SLO 10: Shaping of New Things

I never really thought about the Constitution being controversial. Maybe because it wasn't taught in school as being so, it just never crossed my mind. Though, after listening to the James Horton I can easily see why it would be so. Slavery was not mentioned in the Constitution, though it is pretty wordy at protecting the rights of slave holders and eliminating the rights of slaves. James Horton also mentioned the federal protection of uprisings. At the time of the Constitution the main uprising they would have to prepare for is the revolts of slaves, and if they did so the federal government would be involved. 

Another thing that I learned from my research is how intensive the culture exchange was. So many different tribes were being ripped apart through the Atlantic Slave Trade and being forced into the same destiny. When they began new lives in their "new" homes they were bringing traditions from each others cultures. These traditions were being mushed to together to makes something new. Also, how the slave trade and people from it have shaped the culture of today. Composing music such as Jazz and Blues. Also, developing new religions such as voodoo. The world would be much different today without the influence the slave trade had brought. 

SLO 10: What Were Their Influences

As mentioned in previous posts my research is looking at the time surrounding the American Revolution 1763-1783. During the year of 1776, African Americans comprised about 20% of the entire population in the 13 mainland colonies (Zagarri)”. African American’s were a large group of people during the time of America becoming a nation of it’s own. Their presence during the war was not always acknowledged but they did have an influence, for both sides. The colonies shut down ports in a boycott against Britain. African slave soldiers of the tens of thousands were sent into the war. British made a deal with some that if they fight on the British lines they would be granted their freedom, America soon made the same arrangement for some. This directly affected the war and the history that was in the making.

Not only did their wartime presence help the cause of the American Revolution but their enforced labor help make the country of industrialism it is today.  The plantations were mimicking those that were already established in other parts of the world, such as sugar plantations. Here in America it was cotton. The south making up for the majority of the slave holdings had a more desired need for them. During the Revolution, the demand on slaves decreased though directly after the war the demand reached new heights.  After South Carolina reopened the trade in 1787 and when it legally ended in 1808, 100,000 Africans were purchased during those years (Berlin, Ira).

After, the American Revolution the Constitution was constructed. Several individuals did not feel that this document was one they could stand behind; some took the regard to burn copies. Others referred to this text as the “slave holder document (Horton, James)”. Slaves were considered property and this may have been why there are great lengths about property protection in the Constitution. Also, it is very limited in the wording about free man. The freed slaves, even the ones that helped in the fight to become a free nation, did not receive the same protection under the Constitution.

"During the time of the slave trade new culture was being created. The captives’ nationality was no more random than their age or sex. Europeans slavers developed specialties, in some measure to meet the demands of their customers on both sides of the Atlantic, whose preferences and needs grew increasingly well defined over time. Preferences on both side of the Atlantic determined, to a considerable degree, which enslaved Africans went where and when, populating the mainland with unique combinations of African peoples and creating distinctive regional variations in the Americas. Igbo peoples constituted the majority of African slaves in Virginia and Maryland, so much so that some historians have denominated colonial Virginia as “Igbo land.” A different pattern emerged in Lowcountry South Carolina and Georgia, where slaves from central Africa predominated from the beginning of large-scale importation, so that if Virginia was Igbo land, the Lowcountry might be likened to a new Angola.

But if patterns of African settlement can be discerned, they never created regional homogeneity. The general thrust of the slave trade was toward heterogeneity, throwing different people together in ways that undermined the transfer of any single culture. Mainland North America became a jumble of African nationalities. Their interaction—not their homogeneity—created new African American culture… But slowly, inexorably, the survivors made the new land their own. Transplanted Africans began to master the languages of North America, learned to traverse the countryside, formed friendships, pieced together new lineages from real and fictive kin, and created a new sacred world. Their children, who knew no other land, took root in American soil and made the land that had been forced on their parents their own. Like most other Americans, they too were the children of immigrants—but immigrants of a very different kind (Berlin, Ira)”.

Berlin, Ira. "The Origins of Slavery." The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 May 2016. 

Slavery And The Constituiton. By. James Horton. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 May 2016.

Zagarri, Rosemarie, PHD. "Slavery in Colonial British North America." Teaching History.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Apr. 2016. 

SLO 10: What Changed?

This week in SLO 10, I am expected to “Analyze historical developments across national, regional and cultural boundaries”. Therefore I am on a quest to find “How did the Atlantic Slave Trade contribute to history? How did the slave trade change nations? Change regions? How did the transatlantic slave trade contribute to cultural exchanges?” My hopes are to do just that, find the altering of nations, regions, cultural exchange that took place during the course of the Slave Trade.

