NAME:

DATE:

PROFESSOR:

UNIVERSITY:                 

Slave trade Thomas Hugh

Introduction

This report is based upon a slave trade book written by Thomas Hugh. The book was published in 1997. Hugh Thomas, Baron Thomas of Swynnerton, an English historian and writer knew for his book The Spanish Civil War, wrote it. The United Kingdom’s Champion Historian Hugh Thomas, born on October 21, 1931, in Windsor, explains the entire history of the slave trade fairly after extensive study. He depicts and analyzes the origins of one of the worlds largest and most complex maritime and commercial firms, beginning with the first Portuguese slave shipping expeditions. Between 1492 and 1870, approximately 11 million black slaves were sent to the Americas to serve on plantations, mines, or domestic servants.

“The slave trade” is filled with villains and heroes, and audience accounts illuminate the story. Homas’ accomplishment is to provide a convincing history of that period and address controversial issues such as who the merchants were, the amount of revenue, and why so many African leaders and peoples collaborated so easily. Thomas also explains the accounts open to slaves movingly.

In this reader’s opinion, the saddest aspect of the novel is that it is written for an audience that would treat slave merchants like slaves and us like others. Of course, the merchants were duped, but “our” type was incorrect.                           

I find this book to be more educated on matters of slavery concerning Africans and Americans as well detailed by High Thomas. It is the most cognitive book and reliable in understanding the history of the slave trade benefited not Only the New world planters or slave traders but also the ship owners, farmers, and fishers, as is brought out in the context. The American policy and ethics did not allow the slaves to own property or participate in any commercial activities that would lead to property ownership. The slaves who migrated from Africa were forced to drop their religious beliefs and embrace the western culture, which was Christianity; they were forced to drop their gods, social and cultural practices, which was were viewed by whites as primitivity and considered Africans as less intelligent human beings. The trading businesses involved the African kings of various kingdoms and Western traders. They exchanged people with jewels, clothes, and foodstuffs that they brought for community leaders in Africa. Hugh Thomas explains the condition that leads to the slave trade from southern Europe to Africa then to America and the Caribbean countries.

He describes and analyzes the development of one of the largest and most complex maritime and commercial companies in history, beginning with the first Portuguese slave-hunting expeditions. Approximately eleven million black slaves were shipped from Africa to the Americas between 1492 and 1870 to serve on plantations, mines, or domestic servants. The slave trade is packed with peasants and heroes, and eyewitness accounts illuminate the story. His accomplishments include providing a compelling history of this period and addressing contentious issues such as who the traders were, how much money they made, and why so many African leaders and peoples were willing to cooperate. Thomas also tells the slaves’ personal, moving, and inspiring stories. Historian Edmund Morgan distinguishes between slave societies and slave societies in his book American Slavery, American Freedom. The latter is a slave-based society, while the former is not. When comparing communities such as early modern Massachusetts and Jamaica, the construction is particularly useful. However, when seen through a larger Atlantic culture lens, slavery is both essential and common. Hugh Thomas’ Slave Trade depicts the establishment of the slave trade in the Atlantic world.

Among the many accomplishments in this volume is the great use of a wide range of sources. Thomas combines qualitative and quantitative data in a way that is both coherent and readable. In examining the origins of the enslaved, Thomas reports from his contradictory primary source: “It helps to find some data,” He provides percentages indicating that only 30% of the people enslaved in Sierra Leone have been caught in the war. Similar figures will be used to estimate total migratory mortality and to compare various companies (Luanda, Calabar, and so on) and trans-Atlantic shipping and trade nations. Other trade goods volume figures are related to the manufacture of textiles and weapons for African trade. Such sources demonstrate the scope and pervasiveness of the slave trade, lending credence to the notion that the entire Atlantic was a slave society based on the abduction, sale, and forced labor of millions of people.

Thomas incorporates quantitative information into the narrative, which is rich in personal accounts and dramatic tales. The wealth and complexity of trade have been represented by defining African coastal geography and cultures. Details of slave ship conditions, such as disease danger, physical organization, and food supplies, bring to light the horrors endured by so many, as well as merchants’ meticulous planning and accountability. Mungo Park’s first-hand accounts depict the long march of slaves from the interior to the coastal trade areas in a lengthy passage. While numbers can be vast and comprehensive, personal accounts such as Park’s show that slavery has infiltrated personal and family lives even in societies where slavery does not seem to be practiced. Taken together, this makes a compelling argument for the pervasiveness and long-term significance of the slave trade in world history.

Thomas’ list of stockholders in the South Sea and Royal African Companies, which included luminaries including Daniel Defoe and John Locke, piqued my interest. This knowledge makes slavery extremely personal because it connects the slave trade to familiar people while also expanding accountability, criticizing kidnappers and slave-ship captains alongside the gentlemen and ladies who built the modern world. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the book’s most powerful and disturbing message is that almost no one is completely innocent.

Thomas’ masterful use of different types of source materials is commendable for many reasons:

It deals with several aspects of the investigation.

It emphasizes broad underlying causal trends while also emphasizing complexities, change over time, and individual agency.

It serves as a valuable guide for other scholars, including maritime historians.

More significantly, Thomas has prompted me to think about the inherent or imbued meanings found in different types of source materials and how these can be used to deepen and strengthen an argument.

Three significant advances that enable us to acknowledge New World slavery and the persistence of the slave trade in the face of economic, moral, and indirect challenges are beginning to consider the long-term contribution of millions of people being transported and exploited to America’s development He measured the number of Africans in the New World five times as many as Europeans in the first 325 years of European colonization. Sugar was fully built on the backs of African slaves in Brazil and later in the Caribbean, maize, Indigo in Virginia and South Carolina, and cotton in Guiana. Thomas is especially interested in slave traders from every European maritime area and the late rise of abolitionism. His novel is distinguished by its elegant writing, thorough study, and incisive anecdotes. However, it offers a brief synopsis, and Thomas is always eager to stress African trading complicity. Blackburn focuses solely on the organization’s financial affairs, taking advantage of recent screenings by historians of slave owners to re-create daily life and resistance. He contends that slavery and the slave trade had a significant impact on the formation of Western society and its economy.

On the other hand, Thomas and Blackburn miss out on some of Hancock’s remarks due to the nature of their work. Hancock immersed himself in the slave trade, reimagining the lives of 23 leading London slave traders through the imaginative and inventive use of new archive material. He describes how they did so and what they did with them, and how slave traders focused Thomas and Blackburn’s larger tale on the Atlantic business scheme.

This book delves deeply into the transatlantic slave trade and its various economic, ethnic, political, and religious aspects. The slave trade from Africa to America is discussed in-depth, emphasizing trade aspects rather than what happened to the slaves once they arrived at their final destinations. If you can get through the book, which is difficult, you’ll be surprised to hear how many slaves were shipped to countries other than the United States; Brazil imported the most slaves. The book also attempts to put an end to the trade. If you want to learn more about slavery, this is an aspect of history that is not well covered in most traditional works but is well worth reading. The book contains different references in different languages, giving it a solid and outstanding level of literacy and knowledge of the slave trade worldwide from the time it commenced till the end of it with a good explanation of events how they preceded each other. The book is well recommended for historians and philosophers since it will equip you with knowledge and help you understand people well.    

Work cited

Thomas, Hugh. The slave trade: the story of the Atlantic slave trade: 1440-1870. Simon and Schuster, 1997.