The Ways of the Atlantic Slave Trade Structured the Societies and Economies of the Modern World - Assignment Example

Atlantic Slavery: Explain some of the ways the Atlantic Slave Trade structured the societies and economies of the modern world. What were the key factors leading to the end of the Atlantic Slave Trade? Introduction Atlantic Slave Trade was the biggest forced movement of people in history. It involved the forced transfer of more than 11 million people from their homeland in Africa to the Americas and Europe in the period from 1500 to 1870 (Beigbeder, 2006; Collins & Burns, 2014; Eltis & Richardson, 1997). Given the long period over which the trade took place and the large number of people involved, it is obvious that the Atlantic Slave Trade had many effects on the societies that conducted or were affected by the trade. One of the ways of assessing the impact of the Atlantic Slave Trade is by looking at how the trade shaped the societies and economies of the modern world. This is because the impacts of the trade can be felt in terms of how the trade affected the social and economic structure of the societies of the people who were involved in or were affected by the trade. In other words, Atlantic Slave Trade had both social and economic effects on the societies that perpetuated or were affected by the practice. For instance, in Africa, the continent lost people who would have worked in their homeland. The slaves and their families were also tortured as part of the forced transfer of people. On the other hand, the societies that bought slaves benefited by getting the labour that they required for various production operations. There just but a few of the effects of the Atlantic Slave Trade. Therefore, this essay will discuss the Atlantic Slave Trade by examining the economic and social effects of the practice and how these effects structured the modern world. To understand the effects of the trade, there is need to examine how the practice was conducted, the people who were involved, and how the trade affected the societies that were involved. The essay will also discuss the factors that led to the end of the Atlantic Slave Trade. Background information about the Atlantic Slave Trade and how it ended Between the 16th and the 19th centuries, millions of people were forcibly sold and shipped to the Americas and Europe as slaves, in what is referred to as the Atlantic Slave Trade (M’Baye, 2006). The trade in human beings started during the 16th century, when the interest of Europe in Africa shifted from gold deposits to the need of people to do work (Kubetzek, 2011). As Europeans expanded their territory into the New World (the Americas), they needed dependable workers who were not only fit but also used to the tropical climate (Kubetzek, 2011). Kubetzek (2011) also notes that after the indigenous people of the New World had been regarded as unreliable and unsuitable for the work that was at hand, people from Africa were considered to be excellent workers due to the fact they were used to the climate, they were resistant to tropical diseases, and they were also excellent at doing hard work on plantations. These people were required to work in plantations involved in the production of cocoa, sugar, and coffee among other products (Black, 2015). Atlantic Slave Trade was carried out “across the Atlantic ocean, from the Western Coast of Europe where goods were brought to the Western part of Africa” (Kubetzek, 2011, p. 1). The interconnectedness of the regions that were involved in slave trade promoted the advancement of the Atlantic Slave Trade (Milwood, 2007). Slaves were transported through the Middle Passage to the Americas and were exchanged for goods that were brought to Europe (Kubetzek, 2011). Although Africa was a modest source of slaves for regions such as Southern Europe up to the start of the 16th century, there was a rapid change when Europe and America become partners in colonisation, and trading in slaves became one of the two regions’ major economic and political businesses (Milwood, 2007). The Atlantic Slave Trade ended during the 19th century when slavery was abolished (Kubetzek, 2011). Key concepts about Atlantic Slave Trade that are essential for understanding the topic In order to attain its purpose, this essay needs to identify the effects of the Atlantic Slave Trade on the people who were involved in the trade or were affected by the trade. The essay also needs to discuss how Atlantic Slave Trade was carried out and the factors that led to the end of the practice. The phenomenon of the effects of the Atlantic Slave Trade is related to the concept of how the trade was carried out. Therefore, the first issue that needs to be addressed is how the Atlantic Slave Trade was carried out and how this affected both the societies that were taking slaves and the societies that were the sources of the slaves. It is by understanding how the two societies were affected by the Atlantic Slave Trade that the issue of how the trade shaped the modern society economically, politically and socially will have been addressed. The second issue that needs to be discussed is how the Atlantic Slave Trade ended. This will be achieved by discussing the events that transpired which made the Atlantic Slave Trade come to a stop. By addressing the two main issues, the essay will have attempted to make a contribution to the discussions about Atlantic slavery, its effects on the modern society, and how the practice ended. Some of the ways the Atlantic Slave Trade structured the societies and economies of the modern world To understand the ways in which Atlantic Slave Trade structured the societies and economies of the modern world, it is important to delve briefly into how the trade was carried out. It is also important to discuss the effects of the trade on the societies from which people who were sold as slaves were sourced and the societies to which the slaves were exported. Although one of the reasons advanced by Europeans for launching colonial expeditions was to prevent or stop the enslavement of Africans by Arabs, the Europeans’ transatlantic trade in slaves exceeded that of Muslim traders (Beigbeder, 