Colonization, Much of the African Continent Consisted

¶ … colonization, much of the African continent consisted of prosperous cities, states, and kingdoms. In Western Africa, for instance, raw materials, precious metals, foodstuffs, and animal products flowed along Saharan trade routes, especially after Arabian traders introduced the camel. Powerful states like Ghana and Mali were incredibly wealthy and many Sudanese kingdoms benefited from increased trade and intellectual interaction with Islam.

All this changed during the Middle Ages. About a hundred years before they discovered the New World, Europeans (at first the Portuguese and the Spanish) began their systematic conquest of Africa. The enslavement of African men and women initiated a brutal slave trade that eventually helped the European powers control and dominate the New World.

Slavery drastically changed the way in which people lived and worked on the African, North American, and South American continents. First, the conquest of the Americas obliterated whole tribes, forever altering the ethnic and cultural landscape of the region. Moreover, history was easily distorted as the chroniclers were mostly European men -- the conquerors. Those Europeans who came to the New World in search of riches, religious freedom, adventure, or a new life saw African slaves as necessary in forming a cheap labor force. By the time of the Southern plantations, slaves became a sort of status symbol; they were no longer servants to the rich. Even more dehumanized than they were when they served wealthy Continental Europeans, slaves had become synonymous with property by the sixteenth century.

Slavery most drastically changed the lives of those who were captured; slavery turned people into property. Moreover, the demographics of Africa changed. Some families were torn apart, while others were wrested from their home soil, altering the composition of native African villages, communities, and kingdoms.

The first African slaves were used as servants for the rich. However, as slaves were also used as navigators in the exploration of the New World. When the European nations decimated the native populations in the Caribbean, North, and South America, a massive labor force was required. This labor force was garnered from Africa. African chiefs and kings bowed to pressure or bribes by European slave traders and handed over throngs of men, women, and children.

Religious conversion was often cited as an excuse to enslave the Africans. In fact, the Catholic Church fully supported the system of slavery in order to attract more subjects ("African Slave System"). Later, slavery was further justified by its necessity in exploiting the natural resources of the New World. The economy of the Americas, especially the United States, would never have burgeoned were it not for slave labor. Eventually, slavery became entrenched in North America as an integral part of life.