USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Ivory, gold and other trade resources attracted Europeans to West Africa. As demand for cheap labour to work on plantations in the Americas grew, people enslaved in West Africa became the most valuable ‘commodity’ for European traders. Slavery existed in Africa before Europeans arrived.

Detailed explanation-2: -Slaves were punished for not working fast enough, for being late getting to the fields, for defying authority, for running away, and for a number of other reasons. The punishments took many forms, including whippings, torture, mutilation, imprisonment, and being sold away from the plantation.

Detailed explanation-3: -The settlements required a large number of laborers to sustain them. Because these crops required large areas of land, the plantations grew in size, and in turn, more labor was required to work on the plantations. Plantation labor shifted away from indentured servitude and more toward slavery by the late 1600s.

Detailed explanation-4: -What are two reasons why West Africa strongly felt the effects of the slave trade? 1) The West African countries lost most of their able-bodied men and women to the slave trade. 2) West Africa had more natural resources than other parts of Africa.