Civil War and also reform the relationship between the race throughout the nation. In this context, Freedman’s Bureau established in 1865 by the War Department played a major role in relieving and reconstructing society to bring citizenship to freed slaves. Many historians believed that reconstruction brought about positive changes by letting them vote, marry, worship, get an education, visit clubs, restaurant, and theatres, and enjoy every bit of civil rights. While working they started forming squads and convincing their land owners to provide them plots for residing with family and enjoy every degree of privacy and independence and at the same time they also enjoyed a certain percentage of the value of crop after sale. By 1900, 20% of African Americans owned the land where they used to work.

Though the Africans were taken by ships, which caused them immense suffering through disease and human cruelty, they fought hard for their rights and ultimately eradicated their slavery and made their race grow. The suffering did not make them break. Laws and regulations were framed by some of the authorities to eradicate this problem but were protested hard. It took decades for the African slaves to get themselves free and enjoy their rights and privileges but it was a prolonged war worth fighting.