Effects Of Slave Trade In America To The Continent's Demographics

By Kristen Baird


In the late eighteenth century, the Trans-Atlantic trade was booming, and the number of slaves kept growing to double the initial figures. Most of these slaves sold to America were of African descent who were to work in the plantations in the whole continent. The slave trade in America had many effects and would later shape the population compositions and distribution of the American continent years later.

Around the time, USA was conquered by the European colonialists, and it come with improved agricultural practices, and the consequence was rush to look for laborers to work on the farms. It prompted them to look for workers from outside the continent because diseases and harsh working conditions had killed many natives. At the time, Europe was developing, and its residents needed raw materials to sustain their improving living standards.

America also had affordable arable land at the time to support agricultural practices, and it resulted to investors looking for slaves to work on their farms. The environmental conditions were good for crop production, unlike Europe that hard extreme weather for agricultural output.

During the transatlantic trade, the slaves crossed the ocean through ships where they were assigned places to work. It is this movement that later in the years the slaves remained and stayed in present day USA.

There was population stagnation because, despite the big numbers of slaves imported into the plantations, the death rate was high than the birth rate among the Africans and hence they could not sustain their populations. Therefore, there was continued importation from Africa to boost the labor demands. By early nineteenth century, US population was fifteen percent blacks who were descendants of the slavery population.

These people were working in deplorable conditions and hence suffered varied health complications such as bowed legs, convulsions, and blindness because of lack of enough food supplements. The laborers worked for long hours on the sugar, cotton, and tobacco plantations. On such conditions, the slaves were unable to look after their young ones and the effect was their children dying were young compared to the children of their masters.

The African communities were the ones who were trading their colleagues by selling them to Europeans these people were captives and criminals in African society. Some of these laborers from Africa were war captives from communities that were in conflict, others were criminals who were sold to drive them out the society. It continued for a while until it got to a time when communities fought to acquire more slaves to cash into the trade opportunities. They were always ferried to be sold to the Europeans at coast. In most cases, the Europeans always did not get into the African interior because of fear of hostility from local communities and diseases.

Finally, there is no longer forced labor in America, and off-springs of the former slave men are now American citizens and they are free. The slaves and slave owners descendants have since intermarried, and they were now working to create a free generation for their future.




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