Repso

Europeans in Africa
Early Portuguese explorers began the European slave trade. They brought African salves from West Africa to Portugal. Slavery was not in high demand in Europe. Butit was in the Americas. European settlers in North America and South America wanted slaves. In the Caribbean islands, the Spanish had large sugar plantations. English settler raisedtobacco
European exploration of Africa began with Ancient Greeks and Romans, who explored and established settlements in North Africa. Fifteenth century Portugal, especially under Henrythe Navigator, probed along the West African coast. Scientific curiosity and Christian missionary spirit soon were subordinated to mercantile considerations, including lucrativetrafficking in enslaved persons. Others (Dutch, Spanish, French, English, etc.) joined in African trading, though for centuries European knowledge of Africa's interior was very vague. Much ofthe blank map was filled in by arduous, often fatal, expeditions in the Nineteenth Century.
Settlers in the southern English colonies had large cotton plantations. The settlers wantedworkers to plant and harvest these crops. At first, settlers used Native Americans as slaves. But many Native Americans had died from European diseases.
“ONE DAY, WHEN ALL OUR PEOPLEWERE GONE OUT TO THEIR WORK AS USUAL, AND ONLY I AND MY DEAR SISTER WERE LEFT TO MIND THE HOUSE, TWO MEN AND A WOMAN GOT OVER OUR WALLS.
IN A MOMENT THEY (SEIZED) US BOTH AND, WITHOUTGIVING US TIME TO CRY WE TIED, MISTREATED OUR THEY (COVERED) OUR MOUTHS, AND RAN OFF WITH US INTO THE NEAREST WOOD.”
They were crowded into ships and sent to the Americas ,the trip wascalled Middle Passage where as many as one out of five died because was brutal. Slaves were poorly feed and abused. In the 1750, Olaudah Equiano was captured when he was 11 years old.