a discussion post on the The Origin and Development of Slavery: a comprensive discussion : One of Research concerns in the history of slavery in africa and america along with the europeans; a deep dis

The Origin and Development of Slavery

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The Origin and Development of Slavery

The origins of the African slave trade

Transatlantic slave trade began in the 15th century after some European kingdoms and Portugal were able to expand oversees to reach Africa. The Portuguese began by kidnapping the local inhabitants of the west coast of Africa and taking their slaves back to Europe. By the 16th century, an approximate population of 10% from Lisbon was made up of an African descent (Pierce & Snyder, 2018). After the discovery of the American continent by the Europeans, the demand for the African labor increased gradually since the alternative sources of labor including the Americans and Europeans did not adequately serve the Europeans.

How Slavery Developed In the American Colonies

The Native Americans enslaved members of their tribes long before the coming of the Europeans where the enslaved people would either be adopted eventually or not mostly when enslaved in their childhood. Slaves included captives from wars and slave raids and most of these came from raids from other communities and this put the slaves in a servitude in some cases for life. From the mid-15th century, Africa and Europe entered into a unique relationship which led to depopulation and devastation in Africa (Mathisen, 2018). The relationship also contributed to development and wealth generation in the European nations. From this time until the end of the 19th century, the Europeans started establishing slave trade for their African captives.

At first, human trafficking only served as a supplement trade which existed in Europe where some Europeans had enslaved other Europeans. Some of the enslaved Africans had also been taken to Europe, Middle East, and other parts of the world even before Africa had entered into relationship with the Europeans in the mid-15th century which resulted from the human trade that had long existed in Africa (Mathisen, 2018). Most of these African captives crossed the Saharan region to Europe and other regions from the northern parts of Africa. Others were transported across Indian Ocean thus promoting slavery.

References

Mathisen, E. (2018). The Second Slavery, Capitalism, and Emancipation in Civil War America. Journal of the civil war era, 8(4), 677-699.

Pierce, L., & Snyder, J. A. (2018). The historical slave trade and firm access to finance in Africa. The Review of Financial Studies, 31(1), 142-174.