A pictorial history of the slave trade

Author / Creator

Aguet, Isabelle

Available as

Physical

Summary

The violent uprooting and transplanting of the Negro race from its native Africa to the American continent forms one of the most sinister and tragic episodes in western history. The New World neede...

The violent uprooting and transplanting of the Negro race from its native Africa to the American continent forms one of the most sinister and tragic episodes in western history. The New World needed labor ... adventurers landed on the shores of Guinea and captured whole families or made arrangements with local rulers who supplied slaves in exchange for cloth, shoddy goods, and alcohol. They were herded together in worse conditions than cattle, chained up in the holds of small ships, badly treated by cruel crews - for these captives the voyage across the ocean was martyrdom. Upon arrival in the New World, auctions of human flesh sundered families already decimated by the grim tortures of the voyage - and the exchange of coin or produce vested the right of life itself in another's hands. And life in the New World was itself, at best, a matter of chattel management ... In addition to these facts it is interesting to know something of the people who carried on this trade - Portuguese, French, English, Dutch, Americans - and the fortunes they built up. The struggles which the abolition of these practices gave rise to, then the secret trade that followed as a result deserve to be mentioned. -- Book flap.

Show More