2006). Slavery is defined as the “total domination, by force, of an individual or group by a master or masters” (Barry, 1998, p. 113). It is under the same system of domination over others that Europeans bought and transported people from the African continent during the Atlantic Slave Trade. Apart from the high number of slaves that were shipped across the Atlantic Ocean, the conditions under which people were captured and transported as slaves were dehumanising. In many cases, the slaves died while being transported. Along this line, Black (2015) notes that there are no precise numbers regarding the overall number of people who died in slave trade, but countless slaves died during transportation across the Atlantic, where they were crowded in vessels and subjected to poor, and especially unhygienic, conditions. In other words, the conditions in which the slaves were transported were not conducive for the transportation of human beings. Beigbeder (2006) on the other hand has estimated the number of people who died during their transportation as slaves by noting that the death rate during sailing was about 35 percent in the 17th century. Therefore, one of the ways in which Atlantic Slave Trade shaped the modern societies and economies was the perception that Europeans were the masters of the people who were taken as slaves. This stems from the definition of slavery as presented above and from the methods that Europeans used to advance their superiority over the slave societies, and particularly Africans. According to Milwood (2007), one of the methods through which Europeans increased their domination over many Africans was the introduction of Christianity. Citing work done by Herbert Klein, Milwood (2007) notes that the introduction of Christianity was meant to make Africans become “dysfunctional human beings, but robotically functional for the so-called master race” (p. 14). Milwood (2007) argues that Klein is right in seeing Christianity as the vehicle through which European slave masters were able to divide slaves and especially coerce them into dealing with each other in a common language that was spoken by the Europeans, because of the notion that it was the master’s language and the perception that religion that was paramount. Milwood (2007) also argues that the slaves were compelled to accommodate the dominant Christian culture of their masters and later, of their masters in the plantations in which they were taken to work. Indeed, converting Africans to Christianity was one of the strategies used by Europeans such as the Portuguese in their initial interactions with Africans during their expeditions in search for commodities such as gold (Collins & Burns, 2014). Further, the relationship between use of Christianity to gain domination over Africans and slavery is seen in the fact that when the Atlantic Slave Trade started, Pope Nicholas V, the leader of the Catholic Church, encouraged conversion of Africans as well as monopoly by Europeans in trade, including trade in slaves (Collins & Burns, 2014). Thus, by having control over the Africans through slavery and religion, Europeans were able to spread their influence over the areas in which slaves were obtained and in the plantations where they were posted to work. This changed the modern society given that Christianity is still practiced in many countries in Africa and the Americas today. Another way in the Atlantic Slave Trade structured the societies and economies of the modern world is in terms of the political, economic, and social impacts of the trade. According to M’Baye (2006), the Atlantic Slave Trade radically weakened Africa’s capacity to grow economically and uphold its political and social stability. In particular, M’Baye (2006) notes that the arrival of Europeans on the coast of West Africa as well as their establishment of slave ports in different regions of the continent sparked an incessant process of misuse of Africa’s commodities, human resources and labour. This exploitative trade persuaded the African religious and political aristocracies as well as the warrior classes, who benefitted from slave trade, to partake in the repression of their own people. On the other hand, the Europeans made significant benefits from the Atlantic Slave Trade, given that the trade enabled them to accumulate the raw materials that they required and which ultimately helped them to power the Industrial Revolution. In contrast, African societies remained repressed and their capacity to change their methods of production into a potent entrepreneurial economy was notably impaired (M’Baye, 2006). One of the most notable political and socio-economic effects of the Atlantic Slave Trade is the underdevelopment that characterises many societies in Africa today. Prior to the advent of the Atlantic Slave Trade, many African societies were economically stable and played an active part in the Atlantic trade system (Inikori, 2001; M’Baye, 2006). But the arrival of Europeans and the large-scale forceful capture and sale of Africans disrupted the stability of Africa’s political and socio-economic system and thus led to stagnancy in Africa’s technological progress (M’Baye, 2006). An example of a specific area that has remained stagnated due to the effects of the Atlantic Slave Trade is highlighted by Odeigab (2017), when she notes that “poverty and underdevelopment in the midst of abundance in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria could be traced to as far back as the arrival of Europeans in 1444 in Africa” (p. 193). According Odeigab (2017), the Europeans’ activities and domination in the Niger Delta Region since the fifteenth century made the indigenous economy stagnated and rudimentary. Further, Odeigab notes that the Atlantic Slave Trade and the associated forced removal of people who had the capacity to develop the society dealt a big blow to the growth of the economy in the region. Along the same line, Rodney (2001) asserts that even though the loss of skills and industry in Africa as a result of slave trade was small, given the level of skills in Africa then, the stagnation that the Africans were subjected to is what prevented them from moving to another