sold at least 12.5 million black Africans as slaves to work for white landowners on the other side of the ocean. Of these 1.8 million died at sea. Most of the rest were worked to death within seven years in the sugar cane fields of Brazil and the Caribbean.
Because the big money was in sugar only 4% came to the cotton and tobacco fields of North America(Meaning most blacks that came are in Brazil, Colombia, Caribbean--Amazing really, since African Americans have such a global voice--or at least are responsible for global cultural trends...). Three-fourths of those came from West Africa, the rest from what is now Congo, Angola and Mozambique.
Ships were packed so full that you had just enough room to lay down. Sometimes you did not even have enough room to roll over and lay on your side. It was dark and hot and airless and you lived in shit, piss, vomit and menstrual blood. The ship’s crew raped the women and girls. You had little to eat but even worse you had little to drink: fresh water was extremely limited on the high seas.
Disease was common. In the 1500s as many as half died on board. In the 1800s that dropped to 5%. Some who lived went mad.
Africans practised slavery long before the Europeans showed up, but the European kind was a different beast:
It was on a much vaster scale – millions, not thousands.
It was based on skin colour.
It was lifelong and fell upon one’s children too.
So many slaves came that it was not until the 1840s and the Irish Potato Famine that more whites than blacks crossed the Atlantic.
Because the big money was in sugar only 4% came to the cotton and tobacco fields of North America(Meaning most blacks that came are in Brazil, Colombia, Caribbean--Amazing really, since African Americans have such a global voice--or at least are responsible for global cultural trends...). Three-fourths of those came from West Africa, the rest from what is now Congo, Angola and Mozambique.
Ships were packed so full that you had just enough room to lay down. Sometimes you did not even have enough room to roll over and lay on your side. It was dark and hot and airless and you lived in shit, piss, vomit and menstrual blood. The ship’s crew raped the women and girls. You had little to eat but even worse you had little to drink: fresh water was extremely limited on the high seas.
Disease was common. In the 1500s as many as half died on board. In the 1800s that dropped to 5%. Some who lived went mad.
Africans practised slavery long before the Europeans showed up, but the European kind was a different beast:
It was on a much vaster scale – millions, not thousands.
It was based on skin colour.
It was lifelong and fell upon one’s children too.
So many slaves came that it was not until the 1840s and the Irish Potato Famine that more whites than blacks crossed the Atlantic.
