Slavery

To understand the slave trade, it is necessary to understand the triangular trade. Sugar, cotton, and tobacco are sent from the Americas (primarily the Caribbean) to Europe. Textiles, rum, and manufactured goods are sent from Europe to Africa. Slaves are sent from Africa to the Americas. In this way, a single ship can carry three different loads of cargo on each of the legs of their journey and make a profit on each. The so-called Middle Passage from Africa to the Americas takes between two and six months, with conditions being truly atrocious onboard the ships and suicide being a common method of escape. However, most of this is sheilded from Europe. While people hold slaves, they are generally as status symbols for the wealthy and their treatment is not comparable to that of slaves in the colonies.

While slaves are generally taken from northern and western Africa, Arabian nations have been known to capture and sell European slaves. Additionally, there is sometimes a condition of indentured servitude which closely matched slavery, which is used for debtors and occurs regardless of race. Indentured servitude is used throughout Europe as a part of apprenticeships and in creditor/debtor relationships. Pirates are also quite commonly slaveholders, as they coerce or threaten people into signing the Articles.

It should be noted that triangular trade gives an incomplete picture of the movement of goods and people. The nature of the slave ships and their unpredictable voyage time meant that slave ships would often arrive in the Americas out of season. They would sell the surviving slaves, then return to Africa with whatever goods they could find and a hold full of ballast. Ships also ran in a triangle from which had New England as its third corner instead Europe. Brazil is also a major importer of slaves, and it tends to do its trade directly with Africa. One of the reasons that triangular trade happens so much is that wind is the primary motive power, and it's possible for a ship to follow a circular path all the way around the North Atlantic without ever losing the wind in their sails (the route of the Sargasso Sea).

American Indians are not commonly used as slaves, and a law signed in the last decades has made the keeping of Indian slaves illegal for the English. Part of the reason that Africa is of such use for the slave trade is that there is a near constant war among the various African tribes. African tribes have been known to sell captured enemies into slavery, sure that they will never return. In return, Africans were given muskets with which to fight their wars, or decorative trade beads which came to be a form of currency.

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