level of development. This is summed up in the statement “what Africa experienced in the early centuries of trade was precisely a loss of development opportunity, and this is what is of the greatest importance” (Rodney, 2001, p. 105). In other words, the Atlantic Slave Trade denied African societies an opportunity to develop economically, socially, and politically like other the societies in Europe and elsewhere, and this is reflected in the high level of underdevelopment in the majority of modern African societies. The opposite of what happened in Africa is that Europe experienced significant development economically, politically and socially as a result of the Atlantic Slave Trade (Dodson, 2001). M’Baye (2006) is of the view that the Atlantic Slave Trade benefited the West by helping it to develop its technology by relying on the labour provided by Africans (slaves). As well, Dodson (2001) argues that many European countries built their modern economies on slave trade. Specifically, as a result of slave trade, new industries were established to create and supply slave ships, new factories and farms were established to use the manpower supplied by the slaves, and new cities were created to organise distribution functions for the products that were being created and to make use of the products that were being manufactured in Europe’s colonies. As well, the political and economic activities of the major powers in Europe were shaped by the wars that different countries fought among themselves to get and maintain control over slave trade (Dodson, 2001). Key factors that led to the end of the Atlantic Slave Trade The end of the Atlantic Slave Trade was as a result of several factors. One of the factors is the movements that emerged in Britain and the United States calling for an end to slave trade during the second half of the 18th century (Klein, 2010). Klein (2010) further notes that the movements comprised people who were against the trade in human beings. The movements whipped up opinions against slave trade. Antislavery campaigns were advocated by writers such as Francis Hutcheson and Baron de Montesquieu during the 19th century. The views of these writers were also supported by influential thinkers like Adam Smith and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Views against slavery were also expressed from some religious philosophers, specifically Protestant evangelicals and Quakers. The French revolution that took place in 1789 and the Haitian revolution of 1791 also reinforced the feeling that slavery was not a good idea. So popular was the movement against slave trade that by the end of the 18th century, there were no major advocates of slavery in Europe (Klein, 2010). Another factor that led to the end of the Atlantic Slave Trade was the fact that Britain took deliberate steps to end slave trade. One of these steps was the passing of laws that outlawed the Atlantic Slave Trade in 1807 (Fyle, 1999). Prior to passing of the laws that outlawed slave trade, there had been concerted efforts by different groups in Britain calling for better treatment for slaves. This led to the formulation of legalisations such as Dolben’s Act (the Slave Trade Act 1788), which for the first time established limits on the manner in which slaves were transported (Klein, 2010). The act was further modified in 1799, providing for greater space for slaves being transported in an English vessel (Klein, 2010). It is such efforts that eventually led to the law outlawing slave trade. The United States also outlawed slave trade in 1808 (Fyle, 1999). Britain, being the most successful nation at the time of the Atlantic Slave Trade, also made efforts to convince other countries to end slave trade (Eltis, 1987; Fyle, 1999). These efforts included pressuring European countries like Portugal, France, Spain and Holland to outlaw slave trade (Fyle, 1999). The efforts by Britain to convince other countries to end slave trade even involved the use of force (Klein, 2010). For instance, the British had to use much pressure to finally compel the French to agree to a complete search-and-seizure accord for French ships carrying slaves or equipment used in slave trade. Britain also used its power to get the authority to search Spanish and Portuguese vessels carrying slaves (Klein, 2010). With all these measures in place, other countries had no other option but to progressively end slave trade by following in the footsteps of Britain and the United States. Conclusion Therefore, as discussed in the essay, Atlantic Slave Trade structured the societies and economies of the modern world in various ways: socially, politically and economically. One of the most notable ways in which the trade shaped the various societies is seen the fact that the spread of Christianity and especially Catholicism was done concomitantly with slave trade. In fact, Christianity was used as one of the ways of making Africans subservient to their European masters. In addition to converting Africans to Christianity, Europeans also enforced the use of their language among African societies, making it look like their language was superior to those languages used by Africans. The fact that Christianity and the languages used by slave masters are still embraced among many African countries that were affected by slave trade as well as the Americas where the slaves were taken shows how the Atlantic Slave Trade shaped modern societies and economies along the lines of region and language. Another notable point is that the Atlantic Slave Trade fundamentally weakened Africa’s societies and economies by denying them an opportunity to flourish economically and maintain political and social stability. As people were forcefully taken from Africa, this denied the affected societies the opportunity to build their own economies and thus grow socially and politically like other societies across the world. In contrast, European countries benefited from the Atlantic Slave Trade since the trade made it possible for them to accumulate the resources that they required and which eventually helped them to flourish during the Industrial Revolution. 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