Brown_C Response and Annotations 1
Weekly Readings Summary and Response
The Atlantic slave trade was by far one of the most brutal but profitable economic
ventures for European colonial nations. The 17th and 18th century are defined by the dramatic
number of native Africans being sold, traded, and trafficked to Atlantic plantations to maintain
the extreme output that European nations demanded. However, the Atlantic slave trade did not
simply appear. European nations did not initially set out across the Atlantic to create a cross-
cultural economy based on the selling and buying of other human beings, they simply built and
expanded on the existing structure that they found on the African Continent. Thus, it became a
necessary means to their ends.
Early encounters between Europeans and African kingdoms found that a sophisticated
system of slavery already existed. Typically, people were acquired to become slaves under
certain circumstances such failure to pay their debts, were prisoners of war, or they were
kidnapped for the purpose of selling them into slavery1. Overtime, European nations who became
involved in the in the slave trade came to heavily rely on the latter to sustain the practice. Slaves
in Africa were used in similar matters to what we would come to see in the Americas. African
plantations were a blueprint for the latter sugar, coffee, and tobacco plantations that we would
come to see in in the American colonies and Caribbean. While the Europeans did not create the
system, they most certainly recognized the economic potential of it and expanded it beyond the
boarders of the African continent.
Similar to the cash crops being grown throughout the Atlantic, Slaves themselves became
one of the most valuable resources that Europeans nations depended on. Slave labor became the
profitable way to operate these vast plantations to produce the most crops and earn the most
1 (Benjamin 2009, 334)
Brown_C Response and Annotations 2
profit. Healthy and able men were typically what plantations invested in because they were the
dominant means of labor, however this created a vastly unstable population. Brutal treatment and
poor conditions including malnourishment and disease, led to a vicious cycle of demand for
more slaves. Only about 33% of the slave ships population would be female meaning that natural
replenishment of the populations on the plantations were unachievable2. To sustain a naturally
replenishing population, plantations owners would be required to provide adequate living
conditions that lent itself to bolstering the family and lower the high infant mortality rate. This
was considered not as profitable as simply working slaves to the extreme. Because of this,
plantations across the Atlantic required constant replenishment. As a result of this demand, more
than ten million native Africans would be surviving the middle passage and enslaved across
European colonies in the New World3.
Upon arriving in the new world, African slaves faced several challenges that included
harsh treatment, but also strict regulations regarding their behavior that was meant to legally
reinforce their status as enslaved property. These legal regulations were created under the guise
and pretense that not only was slavery a justified structure, but a way to make the Africans lives
better and assist in their needs4. Under this system, Europeans believed that not only was slavery
a means to their ends, but beneficial by providing the African slaves with education, basic needs,
and other things that they may not have had access to in their native lands. Throughout the
Atlantic Slave Trade and within the plantation system, steps were taken to ensure that the slave
populations were subject to these strict regulations to not encourage or instigate any level of
revolt or rebellion. Despite these legal, political, and cultural structures placed upon the slave
populations, over time the slave trade and the plantation system became more and more
2 (Ibid, 352)
3 (The Slave Voyages Consortium 2021)
4 (Games and Rothman 2008, 205)
Brown_C Response and Annotations 3
“Africanized”. This meant that despite being subjected to enslavement, African slaves found
ways to subtly resist colonial slave rule, but also carve out their own unique identity5.
One method to ensure African slaves were at a disadvantage was to populate plantations
across the Atlantic with slaves brought from diverse locations throughout Africa6. Because of the
linguistic diversity and cultural differences, it would have been difficult for these groups to
organize and attempt a successful revolt or resistance against the plantation system. However,
what this system did was create an opportunity for diverse African cultures to blend with each
other. Slaves typically distanced themselves from the European cultural influences that were
pushed on them and turned inward to retain elements of their native cultures, while also blending
them with other African traditions7. This shared experience allowed for an underlying explosion
of cultural diffusion throughout the new world that deeply influenced the wider Atlantic.
Bibliography
Benjamin, Thomas. The Atlantic World: Europeans, Africans, Indians, and Their Shared History
1400-1900. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Games, Alison, and Adam Rothman. Major Problems in Atlantic History. Belmont, CA:
Wadsworth, 2008.
The Slave Voyages Consortium. Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade - Database. 2021.
https://www.slavevoyages.org/voyage/database.
Annotations
5 (Benjamin 2009, 375)
6 (Games and Rothman 2008, 203)
7 (Benjamin 2009, 401)
Brown_C Response and Annotations 4
Obikili, Nonso. “The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and Local Political Fragmentation in
Africa.” The Economic History Review 69, no. 4 (2016): 1157–77.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/45183229.
This article explores the political impact of the Atlantic Slave trade on Africa. The article
describes how kingdoms, cities, and towns that participated in the slave trade both in facilitating
the purchase and collecting people for the trade, show to experience a higher level of political
conflict and dissonance than others. The slave trade already existed within African before the
Europeans, however once they arrive and took the trade trans-Atlantic, we can see evidence of
just how much influence it had on Africa’s political and economic climate.
Diana Paton. “Witchcraft, Poison, Law, and Atlantic Slavery.” The William and Mary Quarterly
69, no. 2 (2012): 235–64. https://doi.org/10.5309/willmaryquar.69.2.0235.
Paton’s article explores the legal steps taken with regard to the growing attempts of African
slaves to retain their native cultural identity. To the Europeans, many religious and cultural
traditions were defined as witchcraft or the use of poison and made much of it illegal. This is
important because, in addition to the strict laws dictating slave behavior and conduct regarding
their status as property, the law defining these traditions were another legal attempt to strip
African slaves of the identity and cement their place within the cultural and legal hierarchy.
Jacoberger, Nicole A. 2021. “Sugar Rush: Sugar and Science in the British Caribbean.” Britain
& the World 14 (2): 128–50. doi:10.3366/brw.2021.0369.
Brown_C Response and Annotations 5
This article explores the different structures and processes on sugar plantations throughout the
Caribbean, with specific emphasis on Jamaica and Barbados. It was found that the British sugar
plantations took the intentional effort and time to invest in a more experimented and
technologically advanced machinery to use in sugar refining. Because of this, Jamacia became
one of the cultural, economic, and intellectual places for sugar production and refining.
Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)
