Triangle trade
In the image above, it shows the triangle trade connection. The ships sailed from British ports carrying metal, guns, etc. to West Africa. These goods would later be traded with slave traders for men, woman, and children fit for labor. The ships from Africa then sailed across the Atlantic to the Caribbean and Americas to trade the slaves for materials such as tobacco, sugar and cotton. Finally the ships from America returned back to Europe with goods. Completing the whole triangle was estimated to be about 12 months long.
The slave trade started when the Portuguese and some Spanish traders started taking African slaves to the American colonies they had conquered in the 15th century. British sailors became involved in the trade soon after. The African slaves were used for labor because they were known to be very hard workers. This was valuable to the Americans and Europeans because they needed labor for serving, mining, farming, and other services. Slaves were treated terribly, they had no rights and were punished harshly. In 1713, the Treaty of Utrecht was signed. "Spain gave British slave traders could trade 147,000 slaves a year to Spanish South America. After 1700, the number of slaves being transported increased greatly" (BBC, 2015). Slave ships from Britain left for West Africa carrying goods such as cloth, gun and ironware. African dealers kidnapped people from villages. On the African coast, European traders bought peoples from traveling African dealers. In the West Indies Africans would be sold to the highest bidder at slave auctions. Once they had been bought, they worked for nothing on plantations. Some refused to be enslaved and took their own lives. With the money made from the sale of Africans, goods such as sugar, coffee and tobacco were bought and carried back to Britain. The slave trade finally ended when a strong anti slavery movement emerged in Britain to put an end to the buying and selling of human beings. This campaign to abolish the slave trade developed alongside international events such as the French Revolution, and acts of resistance from enslaved people in the British colonies. The campaigners faced a long and difficult struggles. The activists argued that the only way to end the suffering of enslaved Africans was to make the slave trade illegal by banning British ships from taking part in the trade. After a long battle in the courts the activists won and the trade was no longer legal or possible with trade routes blocked.
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