Beginning of Slavery in the Americas

Slavery was common in almost all western societies in the 15th century.

In the Mediterranean, Christians and Moors had enslaved each other for centuries.

From 1440 onward, black slaves made up about 10 percent of the population of Lisbon.

Portugal's black slaves worked in households and were status symbols for the grandees, or aristocracy.

The European exploration of the Americas led to a new type of slave trade, in which slaves were forcibly transported thousands of miles across an ocean to work for colonial masters.

Slavery in the Americas began a few years after Columbus made his voyages there.

The first sugar grown using African slave labor arrived in Spain from the Caribbean in 1516.

In 1526, the Spanish brought the first shipment of slaves directly from West Africa to the America.

The Spanish had tried to enslave the Native Americans but found this to be very difficult. The natives were weak and disease prone and lacked the necessary farming and mining skills.

The people of the West Africa, on the other hand, used iron tools to farm crops and had experience mining, processing and refining gold.

In addition, slavery already existed in West Africa in places such as the Ivory Coast, the Gold Coast, Gambia, Senegal and Sierra Leone.

In order to enslave the Native Americans, the Europeans had to hunt down and subjugate a free people. Many West Africans, however, had already been sold into slavery by their own leaders and constituted a population that was already servile.

The Middle Passage

The West African kings and chiefs, who controlled the local slaves, provided lodgings for European slave traders and guaranteed that they would remain safe. In return, the slave traders provided weapons for slave-gathering expeditions and paid an annual rent and tax on each slave that they exported.

Slaves were rounded up and shackled in large cages near the beaches. After spending weeks in the cages, European slave traders arrived. The slaves were then examined by the ship's surgeon, who rejected the sick and the elderly.

Hot branding irons were then pressed onto the backs of the slaves to identify them as the property of whoever owned them.

The slaves were then forced aboard ships.

The Middle Passage is the name that has been given to the journey across the Atlantic that the African slaves endured.

The slaves were held below deck and shackled in pairs.

Once a day, they were forced to exercise in the fresh are, with a whip as inducement, so that they could stay in reasonable shape. They were given stale water twice a day. Sometimes, they may have been given rice with yams.

One fourth of the slaves died during the journey. Many succumbed to fever, smallpox, measles, malaria and scurvy. Some developed ophthalmia, which blinded them. Slaves who developed this condition could no longer be sold, so they were thrown overboard.

Some slaves committed suicide by jumping over the side of the ship.

Duties of Slaves

Some slaves worked as servants in the households of government officials in Santo Domingo. Others worked in Venezuelan mines. Some were porters in Panama, carrying goods coast to coast in jungles ridden with disease.

Some slaves worked as divers in pearl fisheries along the eastern Venezuelan coast, a job that was once performed by local natives.

The majority of slaves worked on sugar plantations in Brazil and the Caribbean.