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Atlantic Slave Trade

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The Atlantic slave trade started on the Gold Coast, present day Ghana, about twelve million Africans were transported to the America’s. African slaves became the main focus of trade between Africa and Europe. American colonization demanded labor, but since the Native American’s could not work with European’s because theytheir populations were thinning out, they focused on the enslaved African people. African slave trade helped the wealth and growth of America but at the cost of humanity.
African American Mosaic by John H. Bracey Jr. tells the stories of the slave trade in West Africa, on the middle passage and in America. It suggests that West Africa were willing to capture other Africans for weapons and wealth. The story of Olaudah Equiano was about how he was kidnapped by other Africans and taken through the woods to the beach where a slave ship was waiting for him. “Was carried on board I was immediately handled, and tossed up, to see if I were sound, by some of the crew; and I was now persuaded that I had gotten into a world of bad spirits, and that they were going to kill me (Bracey, 16).” This is probably how every African felt when they were forced onto that slave ship to sail to an unknown land. Equiano also talked about how dirty and digusting the slaves ships were. “I was soon put down under the decks, and there I received such a salutation in my nostrils as I had never experienced in my life (Bracey, 16).” Also according to Alexander Falconbridge, “The deck, that is, the floor of their rooms, was so covered with the blood and mucus which had proceeded from them in consequence of the flux, that it resembled a slaughter-house(Bracey, 24).” This was cruelty alone, without talking about how they would be flogged or other tortures they endured. Falconbridge talked about how if the slaves did not move fast enough or moved with agility, they were

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