SLO#2 For the Good or For their Self-Interests?

What I took away from my research, is that slavery may have been abolished because, well, the slaves were an obstacle that was hindering the economy. Though, I am certain that several individuals did feel the unwarranted treatment over the slaves it may not have been the only reason why slavery was abolished. I was really expecting to find a major economic deficit when slavery was abolished but I couldn't seem to locate anything devastating. That kind of strikes me as odd, the slaves were a major labor force for the colonies and when they were no longer forced for their labor, I expected something a little traumatic. I want to look into it more and try to seek something that shows economic figures surrounding slavery. 

SLO #2 For What Reason?

So it seems that during the American revolution, the revolt of the Americas from the British king, this was the time where anti-slavery was actively starting to be pushed for. In the are article titled The Impact of Slavery, ushistory.org states "The world's first ANTISLAVERY SOCIETY was founded in 1775 by Quakers in Philadelphia, the year the Revolution began" (The Impact of Slavery). A movement was being started within in the colonies that was never seen before. The same article then expresses, "Some Northern states banned slavery outright, and some provided for the gradual end of slavery. At any rate, the climate of the Revolution made the institution unacceptable in the minds of many Northerners, who did not rely on forced labor as part of the economic system". Then I began to question how did the ban of slavery effect the economic growth for the colonies. Rosemarie Zagarri obtaining her PHD from Yale reveals, "by the time of the American Revolution, slaves comprised about 60% of South Carolina's total population and 40% of Virginia's (Zagarri)". Whereas in the urban North it ranged from 2-25%. The majority of the South's slaves lived on large plantations and that meant that the majority of  white people did not own slaves. It was a smaller population of people who were involved with slave labor but they had large involvement.  The South was definitely more invested than the North in the slave trade. "Since Eli Whitney's 1793 invention of the cotton 'gin, the cotton industry became a lucrative field for Southern planters and farmers"(Mark Schulman). The industry made up for a majority of the South's revenues. The plantation owners were of course opposed to losing the main source of income. They felt a strong push from the North for doing with out slavery. What reasons did the North have against slavery? I thought of course it was them finally coming to their senses of the unjustness of slavery. However when researching, I came to a cross road as why the North wanted to abolish slavery. From The Gilder Lehman Institute of American History, article titled Was Slavery the Engine of American Economic Growth?, "Despite clear evidence that slavery was profitable, abolitionists--and many people who were not abolitionists--felt strongly that slavery degraded labor, inhibited urbanization and mechanization, thwarted industrialization, and stifled progress, and associated slavery with economic backwardness, inefficiency, indebtedness, and economic and social stagnation. When the North waged war on slavery, it was not because it had overcome racism; rather, it was because Northerners in increasing numbers identified their society with progress and viewed slavery as an intolerable obstacle to innovation, moral improvement, free labor, and commercial and economic growth(Was Slavery the Engine of American Economic Growth)". And then for a reason similar to what it was I was originally thinking, Zagarri expresses, "The widespread ownership of slaves had significant implications. During the battles with Britain during the 1760s and 1770s, American Patriots argued that taxing the colonies without their consent reduced the colonists to the status of slaves. Since individuals in all the colonies owned slaves, this rhetoric had enormous emotional resonance throughout the colonies and helped turn the colonists against the mother county. Moreover, once colonists started protesting against their own enslavement, it was hard to deny the fundamental contradiction that slavery established: enslavement for black people and freedom for white people. Awareness of this contradiction forced white Americans to look at slavery in a new light. If Americans chose to continue to enslave black people, they would have to devise new arguments to justify slavery. It was at this time that arguments about blacks' inherent racial inferiority emerged to rationalize the institution" (Zagarri). So what was it, were the colonist having empathy for the slaves because they felt that they too were not being treated fair? Or was if pure selfishness that slavery was hindering the growth for the colonies?

"Was Slavery the Engine of American Economic Growth?" The Gilder Lehman Institute of American History. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Apr. 2016. 

Zagarri, Rosemarie, PHD. "Slavery in Colonial British North America." Teaching History.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Apr. 2016. 

Schulman, Mark. "Economics and the Civil War." History Central. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Apr. 2016.

