Why Slaves From Africa?
Europeans were trading in Africa as well as the New World. Slavery already existed in Africa, where tribes enslaved people from other ethnic groups, as prisoners of war, in payment for debt or as a punishment for crimes. African slaves started to be shipped to the plantations in the Americas. To meet the increasing demand from European traders, there was a marked increase in the numbers of wars, raids and kidnapping of individuals, particularly on the west coast. Landowners in the Americas quickly concluded that African slaves were more suitable than the English or Irish. The reasons usually stated for African slaves being preferred is that they could easily be bought from traders on the West African coast and were more immune to disease than indigenous Americans or imported white slaves. Although there is some truth in these arguments, the main reason was that Africans made good slave labourers because many of them were skilled artisans. However the hard life of a slave meant nearly o
