From: Kristi De Simone TH 8:40-11:00
Date: 2/6/00
Time: 8:19:16 PM
Remote Name: 155.247.244.86
Primary Source Assignment. During the slave trade in which Negroes were being sold to white people, the transfer of African people across the Atlantic between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries carried almost eleven million blacks to the Americas. Most of these men and women were sold in Brazil or in the Caribbean. The Europeans came to Africa, seized people from their native country, and forced them into a life of horror. Black slave traders would travel the country collecting people to be sold to the white man. The slaves were captured and sold by black traders at "slavery fairs." These fairs would be held as far as two hundred miles from the sea cost; and the fairs were supplied with people from an interior part of the country. The Negroes had traveled extreme distances from their homes to reach these fairs. These fairs were held about every six weeks. Several thousand slaves were frequently exposed to the sale. When the Negroes, whom the black traders sold, were shown to the European purchasers, they were examined for age, health, and defects. If any defects were found, they were rejected. If they were approved, they were generally taken on board the slave ships the same evening. The enslaved Africans looked to their black captors for answers to what was to become of them, these black captors stole their own people for money. The enslaved Africans were abandoned from the blacks that captured them once aboard the terror ships. The enslaved Africans were skeptical of the European slave traders. They looked so different from any one they have ever seen. "Their complexions, differing so much from ours, their long hair and their language they spoke, which was different from any I had ever heard, united to confirm me in this belief " A Multitude of Black People...Chained Together. The slaves were unfamiliar with the Europeans looks and practices. They thought of the white people as acting in a savage manor. The brutal cruelty, not only to blacks but also to some of their own amazed the Africans. Their actions of cruelty made the Africans fear these white people. The slave trade experience was a terrible time in history. Many people were unfairly affected by the slave trade.Families were separated, cultures were lost and the mistreatment of people years to follow, due to their ancestors' color has been the results of greedy men who were too lazy to build their "New World" on their own.