SLO #2 Changes within Societies

My quest this week is to, "Analyze broad patterns of change on both interregional scales and within complex societies". Just a reminder my search is limited to the years surrounding the American Revolution (1773-1793). Therefore I think my findings will be focused in on the Revolution itself and staying within the Americas. I really have no idea what it is I will find but I am setting off to search. Wish me luck!

SLO 7 What I Pulled from Research

It is apparent that during the eighteenth century, the British had made changes to grasp a steady decline in the mortality rate of African Slaves. The innovation of cooper plating of the hull on ships made a living condition a slightly more barable for the traveling slave. The dampness had subside and the trips were  moderatley quicker. Rainfall was now also being collected, therefore it is believed that dehydration didn't play as big of a role as it priorly did. The trips I am sure were still gruesome but they were more accommodated than in previous times. With survival rate on the rise and the more slaves the British were able to successfully transfer and sale, the more likely they were able to dominate the market of slave trade.

SLO 7 Mortality Decline for the British Slave Trade

In exploring through some scholarly articles, I found one that was titled Explaining the Mortality Decline in the Eighteenth-Century British Slave Trade. This title sparked my interest because what was it that they changed or advanced to have such a decline? So let me dig through through the article and pull out what those changes and developments were. It first starts off by saying "There are many possible explanations for the decline of death rates on British Voyages during the eighteenth century. They included increased immunity gained by African populations to variety of new diseases following the gradual merging of epidemiological regions, improved economic and health conditions within Africa, and the introductions of new ships designed to carry, and to collect (from rainfall), greater volumes of water. Another important innovation from the 1760s was the coopering of hulls which may have resulted not only in faster voyages, but in reduction in shipworm and thus dampness below decks (Haines and Shlomowitz)." Me, not being ship savvy had to look up what a "hull" is; "a hull is the watertight body of a ship or boat. Above the hull is the superstructure and or deckhouse... (Hull (watercraft))". I also located another tid bit from Wiki stating "Copper sheathing is the practice of protecting the under-water hull of a ship or boat from the corrosive effects of salt water and biofouling through the use of copper plates affixed to the outside of the hull. It was pioneered and developed by the Royal Navy during the 18th century (Copper Sheathing)." So prior to this invention, "Damp conditions in steerage were believed to have contributed as much as heat and stuffiness to suffering, sickness, and death: driver decks were conducive to better health (Haines and Shlomowitz)."

Haines, Robin, and Ralph Shlomowitz. “Explaining the Mortality Decline in the Eighteenth-century British Slave   Trade”. The Economic History Review 53.2 (2000): 262–283. Web…

"Hull (watercraft)." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 21 Mar. 2016.

"Copper Sheathing." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 21 Mar. 2016.

SLO 7: Mortality Decline, What were they doing differently?

Haines, Robin, and Ralph Shlomowitz. “Explaining the Mortality Decline in the Eighteenth-century British Slave Trade”. The Economic History Review 53.2 (2000): 262–283. Web...

SLO 7 What Improved the Slave Trade for Britain

This week I am going to take a look into discoveries, inventions, and scientific achievements that were significant to the Atlantic Slave Trade. I hope to discover something that was beneficial to the slaves journey. So, here I go, off to do some research.

SLO 5: Unbelievable Impact

So my mission was to "Analyze ways in which human groups have interacted with one another, including trade, migration, warfare, cultural exchange and biological exchange, from 1500 C.E. to present". Boy, did I find all that within the Slave Trade in Jamaica. 

Over a million people were forced to migrate to Jamaica. That of course had an effect on Jamaica; including the environment, native people, and what it has become today. 

Within this Slave Trade, people of course were being traded for possessions. As I mentioned "When the slave ships arrived from Europe they were laden with trade goods. Captains offered gifts to local African leaders and paid taxes for the right to trade. They then began the serious business of barter and exchange, offering a wide variety of trade goods such as textiles, firearms, alcohol, beads, manillas and cowries (The Capture and Sale of Slaves)”. 

Warfare had a definite presence  do you think that the slaves went willing? I am certain many tried to fight for their freedom and some may have succeeded but several failed in their attempts. 

Cultrual exchange, Europeans felt that it was their duty to pass on the Christian religion and that they were helping the slaves by doing so. Many slaves did adapt this new religion while others did a mixture of the native beliefs and some new. 

Biological exchange, as mentioned several African's began to mix their heritages after being brought to Jamaica. Not only were the slaves reproducing but it was also know for slave women to birth a child from her "owner" and these children are known as "Mullatos". 

