Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

People of African origin have endured a dispersal perhaps unprecedented in terms of numbers and degree of brutality in modern times. This African dispersal was the direct result of the slave trade; its lasting legacy, the creation of an African diaspora. Though slavery and the traffic in slaves in Africa preceded European involvement in the trade, it was the fabulous profits to be had from European plantation economies of tobacco, sugar and, later, cotton in the New World which dramatically increased the numbers of slaves involved. As a direct result of the slave trade, people of African ancestry are now to be found as far afield as North America, Brazil, the Caribbean and, most recently, Europe. However, this event must be placed in context, as it was just one aspect of the dramatic European expansion which transformed a situation in which Europe was merely a branch of world history to one in which the world was part of European history [29].The African slave trade displaced substantial numbers of black people to Latin America (principally to Brazil), the Caribbean and North America. It is impossible to be accurate about the numbers, but between the sixteenth and the nineteenth century over 10 million people arrived as slaves in these territories from the Senegambia, what was called the ‘Gold Coast’ and East Africa [7]. The statistics speak for themselves, and table 20.1 showing ... log in or subscribe to read full text