Title: Project 1
Date of submission: 19 May 2007
Course Name: African American History
Project 1
Institution of Slavery and the Civil War
History is the root for all origins of life; every race that I have ever had to study had an exact beginning point, except for my people. We have numerous points of origins that begin our passage to the Americas, as presented by (Colin Powell, 2000, pg.1) our people were in slavery before the year 1502, in mainly the Caribbean’s, and South America. As momentum started to increase in the white colonies, for labor our people would endure a lifestyle that I would not wish on no one. The Spaniards and the Portuguese were the main players that introduced the slave trade to Americas/America. Portugal were the pioneers of the slave trade, they developed technology in shipping that would doom our people for centuries to come. The continuing demand for African slave labor arose from the development of plantation agriculture, the long-term rise in prices and consumption of sugar, and the demand for miners. Not only did Africans represent skilled laborers, but they were also experts in tropical agriculture. Consequently, they were well-suited for plantation agriculture. The high immunity of Africans to malaria and yellow fever compared to the Europeans and the indigenous peoples made them more suitable for tropical labor. While white and Indian laborers were used initially, Africans slaves were the final solution to the acute labor problem in the New World.
The economic systems which dominated the African slave trade reflected the transitions in Europe's economic systems. The primary purpose of mercantilism, an economic system which developed during the transition of Europe from feudalism to nation-states, was to unify and increase the power and monetary wealth of a nation through strict government regulation of the national economy. Therefore, the 16th century organization of slave trading was...