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The Transatlantic Slave Trade

Driving Question: What were the causes and effects of the Atlantic slaving system?

From the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries, the transatlantic slave trade enslaved and transported over 12.5 million Africans to the Americas. Millions died on this “Middle Passage.” For those who survived, other horrors awaited as they were sold into slavery to spend their lives working on plantations.

Learning Objectives:

  1. Understand and critique the motives and justifications for the transatlantic slave trade.
  2. Practice quick sourcing to assess first-person accounts of those involved in the transatlantic slave trade.
  3. Evaluate the effects of the slave trade on communities in Africa and the Americas.
STEP 1

Opener: The Transatlantic Slave Trade

The transatlantic slave trade was a brutal system that treated human beings as property to be bought and sold with little concern for their safety or wellbeing. Reading the words written by formerly enslaved people will help you begin to understand the horrors of this system.

STEP 2

An Age of Enslavement

In this article and source collection, you’ll see how Europeans became very wealthy—at the expense of societies in Africa and the Americas—and how enslaved people experienced this system.

STEP 3

The Middle Passage

Sometimes, when we focus on smaller scales, we can see the big picture more clearly. We’ll adjust our lenses to focus on a small region in Africa and the life of one enslaved man to better understand how the slave trade affected the entire continent.

Impact of the Slave Trade: Through a Ghanaian Lens External link

How did the Atlantic slave trade impact communities in Africa? This video focuses on experiences of people in Ghana to reveal bigger truths about this transoceanic system.

Key Ideas

As this video progresses, key ideas will be introduced to invoke discussion.
STEP 4

The Plantation System

Plantation slavery and capitalism arose in the same period. Were they systems that supported each other, or did capitalism help to end plantation slavery? Explore these ideas in the article and activity below.

STEP 5

Closer: The Transatlantic Slave Trade

In this unit, you’ve learned about how the world transformed as a result of new global connections. Now, it’s time to reflect on how what you’ve learned has changed what you think.