Breaking away from identifying and writing about women and their roles in history, I am now going to touch on slavery; one could even argue that the two are not very far apart anyway.  “During the 400 years from the mid-fifteenth to the mid-nineteenth century, that trade in humankind took an estimated 11 million people from African societies, shipped them from across the Atlantic in the infamous middle passage, and deposited them in the Americas, where they lived out their often brief lives as slaves. Countless millions more died in the process of capture and transport, before ever reaching American shores” (449). Once the Atlantic slave trade began, the world was never again the same. “Beyond the multitude of individual tragedies that spawned –capture and sale, displacement from home cultures, forced labor, beatings and brandings, broken families—the Atlantic slave trade transformed the societies of all its participants (449). The slave trade, especially in the Americas, added an immense “African presence” to the mixture of European and Native American people. “It also introduced elements of African culture, such as religious ideas, musical and artistic traditions, and cusine, into the making of American cultures” (450).

When researching the history of slavery, one seems to always come across a somewhat fundamental question, “Is it human nature to gain power or dominion over other individuals; eventually leading into something like slavery?” Unfortunately, based off of what history has shown us…all over the world, the answer to this fundamental inquiry is “yes”. “The Atlantic slave trade and slavery in the Americas represented the most recent large-scale expression of an almost universal human practice—the owning and exchange of human beings” (450).  …”With origins that go back to the earliest civilizations, slavery was widely accepted as a perfectly normal human enterprise and was closely linked to warfare and capture. Before 1500, the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean basins were the major arenas of the Old World slave trade, and southern Russia was a major source of slaves. Many African societies likewise both practiced slavery themselves and sold slaves into these international commercial networks. A trans-Saharan slave trade had long funneled African captives into Mediterranean slavery [ex. Sand Roads, and an East African slave trade brought Africans into the Middle East and the Indian Ocean basin. Both operated largely within the Islamic world” (450).

Although forms of slavery have been around since what seems like the beginning of humankind, “the slavery that emerged in the Americans was distinctive in several ways” (450). “Within the Islamic world, the preference was for female slaves by a two-to-one margin, while the later Atlantic slave trade favored males by a similar margin. Not all slaves, however occupied degraded positions. Some in the Islamic world acquired prominent military of political status. Most slaves in the pre-modern world worked in their owners’ households, farms, or shops, with smaller numbers laboring in large-scale agricultural or industrial enterprises” (450). In the Americas, slavery was different because of the immense volume they were being brought in, the dehumanization of them, the fact that “they lacked any rights in the society of their owners”.

Where does the Atlantic slavery originate from? “The origins of Atlantic slavery clearly lie in the Mediterranean world and with that now common sweetener known as sugar. Until the Crusades, Europeans knew nothing of sugar and relied on honey and fruits to sweeten their bland diets. However, as they learned from the Arabs about sugarcane and the laborious techniques for producing usable sugar, Europeans established sugar-producing plantations within the Mediterranean and later on various islands off the coast of West Africa” (451). Because of the intense work, the size of the market of consumers and the dangers of the work itself; it all seemed to point towards slavery…

            What many people do not know is the fact that slaves were not originally African. “Initially, Slavic-speaking peoples from the Black Sea Region furnished the bulk of the slaves for Mediterranean plantations, so much so that ‘Slav’ became the basis for the word ‘slave’ in many European languages. In 1453, however, when the ottoman Turks seized Constantinople, the supply of Slavic slaves was effectively cut off. At the same time, Portuguese mariners were exploring the coast of West Africa; they we relooking primarily for gold, but they also found slaves available for sale. Thus, when sugar, and later tobacco and cotton, plantations took hold in the Americas, Europeans had already established links to a West African source of supply” (451).

            Why were the African peoples subjected to slavery in particular? “Largely through process of elimination, Africa became the primary source of slave labor for the plantation economies of the Americas. Slavic peoples were no longer available; Native Americans quickly perished from European diseases; marginal Europeans were Christians and therefore supposedly exempt from slavery; and European indentured servants were expensive and temporary. Africans, on the other hand, were skilled farmers; they had some immunity to both tropical and European diseases; they were not Christians; they were, relatively speaking, close at hand; and they were readily available in substantial numbers through African-operated commercial networks” (451).

            Slavery is the dark passenger of our past as a human race. It has been there with us for a long time. Is it in our nature? I would have to argue yes, but that is not to say that we can fight against it. Recognizing the damage slavery has caused in the long run as well as understanding the history of it should help us make better decisions in the future, if we are willing to admit and reflect. There will come a time when we our country is at a crossroads again. I hope that when that time comes we can look back, examine and learn from our history; both the good and the bad.