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The Trans-Atlantic slave trade had a massive impact the British, West Indies, Africa, and the emerging African American culture. The British were impacted with massive profits, to the disadvantage of many parts of Africa, where large amounts of men and women from all around the continent were forced into slavery. The West Indies were impacted by being turned into sugar plantations, and an African American Culture was born from all the African slaves that were imported.
The Trans-Atlantic slave trade helped the British the most out of nearly anyone. The importation of slaves aided the extraction of sugar and tobacco in the Americas, which boosted England’s economy vastly. The amount of profit they were able to make from buying the slaves to the amount of money each slave could make them was very high. The market grew seemingly exponentially, because from the money that England was making, they were able to buy more and more slaves from Africa, in a very profitable cycle.
The Trans-Atlantic slave trade impacted most of Africa in the exact opposite effect than in Britain. Even though, a very small percent of Africans profited o, while the demand for slaves from Europe was satisfied often when kings ransacked some of his enemies’ towns, and kidnapping the villagers, and selling them to the Europeans. For example, the West African State of Doomed used this tactic, and sold the other Africans in exchange for weapons, and he created a large army, which made it easier for him to ransack even more villages.
The vast majority of Africans affected were affected in a negative manner. Once enslaved, most would have to march in chains to the nearest port where they would be forced onto incredibly packed ships, and sent across the Atlantic. This journey was called the Middle Passage. Dehydration, starvation, dysentery, and many others, were ways many of the Africans died before they got to the Americas, where the fate was arguably worse, where 1 0 hour work days and extremely harsh punishments were in store.
Most of the slaves shipped were men, too, so the ratio of men to women in Africa was nearly 2:1, and men often started having many wives, changing the laws of marriage. The West Indies was impacted by Trans-Atlantic slave trade by basically being turned into a giant sugar plantation. As social inequality and racial inflict increased in north America, hundreds of farmers fled to Jamaica, and overpowered Caesarian smallholders. In less than 1 00 years, Jamaica had over 700 sugar plantations on it, and the West Indies was also covered with sugar plantations.
Sugar was a rich man’s crop, because it was most easily grown in large quantities, and was highly valuable. Adam Smith, an economist from England, was most renowned for his famous treatise The Wealth of Nations, in which he stated how sugar was the most profitable crop in Europe. It is most profitable because it is mainly the only sweet thing in the world besides none and fruit, and the demand for it is great. All of the new plantations called for an incredible amount of slaves. The community of African Americans was born through the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.
Slave owners purposely picked slaves from different places that had different backgrounds, cultures, and more importantly, language, so that it was harder for them to rebel. There were also a lot more women Africans in the slave community in North America, almost equal amounts, which allowed for families and children. The majority of African Americans were born in America after the first few generations. Eventually the language barrier was mostly broken, and the African American community was strengthened.
A culture developed in the African community, and assimilated. One observer said they had created ‘a Nation within a Nation’. The Trans-Atlantic slave trade transformed life dramatically for the British, Africa, the West Indies, and the newly formed African American Community. The British became rich, the African people were used to a horrifying extent, the West Indies became a sugar plantation and money ground for the British, and the African American community was made inside and underneath the white American society.