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West African slaves could escape their bondage.

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Q: How was slavery in West Africa different from later slavery in the Americas?
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Continue Learning about History of Western Civilization

Until the age of exploration Europeans played a nominal roll and trade why was colonization so important to them?

There is an important difference between the colonial activities in the Americas in that period of time and the European settlements elsewhere in the world. It was only Spain and Portugal that set up colonies in the Americas then, and their motivation was mostly 'gold'. In order to get to the gold, they had to effectively control those lands, because the local population would not of course willingly start up mines and do backbreaking work there just to help the Spaniards get rich. In the East it was different: growing and trading spices was a long-established tradition there, and the Europeans just set up trading posts and made deals with local rulers with the aim to corner those local markets. Colonization in the sense of taking control of countries in Asia and Africa was a thing of a much later age. That 'colonial period' in those cases almost never lasted longer than the period between 1880 and 1960.


How Similar were traditional slavery to European slavery?

Forced marriages or early marriages are often considered types of slavery. Forced marriage continues to be practiced in parts of the world including some parts of Asia and Africa and in immigrant communities in the West. Sacred prostitution is where girls and women are pledged to priests or those of higher castes, such as the practice of Devadasi in South Asia or fetish slaves in West Africa. Marriage by abduction occurs in many places in the world today, with a national average of 69% of marriages in Ethiopia being through abduction. Economists have attempted to model the circumstances under which slavery (and variants such as serfdom) appear and disappear. One observation is that slavery becomes more desirable for landowners where land is abundant but labour is scarce, such that rent is depressed and paid workers can demand high wages. If the opposite holds true, then it becomes more costly for landowners to have guards for the slaves than to employ paid workers who can only demand low wages because of the amount of competition. Thus, first slavery and then serfdom gradually decreased in Europe as the population grew but were reintroduced in the Americas and in Russia as large areas of new land with few people became available.Slavery is more common when the labour done is relatively simple and thus easy to supervise, such as large-scale growing of a single crop, like sugar and cotton, in which output was based on economies of scale. This enables such systems of labour, such as the gang system in the United States, to become prominent on large plantations where field hands were monitored and worked with factory-like precision. For example, each work gang was based on an internal division of labour that assigned every member of the gang to a precise task and simultaneously made their own performance dependent on the actions of the others. The hoe hands chopped out the weeds that surrounded the cotton plants as well as excessive sprouts. The plow gangs followed behind, stirring the soil near the rows of cotton plants and tossing it back around the plants. Thus, the gang system worked like an assembly line.Since the 18th century, critics have argued that slavery tends to retard technological advancement because the focus is on increasing the number of slaves doing simple tasks rather than upgrading the efficiency of labour. For example, it is sometime argued that, because of this narrow focus, theoretical knowledge and learning in Greece – and later in Rome – was not applied to ease physical labour or improve manufacturing. Scottish economist Adam Smith states that free labour was economically better than slave labour, and that it is nearly impossible to end slavery in a free, democratic, or republican form of government since many of its legislators or political figures were slave owners, and would not punish themselves. He further states that slaves would be better able to gain their freedom when there was centralized government, or a central authority like a king or the church. Similar arguments appear later in the works of Auguste Comte, especially when it comes to Smith's belief in the separation of powers, or what Comte called the "separation of the spiritual and the temporal" during the Middle Ages and the end of slavery, and Smith's criticism of masters, past and present. As Smith states in the Lectures on Jurisprudence, "The great power of the clergy thus concurring with that of the king set the slaves at liberty. But it was absolutely necessary both that the authority of the king and of the clergy should be great. Where ever any one of these was wanting, slavery still continues..." Worldwide, slavery is a criminal offense, but slave owners can get very high returns for their risk. According to researcher Siddharth Kara, the profits generated worldwide by all forms of slavery in 2007 were $91.2 billion


Who named Europe?

The name Europe came from ILLYRIANS, Europa was the daughter of Aphrodite, goddess of LOVE. FACT: Did you know that all of the worlds population came from Africa and then later migrated to other parts of the world, i.e Europe. Europeans didn't exist at the time, they were actually african (black) but then later evolved into (white people). Link: http://racerelations.about.com/b/2011/01/29/how-a-genetic-mutation-led-to-the-white-race.htm


Why was f.w. de klark important in history?

He realised that South Africa was at a turning point and that apartheid was about to die, so he decided to free Nelson Mandela and to allow him to run for president. After Mandela won the presidential elections 4 years later, Klark oversaw the transition - which brought him public recognition.


