Blog # 3 - Nell Painter- Economics or Racism?

I believe that economics played a bigger role than racism in the slave trade. It mentions in the book that the Atlantic Slave Trade was a profit-making endeavor, which means that the slaves were transported to make the owners money and do the dirty work so the Caucasian people wouldn't have to. The white people benefited from this act because they looked at it as a big trading process. They would trade goods from their land for African American slaves from Africa and various countries. This trading grew into a huge business that lasted for years. The African Americans were taken captive and shipped across to Atlantic Ocean. These slaves were taken on a miserable journey across the ocean which could have lasted for months. Many Africans were enslaved for life and they could never get out of this horrible life. Ten million Africans were taken from many parts of Africa such as Upper Guinea, Lower Guinea, and Kongo-Angola to be sold as units of work and property. They would never get to go back to their homeland and worst of all, they didn't get any wages from all of the hard work they endured. Many families were torn apart from the Atlantic Slave Trade just to boost the economic stature of the United States.