Transatlantic slavery
The information on the transatlantic slavery is usually misinterpreted, leading to the existence of various misconception on slavery. The following paragraphs discuss some of the misconceptions and the truth to the misconceptions. First, there is the misconception that the majority of the slaves were shipped directly to the United States of America. However, the truth is that a majority of the captured slaves were shipped to the Caribbean and Brazil, where they served in the sugar plantations (Daina Ramey Berry. 2017). The second one is that all people from the south owned slaves, but the truth is that only a quarter of the southerners owned slaves.
The third is that the north did not benefit from slavery, but the truth is that slavery can be said to have been woven politically, legally, and socially into the country. The country as a whole is said to be built on the backbone of slavery without exception of whether north or south. The fourth entails the that the enslaved Africans never rebelled against their slavers. However, they used to rebel individually, and in groups where they freed to go to schools, others just to seek freedom and others to join black movements that fought against slavery (Daina Ramey Berry. 2017). Finally, house slaves had better working conditions and lives compared to field slaves. The truth is that as much as the fieldwork was exposing the men to destroying their bodies physically, women, children and some men were also having it difficult on their side. Emotional violence was rampant including rape and other forms of torture that they went through in the hands of the enslavers homes.
It is said that approximately eleven million Africans were captured as slaves and taken to the new world and this is usually termed as a major historical phenomenon that had its consequences. The question of how they managed to be transported is discussed below. British slave ships came to the West African shores ferrying goods from Liverpool and in return, they returned with slaves in their ships (Riches & Misery. 2019). Some of the slaves were captured or betrayed by their local chiefs, who raided into the village enemies and traded them to the British who were living there. The British on the other hand sold them to their counterparts who ferried them back to the Americas. Other slaves were captured by the British traders who ambushed the local people from Africa and trade them to be ferried back to the Americas. After capture, the slaves were transported in chain lines which were referred to as coffles and held as prisoners until their purchasers would arrive. From the West Africa shores, they were sailed across the Atlantic to the West Indies and this voyage was commonly referred to as the middle passage.
Africans resisted enslavement in various active and passive ways. They had strategies to resist day-to-day such as feigning illness, breaking working tools, planning for slowdowns, and other forms of sabotage and arson (Digital History. 2019). Other forms of resistance involved running from their master and it usually involved using the underground railroads. Others, however, were not running permanently from slavery, but as a form of bargaining for their free time with their masters. Another form of resistance was uprisings, where they staged insurrections such as the Stono rebellion, where a man with the name Stono staged a rebellion which was joined by almost a hundred blacks and in the way they killed several whites. They were, however, captured and killed by the colonists waho hanged their heads as a warning to other blacks.