The Slaves Trade in Africa - Assignment Example

Slaves were taken to do manual works; some were taken as wives and mistresses. Furthermore, slave owners acquired slaves to facilitate their position and status. Slaves were taken as captives; some were kept in homes while others were taken to distant places1. Slavery was not only a practice of acquiring armies for warfare, but it was also a means of acquiring wealth by local people. Not individuals, but the community did own land. Each family was allocated land in accordance with the size and its laborers.

Therefore, families acquired more slaves in order to increase their rate of production. The slaves who survived had to create wealth to the community2. Slavery was a method of contributing wealth to the people3. Hence, to enable further creation of wealth, slavery was conducted by societies in distant places and village. Slavery involved children, women, and men. Women performed variety of activities ranging from farming and various tasks associated with agriculture, trading activities, yielding, and cotton spinning.

Women did other house chores such as cleaning, cooking among others; moreover, many practiced herding and farming. This paper is a discussion on the slave trade in Africa. The Trans-Saharan and East Africa slave trade was initiated by the entry of Arabs, who practiced Islamic religion, in Africa. Before the foundation of the Islamic religion, Arabs had been practicing slave trading. As they conquered western parts of North Africa, their leaders took the locals into captivity whom they initiated into their armies4.

The Arab Muslims spread religion to the camel herders located in the Sahara Desert. The camel herders who were in contact with the black Africans, did trade in black slaves on a small scale. The Arabs continued to buy and capture slaves in West Africa and crossing them to North Africa for sale. Thereafter, the slaves were taken to other countries in regions like; India, Arab, Persia. Transportation routes across the Sahara connected the