Essential Questions

1. Why did/does slavery exist?

2. What were the benefits and costs of slavery?

3. Why did slavery end (in the Americas)?

4. Why is America singled out for slavery?

5. Did it really matter where a slave was sent?

'Nowhere in the annals of history has a people experienced such a long and traumatic ordeal as Africans during the Atlantic slave trade. Over the nearly four centuries of the slave - which continued until the end of the Civil War - millions of African men, women, and children were savagely torn from their homeland, herded onto ships, and dispersed all over the so-called New World. Although there is no way to compute exactly how many people perished, it has been estimated that between thirty and sixty million Africans were subjected to this horrendous triangular trade system and that only one third-if that-of those people survived...'

The Cost of Slavery

Slave Trade Caravan

“One day, when all our people were gone out to their works as usual, and only I and my dear sister were left to mind the house, two men and

a woman got over our walls, and in a moment seized us both, and, without giving us time to cry out, or make resistance, they stopped our mouths, and ran off with us into the nearest wood. Here they tied our

hands, and continued to carry us.” Equiano age 11

Middle Passage – 5-12 weeks

Every morning, perhaps, more instances than one are found of the living and the

dead fastened together."John Newton - Slave Ship Captain

'It was not atypical to see a massive school of sharks darting in and out of the wake of the ships filled with human cargo plying the

Atlantic. For miles they followed the battered and moldy vessels, waiting to attack the disease-ravaged black bodies that were

periodically tossed into the ocean...

Slaves on a sugar plantation

Negro slaves washing for diamonds in the Serro Do Frio

Treatment of slaves varied with the region and owner

Class Value in Dollars, 1857Value in Dollars,

1998

Number 1 men 1250-1450 20,800-24,100

Fair/Ordinary Men 1000-1150 16,700-19,200

Best Boys (Age 15-18) 1100-1200 18,300-20,000

Best Boys (Age 10-14) 500-575 8,300-17,900

Number 1 Women 1050-1225 17,500-20,400

Fair/Ordinary Women 1050-1225 14,200-17,100

Best Girls 500-1000 8,300-16,700

Families "sell in their usual proportions"

Account from an 1857 auction