In previous years, most Africans who have came to America were slaves who were purchased through the international slave trade. White colonists viewed Africans as uncivilized and ‘turned to the international slave trade to fill their labor needs.’ The white English settlers knew nothing of any other culture; people were thought to be white or Christian, anything else was ‘uncivilized’. Slavery served for two purposes; a labor system and racial control in a white country.
The slave trade was important in building the colonial empires of European nations and in creating the wealth that later produced the Industrial Revolution. Africans were being Europeanized and at the same time European Americans were being Africanized. The slave trade created a way of communication for the movement of crops, agricultural techniques, diseases and medical knowledge between Africa, America, and Europe. (read full text…)
