The Transatlantic Slave Trade and Slavery in the New World

The African Slave Trade. Slaves taken from a dhow captured by H.M.S. "Undine."
Library of Congress

T H E F I N A L R A C E

The slave deck of the bark "Wildfire," brought into Key West on April 30, 1860.
African men crowded onto a lower deck; African women crowded on an upper
deck./Library of Congress

United States Slave Trade, 1830./Library of Congress

Slaves exposed for sale./Library of Congress

Picking cotton in a Georgia plantation./Library of Congress

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Slavery in the New World

The history of slavery in the New World (the Americas) can be traced back to the
transatlantic slave trade that operated from the 16th through the 19th centuries.

The brutal commerce primarily involved Africans from the central and western parts of
the continent who were likely captured by rival tribes and sold to European slave traders in
exchange for weapons, iron bars, clothing, and other European goods.

The captives were likely flogged, shackled and thrown into the dark underbellies of slave
ships before being transported across the high seas --- a brutal journey across the Atlantic
that on average could take at least three months. Ninety days of hell in a dark hole with
little food, no clean water, no restrooms, and little ventilation. The prisoners likely sat,
hunkered down or lay on their sides starving, naked, dehydrated and writhing in their own
excrement. Men, women, kids, young, old, pregnant, all chained and packed under
subhuman conditions. Those who perished were likely tossed overboard and fed to the
sharks. And likely, at the first sight of land, those who had survived were rounded up and
readied for the auction block. Only then were they cleaned, oiled, and adequately fed.

At the auction block, white buyers would flock and check out the new arrivals. They might pry open

the natives'

mouths, inspect

their teeth, pinch their muscles, sniff or even

taste their sweat.

Every-

one wanted to snag the healthiest Negro

they could work to

oblivion in the plantations. The highest

bidder

got the best deal. It

didn't matter whether an African man got

separated from his wife,

or a

child from his or her parents. For

the sellers and buyers, the

African slaves were nothing more than

commodities that could be

sold and shuffled around as needed.

Within a span of about four centuries, the transatlantic slave trade had probably uprooted at least 12

million Africans from

their

native lands and delivered them to lives of bondage and

servitude

in the

New World. Most landed in Brazil. Almost three

quarters of

a million were estimated to have ended

up in what is

now the

United States.

Slavery in the United States had existed long before its founding in 1776. It is believed that the first

group of

Africans arrived in

Virginia, the first English colony, in

the early 1600s.

Slaves were mainly utilized

to power the plantations of

crops

in high-demand, such

cotton, sugar

and tobacco.

The

slaves did all

the tilling,

planting and harvesting of

the

crops

while their masters lived

aristocratic life styles,

mostly

in the

southern United

States.

Slaves had no rights. They

were treated as properties.

And

once a slave, always a

slave,

slavery was heritable.

Slaves worked long hours, ate cheap food and lived in rundown huts. Many were whipped, starved, and ill-treated. Slaves could be mutilated or killed by cruel
masters without repercussion.

Many slaves resisted their plight and many were able to escape to the Northern free states so much so

that laws were

enacted to

force

authorities to return fugitive

slaves to their

rightful owners.

The increasing resistance against the institution of slavery became more evident in the mid-1800s.

Abraham Lincoln

who was

opposed

to its expansion, argued against it during

the

Lincoln-Douglas

Debates of 185

Lincoln's eventual election as President of the United States in November 1860 had led to the secession
of several southern slave states from the Union. Forty days into his presidency, the American Civil

War

xploded.

On January 1, 1863, in the midst of the

President

Lincoln issued

the

Emancipation

Proclamation

making

abolition of slavery a

central

goal of

the war.

The Proclamation announced the freedom of all persons held as slaves within any state in
rebellion against the Union.

Although it did not immediately free all the slaves, the Proclamation helped turn the tides of war
in favor of the Union.

Many freed slaves joined the United States military and fought for their freedom.

Slavery was officially abolished with the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United
States Constitution in 1865, following the American Civil War.