Why Did The Europeans Decide To Seek Slave Labor From Africa Rather Than Enslaving Indigenous People In The Americas? (2023)

1. Africans in America | Part 1 | Narrative | Europeans Come to Western Africa

  • European colonists found an answer to their pressing labor shortage by importing enslaved workers from Africa.

  • The history of the European seaborne slave trade with Africa goes back 50 years prior to Columbus' initial voyage to the Americas. It began with the Portuguese, who went to West Africa in search of gold. The first Europeans to come to Africa's West Coast to trade were funded by Prince Henry, the famous Portuguese patron, who hoped to bring riches to Portugal. The purpose of the exploration: to expand European geographic knowledge, to find the source of prized African gold, and to locate a possible sea route to valuable Asian spices.

2. The history of the transatlantic slave trade | Royal Museums Greenwich

  • Missing: indigenous | Show results with:indigenous

  • Find out about the slave trade, resistance and eventual abolition at the Atlantic gallery.

The history of the transatlantic slave trade | Royal Museums Greenwich

3. New World Labor Systems: American Indians · African Passages ...

  • Though some American Indians did work for Europeans as free laborers, indigenous captives could escape more easily because of their familiarity with the local ...

4. New World Labor Systems: African Slavery

5. Atlantic Slave Trade (The) - EHNE

  • The second reason for transferring slaves from Africa to the New World was the fact that Europeans did not enslave one another in spite of their many vicious ...

  • The expansion of Europe after 1500 could not have succeeded without slaves as Europeans refused to migrate in sufficient numbers to the tropics, where their death rate was extremely high. This is why the European colonizers in Africa and Asia bought local slaves. In the tropical parts of the New World, however, the supply of local slaves was insufficient, especially since it was the main region where the colonizing nations were able to produce tropical export crops such as sugar and coffee. The increasing demand for these products in Europe stimulated a large number of European shipping companies to buy slaves on the Atlantic shores of Africa, to ferry them across the Atlantic and to sell them to slave owners in the New World. Between 1500 and 1870, the slave trade across the Atlantic Ocean was to be one of the major human migrations in history as it changed the ethnic composition of the population in the New World dramatically. In total about 12 million Africans were forcibly embarked and because of the high mortality aboard, about 10 million slaves were disembarked in: Brazil (45%), the British, French, Dutch, and Danish Caribbean (37%), Spanish America (10. 7 %) and North America (3. 6%). The slave ships came from Portugal and Portuguese Brazil (47. 6%), Great Britain (25. 5%), France (10. 8%), Spain and Spanish America (8. 2%), the Netherlands (4. 4%), colonial North America/the USA (2.3 %) and Denmark and the Baltic states (0. 8%)

Atlantic Slave Trade (The) - EHNE

6. Indian Slavery in the Americas - AP Gilder Lehrman

  • Missing: decide | Show results with:decide

  • ...

7. Beginnings | African | Immigration and Relocation in U.S. History

  • As European powers increasingly sought to establish long-term colonies ... more than 10 million people were enslaved and transported from Africa to the Americas.

  • Exploration and Colonization Africans came to the New World in the earliest days of the Age of Exploration. In the early 1500s, Africans trekked across the many lands in North, Central, and South America that were claimed by Spain, some coming in freedom and some in slavery, working as soldiers, interpreters, or servants. Explorers of African descent joined the expeditions of Francisco Vázquez de Coronado, Ponce de Léon, Hernan Cortés, Hernando de Soto, and many more. Esteban de Dorantes, also known as Estevanico, who was born in Morocco and held in slavery by a Spanish captain, traveled from Cuba to what is now Florida, was shipwrecked near Galveston, and served as a scout and interpreter on long journeys throughout Mexico and the land that is now the state of New Mexico.

Beginnings | African | Immigration and Relocation in U.S. History

8. READ: The Transatlantic Slave Trade (article) - Khan Academy

  • Missing: decide | Show results with:decide

  • Learn for free about math, art, computer programming, economics, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, finance, history, and more. Khan Academy is a nonprofit with the mission of providing a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere.

READ: The Transatlantic Slave Trade (article) - Khan Academy

9. Colonial enslavement of Native Americans included those who ...

  • Missing: decide | Show results with:decide

  • Study by Brown University historian finds that Native Americans who surrendered during King Philip’s War were sold into slavery, with long-lasting effects.

Colonial enslavement of Native Americans included those who ...

10. Resistance and Abolition | Immigration and Relocation in U.S. History

  • Missing: decide | Show results with:decide

  • $150 reward [cut of runaway slave], 1838 Although it was the law of the land for more than 300 years, American slavery was challenged and resisted every day, by its victims, by its survivors, and by those who found it morally unacceptable. The long campaign to abolish the trade in human beings was one of the great moral crusades in U.S. history, and its success was the result of decades of organization and agitation by African Americans and their European American allies.

Resistance and Abolition | Immigration and Relocation in U.S. History

11. Slavery and Law in 17th Century Massachusetts

  • Jan 13, 2023 · Enslaved people were a labor source for Massachusetts, imported in ... They shared their enslaved status with Indigenous peoples and other people ...

  • [1] Definition of positive law: "statutory man-made law, as compared to 'natural law,' which is purportedly based on universally accepted moral principles, 'God's law,' and/or derived from nature and reason. The term 'positive law' was first used by Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan (1651)." Accessed 2020, https://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=1552.

Slavery and Law in 17th Century Massachusetts

12. 2. Colliding Cultures | THE AMERICAN YAWP

  • May 22, 2013 · ... Indigenous people than ... In fact, over the entire history of the Atlantic slave trade, more Africans were enslaved in Brazil than in any other ...

13. Origins of the Slave Trade - Bill of Rights Institute

  • Missing: decide | Show results with:decide

  • This Narrative can be assigned to students after the Life in the Spanish Colonies Narrative. Connections can be drawn between this Narrative and the Las Casas on the Destruction of the Indies, 1552.

Origins of the Slave Trade - Bill of Rights Institute
Top Articles
Latest Posts
Article information

Author: Cheryll Lueilwitz

Last Updated: 13/12/2023

Views: 6066

Rating: 4.3 / 5 (54 voted)

Reviews: 93% of readers found this page helpful

Author information

Name: Cheryll Lueilwitz

Birthday: 1997-12-23

Address: 4653 O'Kon Hill, Lake Juanstad, AR 65469

Phone: +494124489301

Job: Marketing Representative

Hobby: Reading, Ice skating, Foraging, BASE jumping, Hiking, Skateboarding, Kayaking

Introduction: My name is Cheryll Lueilwitz, I am a sparkling, clean, super, lucky, joyous, outstanding, lucky person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.