When Christopher Columbus discovered the New World on October 12, 1492 by landing in the Caribbean and after Amerigo Vespucci who was the first European to set foot on the American continent, European powers of that time such as England, the Spain, Portugal, France wanted to colonize and exploit this continent, millions of Africans were sold as slaves to go and work in the fields .
The causes of trade
The colonizers wanted manpower to strengthen the American Indians who were weak, But the real reason behind the « Ebony » trade and slavery was profit. This is why they wanted a large and resistant workforce to work in the fields of sugar cane, coffee, cotton, tobacco.
In addition there were slavers who favored slavery as the means of civilizing blacks.
The manufactured products were transported to Europe in what was called the triangular trade where the ships left Europe with objects of little value such as tobacco, fabrics, firearms and powder,… In exchange for black prisoners (ebony) and strong men women and children and were transported to America where they were sold as slaves.
Millions of slaves sold
401 years ago, the first black slaves landed the side of Virginia in the United States it was in August 1619, they were 30 among the 350 Venus of the Empire of Dongo in current Angola brought by white Lion A ship Englishman who had stolen part of the cargo from another Spanish ship (slave ship são João Baptista) according to the Hampton History Museum.
There are few historians who are concerned with estimating the number of African slaves transported to America, but the figure of 15 million is often cited in the best works like that of the kuczynski and that of the W.E.B Dubois, but that of 11 million cartin is often considered the bare minimum. The American census of 1860 counted 3,950,528 in the country, the 18th century was the most flourishing for the negroes, for 1 black taken in America one would count 40 for today. At the beginning of the 19th century more than half of African slaves were sent to Brazil.
The suppliers of slaves were European adventurers and African warrior leaders. The living conditions of a slave were really horrible, chained by the blow, feet and wrists in the dark and damp holds, the slaves ate two meager meals a day (rice, bread, ..) a lot of between them did not have the chance to cross the Atlantic, they die from insufficient food from diseases a fifth of the slaves died on the road.
Today the white man no longer needs to buy the black man because he has created a system where the slave sells himself to his master it can happen or the product has no value and throw away in the Mediterranean Sea.
