Week Three Blog

Before reading the chapters in Creating Black Americans, I only viewed the slave trade as a racial issue. But, now I believe that economics played a larger role on the slave trade. There were many times in the reading that Painter explained the importance of slavery to the economy. For example,"Slave trading grew into big business after European traders organized a huge, transatlantic market (p.31)." She also states, "slaves fed the American and British economies and made possible the industrial revolutions of both countries (p.92)." Furthermore, she goes on by saying "slavery remained a truly national institution economically (p.93)." The slaves were seen as property, something that they could buy or sell. I don't think that racism really became a part of the slave trade until after it had been going on for awhile. The torment, pain, and suffering that the slaves had to go through during and after slavery proves, however, that racism was also an issue.