The Slave Trade and its Effects on Early America

Slavery played an important role in the development of the American colonies. It
was introduced to the colonies in 1619, and spanned until the Emancipation
Proclamation in 1863. The trading of slaves in America in the seventeenth century was a
large industry. Slaves were captured from their homes in Africa, shipped to America
under extremely poor conditions, and then sold to the highest bidder, put to work, and
forced to live with the new conditions of America.
There was no mercy for the slaves and their families as they were captured from
their homes and forced onto slave ships. Most of the Africans who were captured lived
in small villages in West Africa. A typical village takeover would occur early in the
morning. An enemy tribe would raid the village, and then burn the huts to the ground.
Most of the people who were taken by surprise were killed or captured; few escaped.
The captured Africans were now on their way to the slave ships. "Bound together two by
two with heavy wooden yokes fastened around their necks, a long line of black men and
women plodded down a well-worn path through the dense forest. Most of the men were
burdened with huge elephants' tusks. Others, and many of the women too, bore baskets
or bales of food. Little boys and girls trudged along beside their parents, eyes wide in
fear and wonder" (McCague, 14).
After they were marched often hundreds of miles, it was time for them to be
shipped off to sea, so that they could be sold as cheap labor to help harvest the new
world. But before they were shipped off, they had to pass through a slave-trading station.
The slave trade, which was first controlled by Portugal, was now controlled by other
European nations. In the late 1600's, Spain, Holland, England, France and Denmark
were all sending ships to West Africa. The slave trade was becoming big business
(Goodman, 7).
Selection of the slaves by the traders was a painstaking process. Ships from
England would pull up on the coast of Africa, and the captains would set off towards the
coast on small ships. "If the slave trader was a black chief, there always had to be a
certain amount of palaver, or talk, before getting down to business. As a rule, the chief
would expect some presents, or dash" (Stampp, 26). Once the palaver was over, the
slaves had to be inspected. The captain of the ship usually had a doctor who would
check the condition of the slaves. They would carefully examine the slaves, looking in
their mouths, poking at their bodies, and making them jump around. This was done so
that the doctor could see how physically fit the slaves were. If the slaves were not of the
doctors standards, they were either killed or kept to see if another ship would take them.
In the 1600's, the journey across the Atlantic for the African slaves was a horrible
one. It was extremely disease-ridden, and many slaves did not survive the journey. The
people were simply thrown into the bottom of the ship and had to survive the best they
could. Often, many slaves had to wait in the bottom of the ship while they were still
docked at the harbor, so that the traders could gather up more and more slaves. There
were usually 220 to 250 slaves in each ship. Then they had to stay down there for the
long trip across the Atlantic Ocean to the New World. "Women and children were
allowed to roam at large, but the men were attached by leg irons to chains that ran along
the ship's bulwarks. After a breakfast of rice or cornmeal or yams, with perhaps a scrap
of meat thrown in, and a little water, there came the ceremony of "dancing the slaves" -a
compulsory form of exercise designed, it was said, for the captive's physical and mental
well being" (Howard, 23). Even though there was ventilation, the air in the crowded
hold area quickly grew foul and stinking. Fierce tropical heat also added to the misery of
the slaves. Seasickness was also a problem.
Conditions on the ships improved as the slave trade continued, but thousands of
Africans still lost their lives on the journey to the new world. When slaves would try to
rebel on the ship, they were immediately killed and thrown overboard. Some slaves
preferred death over slavery. Watching their chance while on deck, they often jumped
overboard to drown themselves (Davis, 67).
Africans were brought to America to work. "They worked the cotton plantations
of Mississippi and in the tobacco fields of Virginia, in Alabama's rich black belt, in
Louisiana's sugar parishes, and in the disease-ridden rice swamps of Georgia and South
Carolina" (Buckmaster, 153). Most slaves were worked extremely hard, because they
had the job of cultivating the crops on the plantations. It began before daybreak and
lasted until dark, five and sometimes six days a week. "An Alabama man said 'Sunup to
sundown was for field Negroes.' Men and women alike were roused at four or five a.m.,
generally by the blowing of a horn or the ringing of a bell" (Goodman, 18). By
daybreak, the slaves were already working under the control of Negro drivers and white
overseers. They plowed, hoed, picked, and performed the labors appropriate to the
season of whatever they were harvesting. For example, during the harvest season on a
sugar plantation, slaves were worked sixteen to eighteen hours a day, seven days a week.
That is longer hours than convicts were permitted to work in several of the Southern
states (DuBois, 35). This was not only limited to sugar. Cotton and tobacco workers
had the same harsh hours in the hot southern sun.
Even children were put to work on the plantations. "By the age of six or seven,
children were ready to do odd jobs around the plantation-picking up trash in the yard,
raking leaves, tending a garden patch, minding babies, carrying water to the fields. By
the age of ten, they were likely to be in the fields themselves, classed as "quarter hands"
(McCague, 35).
Often there were health problems among the slaves in early America. "The
combination of hard, sometimes exhausting toil and inferior diet, scanty clothing and
unsanitary housing led, predictably, to health problems" (Goodman, 31). This caused a
problem for slave owners, because they wanted the most efficiency out of their slaves as
possible. In some places doctors were called in to treat blacks as well as whites.
The slave trade played an important role in the growth of the American colonies.
Without the trading of slaves in the seventeenth century, American plantations would not
have prospered into the export empire that they were.



Works Cited

Buckmaster, Henrietta. Let My People Go. Boston: Beacon Press, 1941.

Davis, David Brion. Slavery and Human Progress. New York: Oxford University Press,
1984.

DuBois, William Edward Burghardt. The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the
United States of America. New York: Schocken Books, 1969.

Goodman, Walter. Black Bondage: the Life of Slaves in the South. New York: Farrar,
Straus & Giroux, 1969.

Howard, Richard. Black Cargo. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1972.

McCague, James. The Long Bondage 1441-1815. Illinois: Garrard Publishing
Company, 1972.

Stampp, Kenneth M. The Peculiar Institution. New York: Borzoi Books, 1982.