9+b.+Origins+of+Slavery


 * __ORIGINS OF SLAVERY FROM 1490'S__**


 * Firstly Amerindians were used to assist European colonists. They were over worked and ill treated through the encomienda system and hence their numbers depleted. The genocide of these people caused the colonists to look for other sources of labour.


 * *European indentured labourers were recruited and later they were kidnapped from English ports and forced into indentureship contracts which lasted 5 years. Afterwards they sourced labour from bringing white prisoners from England, Scotland and Ireland to work in the Caribbean on the plantations but there was still not enough labour to fulfill plantation needs.


 * *Spain graned **Asiento** to the Portuguese in 1515 to bring slaves from West Africa. Thus began a 300 year trade in human cargo across the Atlantic.


 * __ORIGINS OF AFRICAN SLAVERY__**


 * African slaves were used as early as the 12th century when Italians planted sugarin Cyprus using African slaves provided by Arabs


 * *In the 14th century sugar production spread to Portugal and Spain using African slaves provided by the Arabs.


 * *In the 15th century some of the African slaves were shipped from Portugal and Spain to work on Portuguese colonies of Madeira, Azores and the Canary Islands.


 * Most of the African slaves were being used by planters in the Americas in the 16th century.to produce sugar.By 1800, cattle ranches in Puerto Rico and Cuba were turned into canefields with slaves working on them.


 * *In the U.S.(Southern U.S), starting in Louisiana, millions of Africans used slaves on tobacco, cotton and rice fields.

Over a period of 300 years, 20 million Africans fell victim to the Atlantic slave trade.Not all survived because half died in the Middle Passage.

__**A comparison of t**__**h__e presence of African slaves in the Caribbean in the early 1500s and the 1700s.__**

African slaves were introduced by the Spanish to the Caribbean in small numbers in the 1490s and early 1500s. They were initially part of Spanish exploration teams sailing to the Caribbean. By the 1500s a few slaves were brought to a few territories working to build settlements and plant crops for the Spanish. They were also brought to replace indigenous people who were enslaved but eventually died out.

By the early 1500s, plantation economies had not yet developed as at this point European colonization was now beginning in the Caribbean. By the 1700s, the plantation economies (based in the Caribbean on sugar production) which depended on cheap labour had developed and more thousands more African slaves had to be brought in to work. Also advances in trading, ship building and the gradual European penetration of West Africa had made slaving a profitable business. Another reason for the rise in the numbers of African slaves in the Caribbean by the 1700s was the rise in the demand of sugar and the fall in the demand of tobacco which lead to an increase in the demand of labour which was needed for sugar cultivation but was not needed for tobacco cultivation.

E**__conomic and social reasons for the enslavement of Africans__**

The main economic reason for obtaining labout from the West African area was simply the fact that the capture of persons meant that they would be paid no wages. They were literally goods obtained for free, sold at a price and for a profit. Thus there were no overhead costs to be incurred in this regard.

Western European society by the middle of the 16th century was fully convinced of its own superiority over the people of the African continent. Indeed social and religious justification for slavery often stated that the African societies were pagan and through enslavement could be brought to Christianity.