What was the impact of the Portuguese in the Western Hemisphere during the 1500-1600s?

"Depends on what you mean by Western Hemisphere. If you're following the colloquial "version", then I am assuming you are only referencing the Americas. However, if you're using the correct term (The half of the earth to the west of the Prime Meridian), then you're referencing North and South America, any Atlantic islands, as well as the western coast of Africa (the part that butts out). So, I will explain the answer is two parts. 1) (Americas) The Portuguese had their largest and most notable (to the extent that any other discoveries and excursions remain unacknowledged) influence on Brazil. The Portuguese in Brazil had an influence on the indigenous people, where they proselytized them, as well as establishing Portuguese as the de facto language. The 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas "which divided the world outside of Europe in an exclusive duopoly between the Portuguese and the Spanish along a north-south meridian 370 leagues, or 970 miles (1,560 km), west of the Cape Verde islands. However, as it was not possible at the time to correctly measure longitude, the exact boundary was disputed by the two countries until 1777." (Diffie, Bailey (1977). Foundations of the Portuguese Empire, 1415-1580.) In 1534, the Portuguese encouraged European settlement of Brazil, largely to defend the acquired territories. Later, Brazil became an important asset in Portugal's wars with other European powers. 2) Africa, Indies (Part of Americas), and other islands Perhaps the most important of Portugal's navigations was that of Bartolomeu Dias's rounding of the Cape of Good Hope (southern tip of Africa). Soon after, the western coast of Africa became a breeding ground for Portuguese forts and trading posts. From these posts, the slave trade became probably one of the major 'industries' for Portugal; it maintained a virtual monopoly on the slave trade for the better part of a century, where about 800 slaves were exported annually, most to Lisbon, the capital. Portugal also had a strong and steady supply of gold from African regions that now form such countries as Mauritania, Morocco, and Guinea, which helped finance its later expeditions into India and Japan. The Portuguese landfall in small islands in the Atlantic Ocean led to rapid distinctions in European culture and cuisine. The Portuguese were among the first Europeans to use and trade sugar, which they had harvested from the island Madeira. They marketed this sugar in Europe as "sweet salt", which was understandably very rare." ~ UM (Yahoo answers)

Related questions

How was slavery in the west Africa different from later in the Americas?

West African slaves could escape their bondage.


What was the slave trade?

The slave trade in Europe and later the Americas was the capture of Africans and their transport for sale as forced laborers (property). Slavery existed for many centuries among native tribes in Africa, peoples of Asia and the Middle East, and to a lesser extent Native American tribes. The slave trade was made illegal in Europe, and later the US, although slavery was legal in the US until the Civil War (1861-1865), and was a major source of unpaid agricultural labor in the US South.


How were the African empires of kush and aksum different from later empires in Africa?

They adopted Egyptian culture.


What were slaves before slavery?

Before slavery, there were no slaves. Historically, there was slavery in Mesopotamia, in Egypt, in the Roman Empire, and much later in equatorial Africa and among Native American tribes. Slaves were conquered peoples. Arabs and later Europeans bought slaves who had been captured by opposing tribes. Slavery was abolished in Europe and the US in the 19th century, but some forms of slavery still function in some areas of the world. Institutionally, the offspring of slaves were also slaves in many cultures.


If slavery began in 1619 why did it take 200 years for it to become such a divisive issue?

Although slavery as a practice began in the Americas in the 16th century, with the first shipment of slaves arriving in Virginia in the early 17th century, it was not until many years later that slavery would become a divisive issue in the United States. The fundamental reason was that slavery was not at first generally seen as immoral or otherwise wrong; that is, it was generally accepted to be natural or legitimate, and it would continue to be seen this way for many generations before a different view would become influential.


Did James Madison stop slavery?

NO- Madison did not stop slavery in the US. Slavery was not ended until many years later.


What pattern did Columbus's later voyages set for europeans in the Americas?

d


What was Lincoln's position on slavery?

Lincoln was at first undecided about slavery. Later on, his views were that all men were created equal and slavery had not place in the US.


Was slavery allowed in the north or the south?

At first, both, but later, the north didn't use slavery, but the south still did.


What were two reasons for the civil war?

to reorganize the union and to stop slavery from spreading but later on it was to abolish slavery completely.


Who was the Father of Western African missions?

Lott Carey was the first black American missionary to Africa and helped founded the African country Liberia. Carey was born into slavery, but was later freed and became a minister and a doctor.


Why was slavery left to later generations?

Because of biggest losers