Over the course of more than three and a half eras, the forceful transportation of at least twelve million men, women and even children from their African homeland to America forever changed the face and character of our modern world. These human beings from Africa were sold to Americans to work on plantation farms as slaves. As the quote in the title suggests, many believe that slavery originated in the African plantations while experts argue that slavery originated from European trade. Nevertheless, all would agree that the Trans-Atlantic slave trade was despicable and ruthless and that the enslavement of Africans was brutal, manipulative, and dehumanizing. …show more content…
Jan Vansina’s exploration of this region of Africa proclaims that “there was no trade in people in the region before the Europeans.” Even Goody’s claim about the African legal system states that there was “no process that regularly generated people for sale in the coastal societies of Western Africa before the coming of the Europeans” supports this notion (Inikori 62). In addition, the word “slave” and meaning of the word “slave” coincides with the first engagement in slavery in the West African Region of the Kingdom of Kongo. Historical research indicates that the beginning of trading of slaves in this area originated from the Portuguese. The Portuguese said they “no longer wanted copper,” but wanted slaves instead. Although, the Kingdom of Kongo “had no immediately available disposable people to sell;” the Kongo ruler “raided Mbundu” and sold the African people he had captured himself to the people of Portugal (Inikori 62). The trading often included the exchange of tobacco, coal, gold, and skillful laborers to work on the plantations. Many experts believed “slavery was the result of trade” (James 59). The research indicates that the event between the Kingdom of Kongo and the Portuguese marks the very beginning of the Trans-Atlantic slave