Name: 【TED-Ed】The Atlantic slave trade: What too few textbooks told you - Anthony Hazard
Uploaded: 2015-01-09T16:53:25.000Z
Duration: 5 min 39 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Slavery, the treatment of human beings as property, deprived of personal rights,

has occurred in many forms  throughout the world.

But one institution stands out for both its global scale and its lasting legacy.

occurring from the late 15th to the mid 19th century

forcibly brought more than 10 million Africans to the Americas.

The impact it would leave affected not only these slaves

but the economies and histories of large parts of the world.

There had been centuries of contact between Europe and Africa

But the Atlantic slave trade  began in the late 1400s

and Spanish settlement  of the Americas shortly after.

The crops grown in the new colon ies, sugar cane, tobacco, and cotton,

and there were not enough settlers  or indentured servants

American Natives were enslaved,  but many died from new diseases,

And so to meet the massive  demand for labor,

African slavery had existed  for centuries in various forms.

with a limited term  and the chance to buy one's freedom.

In some societies, slaves could  be part of a master's family,

own land, and even rise  to positions of power.

But when white captains came offering  manufactured goods,

African kings and merchants  had little reason to hesitate.

They viewed the people they sold  not as fellow Africans

but criminals, debtors,  or prisoners of war from rival tribes.

By selling them, kings enriched  their own realms,

and strengthened them  against neighboring enemies.

African kingdoms prospered  from the slave trade,

but meeting the European's massive demand created intense competition.

Slavery replaced other criminal sentences,

and capturing slaves  became a motivation for war,

neighboring kingdoms  needed European firearms,

altering societies and economies  across the continent.

As for the slaves themselves, they faced unimaginable brutality.

After being marched  to slave forts on the coast,

they were loaded onto ships  bound for the Americas.

About 20% of them  would never see land again.

Most captains of the day  were tight packers,

cramming as many men  as possible below deck.

While the lack of sanitation  caused many to die of disease,

and others were thrown  overboard for being sick,

the captain's ensured their profits  by cutting off slave's ears

Some captives took matters  into their own hands.

Many inland Africans  had never seen whites before,

constantly taking people away  and returning for more.

Afraid of being eaten,  or just to avoid further suffering,

they committed suicide  or starved themselves,

believing that in death, their souls would return home.

Those who survived  were completley dehumanized,

Women and children were kept above deck and abused by the crew,

while the men were made to perform dances

in order to keep them exercised  and curb rebellion.

What happened to those Africans  who reached the New World

and how the legacy of slavery  still affects their descendants today

is the effect that the Atlantic slave trade had on Africa's future.

Not only did the continent lose tens of millions of its able-bodied population,

but because most of the slaves  taken were men,

the long-term demographic  effect was even greater.

When the slave trade was finally  outlawed in the Americas and Europe,

the African kingdoms whose economies  it had come to dominate collapsed,

leaving them open  to conquest and colonization.

And the increased competition  and influx of European weapons

fueled warfare and instability  that continues to this day.

The Atlantic slave trade also contributed to the development of racist ideology.

Most African slavery had no deeper reason than legal punishment

but the Europeans  who preached a universal religion,

and who had long ago  outlawed enslaving fellow Christians,

so obviously at odds  with their ideals of equality.

So they claimed that  Africans were biologically inferior

making great efforts  to justify this theory.

Thus, slavery in Europe and the Americas acquired a racial basis,

making it impossible for slaves  and their future descendants

the Atlantic slave trade  was an injustice on a massive scale

whose impact has continued  long after its abolition.