There will always be the reminder of the Slave Trade in life of Jamaica because it had such an impact on it. I mean it had an impact every where but Jamaica was such a dominate figure it is just unbelievable of the amount of people that was funneled through there. 

SLO 5 Jamaica, the Moneymaker!

This week I opened the Slave Voyage database again. When searching I randomly chose a vessel named Martha; flying the British flag, captained by John Smith and owned by John Powell and Powell (Son). This ship began their voyage on 09/04/1775 in Bristol with 23 crewmembers. They made their purchase of 214 slaves in Gold Coast (04/1776).  After their first landing they had 13 crewmembers on board. They disembarked on 12/14/1776 in Jamaica with 197 slaves. I am curious what happened to those crewmembers did they die from diseases like many of the slaves? That will just be some sort of mystery. Though, when searching I noticed a whole lot of the ship landings taking place in Jamaica. So I entered some search keywords to further investigate just how many ships were disembarking there. I found, during the time period of 1773-1793 and only those flying the British flag the total were 2,263, and when I limit the search to those of the Caribbean it only drops down to 1,905. Whoa, so almost 85% of ships were traveling to the Caribbean! Then when I clicked through the pages of those Caribbean ports, Jamaica was very well dominating in presence (The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database). So, I took by search further to another resource and found a scholarly article The Dynamics of the Slave Market and Slave Purchasing Patterns in Jamaica written by Burnard and Morgan. This was a gold mine and had so much information about Jamaica and the Slave Trade. So let me deliver to you what it is that I have discovered. Between the 1655-1808 3,432 known voyages and 915,204 slaves reached Jamaica. These were only the vessels that were registered and completed the voyage. The intended amount of slaves from those voyages was 1,083,369. Therefore about a quarter of slaves taken from their homeland never made it to the final destination.   Jamaica had the greatest demand for slaves of any other British Colony in the Americas. It received one third of the held slaves that were imported by the British Colonies. In some periods such as 1720’s and 1790’s Jamaica accounted for 40 and sometimes 50 percent of the Africans shipped by Britain (Burnard and Morgan, 205-207). As you can see Jamaica was very popular for Britain’s landing point.

Where was Britain getting all these slaves? The slaves that reached Jamaica usually came from four popular regions of Africa: the Bight of Biafra, the Gold Coast, West Central Africa, and Bight of Benin. Of these four regions they accounted for ninety percent of the slaves residing in Jamaica (Burnard and Morgan, 208). “When the slave ships arrived from Europe they were laden with trade goods. Captains offered gifts to local African leaders and paid taxes for the right to trade. They then began the serious business of barter and exchange, offering a wide variety of trade goods such as textiles, firearms, alcohol, beads, manillas and cowries Europeans…bought most of them from local African or African-European dealers. These dealers had a sophisticated network of trading alliances collecting groups of people together for sale…Most of the Africans who were enslaved were captured in battles or were kidnapped, though some were sold into slavery for debt or as punishment…The captives were marched to the coast, often enduring long journeys of weeks or even months, shackled to one another. At the coast they were imprisoned in large stone forts, built by European trading companies, or in smaller wooden compounds.. (The Capture and Sale of Slaves)”.  The slaves being from different areas of Africa had much diversity amongst them.

As the population of Jamaica grew so did the heterogeneity, the slaves from different areas of Africa started to  “mix and mate” together (Burnard and Morgan, 219). As the slave ships docked it was seldom for the purchaser to pick and choose the ethnicity of the slave, that they were getting a great mix of ethnicities during a purchase.  In Kingston there was several large purchasers that came through. George Richards being one of them making the largest single purchase of 229 slaves and his widow Mary purchased 148 slaves several years later Burnard and Morgan, 214). These individuals are an example of those that showed interest in the Kingston slave market. Being a shipping point Kingston transformed because of the slave trade.

So, why were these people being torn from their homes? What was the need for such a great population in Jamaica? Money of course, Jamaica was a large sugar mine. Jamaica produced forty two percent of Britain’s sugar production. Jamaica being such a moneymaker for them was considerably more important than any other British colony.

Burnard, Trevor, and Kenneth Morgan. “The Dynamics of the Slave Market and Slave     Purchasing Patterns in Jamaica, 1655-1788”. The William and Mary Quarterly 58.1 (2001): 205–228. Web...

"The Capture and Sale of Slaves." International Slavery Museum, Liverpool Museums. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Mar. 2016.

 "The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database." Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database. 

                       Emory University, n.d. Web.  Mar. 2016."