Daily assignment: Slavery In Africa And America

Topic: Slavery In Africa And America

Since 1619, slave traders kidnapped thousands of Africans to America where they were forced to work harder in American plantations. Human rights were not respected. The conditions on which they were brought were dramatic.Those traders were coming either from Europe or America and with less value things like salt, they went in south Sahara Africa and negotiate with the local chives or rulers taking at the end healthier and stronger people to America.
Slavery was an important part of the economy in south America. Southern plantation owners used African slaves to grow tobacco,rice, and sugar, so the cost of growing the crops was low. The southern colonies sold these crops in Europe and became very wealthy. Those poor slaves had terrible lives. their owners could sell them at any time. During their transportation from Africa, they were packed like animals in smalls boats to travel for three months in the sea. During the trip, unhealthier ones were thrown in the sea and even when the boat was too heavy, some of them were pushed in the sea to avoid the boat to sink. Once they reached in America, they were immediately put in the plantations where they had to work from sunrise to sunset. Children over the age of 10 did hard work in the fields with adults. Their living conditions were dramatic: they lived in cabins with dirt floors. Many slept on the straw beds with only one blanket each. Sometimes fifteen people lived in the same cabin.
Slaves could not leave without permission. They could not learn to read nor write. Their owner could whip them for small mistakes and hang or shot them for more serious ones. By the time the USA became independent from the great Britain in 1776, the northern America did not own slaves and were against slavery. Many religious groups in the northern like Quakers, Mennonites were against slavery. Through civil movement like The Underground Railway, many slaves succeeded to escape torture in the southern and moved to the northern where they were a little free. It until 1861-1863 that during the civil war between the northern and the southern Lincoln signed the Emancipation proclamation. That law freed all enslaved African Americans.
Written by David Lateu