What Is The Role Of Slavery In The 18th Century

How could such an awful historical event take place in our history? In our world today, slavery by itself can provoke mixed feelings from many people including myself. It has been a controversial subject in society for hundreds of years. I cannot understand how one human being can consider another human being their property. The foundation of slavery in America began when African slaves were brought to America across the oceans in 1619. Europeans themselves did not capture the slaves, other Africans captured and enslaved their own people as punishment for crimes and for trade of liquor, guns, and other goods (Goldfield). African slaves were brought to America to work on the production of tobacco. During the 17th and 18th century, slavery practices were very
During the 17th and 18th century, slaves worked mainly on the tobacco, rice and indigo plantations. In the late 18th century, with the land used to grow tobacco nearly exhausted, the South faced an economic crisis. The invention of the cotton gin solidified the central importance of slavery to the South’s economy. Around the late 18th century, the mechanization of the textile industry in England led to a huge demand in American cotton, a southern crop that was limited by how difficult it was to remove the seeds from the raw cotton by hand. After the invention of the cotton gin and within a few years the South would transition from the large scale production of tobacco to that of cotton, a switch that reinforced the region’s dependence on slave labor (History Channel).
A very large part of the world was affected by the African slave trade. This event has been described in many ways. Although there are many accounts of the history of the African slave trade, one thing is clear, and that there is a better understanding on why slave trading began and the impact it has had on many people, on society and countries