Slavery

The look into slave culture in Africa was incredibly interesting. living in America my view of slavery has generally been Caucasians oppressively and generally violently lording over Africans and African-Americans. the look at how in Africa slaves were the way to prosperity rather than land really busts the view of the vile Europeans and Americans raping of Africa. Africans practiced slavery as a means to progress forward economically. They actively participated in the slave trade and their own inner slave trade. the difference between the African slave trade and the triangle trade was treatment and means. the Triangle Trade allowed Europeans to further their goals on the land they controlled whereas with the African Trade the slaves were the commodity. Europeans treated the slaves like cargo, packed into tight cramped spaces with little food where many died. Africans treated their slaves with care because if one died they would lose wealth and standing, whereas Europeans would just buy a new slave to take the place of the lost labor. the Lane article was interesting in that it discussed how roles of slaves were gendered to man’s work and woman’s such as field work or as a blacksmith’s apprentice and house work or selling wares in the market. the naming ‘ceremony’ was quite interesting where it de-africanized the slaves and attempted to strip them of their past by giving them new names that were vastly foreign to them and forced them into christian context.