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  Click here to read about the experience of the slaves in their own words. Left: Slaves being drowned by being thrown overboard from an 18th century slave ship. |
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THE STORY OF THE SLAVE TRADE The European slave trade began in the 15th century, when Christopher Columbus and the later explorers colonized the Americas and Africa. Europeans found the mid-American climate perfect for growing crops such as cotton, tobacco, coffee, chocolate and above all sugar – which had been a luxury until then, but quickly became essential to everyday life. These crops needed intensive labour, and so colonists started buying slaves from existing African slave traders and shipping them west. The African slave trade exploded to meet European demand. By 1600, 600 slaves a year were being shipped; by 1700, the number had risen to 4,000. By 1800, 70,000 slaves were being transported every year. All in all, 15 million slaves crossed the Atlantic in 300 years. The numbers are so high because it was cheaper to buy new slaves than to keep old slaves alive in healthy and safe conditions. Life expectancy on the British islands was seven years. The Church of England had its own slaves, 300 of them, on Codrington plantation in Barbados, which had been left to the church's missionary society in a will. To maximize profits, the slaves were crammed into ships like sardines, as the diagram above of a slave ship, the Brookes, shows. The diagram was made after a 1788 law which seriously reduced numbers. The slaves were chained to the floor, with two feet of headroom if they were on or under a shelf. There was intense heat and open tubs for toilets, which only some could reach, so disease was rife and the stench was extreme. The UK and US both abolished the trade in 1807. Napoleon abolished the French trade in 1815, though France had temporarily abolished slavery in 1793-1801. The Spanish followed in 1820 and Portugal in 1825. |
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