Chapt 3, Daniels, Slave Trade

The Atlantic Slave Trade of the colonial period had a very significant role to play in stimulating business investments in the "New World." It is one of the greatest crimes in displacing and mistreating human beings, as well. What surprised me was that this part in American history was greatly ignored for some time, given that the Southern American colonies (and the North for a brief time) prospered from resources, such as sugar and cotton, made by the slaves themselves. While slavery did oppress the human rights of the Africans, in some ways this system is linked with the progression and development of Western and American capitalism.

Apart from producing and exporting products such as textile fabrics, some have argued that the slave trade has brought numerous immigrants to the "New World." However, other historians have argued that slavery had nothing to do with luring foreigners into the United States. I liked how author Maldwyn A. James put it that even if Africans weren't immigrants in a strict sense, their arrival to America helped in the "peopling of the colonies." My understanding is that since slavery did make products used to create clothing and other such fabrics, immigrants and United States citizens were probably pleased with the wide range of resources available for them. Of course, if slavery in America had treated the Africans better, there would have been a more positive outlook of how benefical the system was to American prosperity.

There is much history that, until recently, has been neglected due to popular depictions of slavery and the fact that Africans were a nonliterate culture. The assumption then was that African Americans came from a large continent (Africa) that contributed nothing to the world and was full of nothing but tribes of savages with no sense of culture. Today, we know that Africa was home to one of the most developed civilizations, Egypt, and was the place where hunter-gatherers spread across the continent and eventually into the neighboring land masses. Other glimpses of the Slave trade's history didn't receieve enough attention such as the African slaves who eventually became free, particularly in the North where the abolitionist eventually spurred. Then there was black immigrant population in the Caribbean which would later have great influence on American life through sports, literature, and politics. These groups, while greatly affected by slavery negatively, did impact American culture in a way that would change the face of the country forever. Although they never asked to be brought to the "New World," African slaves and slavery in America each were significant in how they raised the question of what it means to live in Western society and whose rights are meant to be protected.