Slave Trade and Slavery Webquest Directions: Click on the link to go to the museum website. Use the information on the

The Transatlantic Slave Trade

1. Between what years were millions of Africans forced out of Africa by Europeans?

2. What ocean were most slaves shipped across?

3. What occupations did many Africans have before they were slaves?

4. What part of the world did Europeans send millions of African slaves?

5. Approximately how many Africans were killed during the years of the slave trade?

The Trade Triangle
6. What route did the transatlantic slave trade usually follow?

7. How did the European traders “buy” people?

8. What was the journey that Africans were forced to take across the Atlantic Ocean called? How long was the journey?

9. What were Africans forced to do once they reached the Americas?

10. List the goods that were brought from the Americas to Europe:

11. What three things supplied the European market through the Triangle Trade?

12. What changed about the Triangle Trade after 1800?

West Africa
Africa before European slavery
13. What was West Africa like before the arrival of European slavers?
14. What were the major empires and kingdoms in West Africa in the 1500s?
15. What subjects were people in West Africa especially skilled at?
16. What luxury items were people in West Africa skilled at making?

17. What European country was the first to directly trade with the people of West Africa?

18. What other groups of Europeans later directly traded with the people of West Africa?

19. What items were Europeans interested in that the people of western Africa had?
20. The demand for what product in Europe created a massive expansion of the slave trade in West Africa?

The capture and sale of enslaved Africans
21. Who did Europeans get most of their slaves from?
22. How did most Africans become enslaved?

23. Where would captured Africans be imprisoned along the coast?
24. What would slave ship captains offer African leaders for the right to trade?
25. What European goods would be traded for African slaves?

The effect of slavery in Africa
26. How did the increase in firearms provided by European traders change West Africa?
27. What African states tried to resist slavery?
28. What gender were most slaves?
29. What does the Reparations Movement want?

The Middle Passage
Life on board slave ships
30. Why were slaves often in poor health aboard slave ships?
31. Where were African men usually placed on slave ships?

32. Where were African women and children usually placed on slave ships?
33. What diseases were common on slave ships?
34. About how long would the journey across the Atlantic Ocean take?
35. How often were slaves fed, and what would happen if they refused to eat?
36. About what fraction of Africans died aboard slave ships until the 1750s?
37. By 1800, what fraction of Africans died aboard slave ships?

The Americas
Arrival in the Americas
38. How were slaves prepared for sale?
39. What happened to most families during the sale process?
40. What was 'seasoning'? How long did it last?
41. What happened to many Africans during the ‘seasoning’?

Life in plantations
42. What part of the Americas had many large plantations?
43. How did slave labor change the landscape of large areas of the Americas?
44. How did some slave owners justify their treatment of African slaves?
45. What did most colonial governments do to prevent slaves from having any rights?
46. Why was the idea of white racial superiority introduced during the African slavery time period?

Resistance and freedom
47. What were slave owners in constant fear of?
48. List several of the ways slaves fought back.
49. How were mixed race people generally treated by whites?
50. How were some slaves able to buy their freedom?

Abolition
Abolition of the transatlantic slave trade
51. In what year did Britain abolish or stop the slave trade?

52. How did Britain try to prevent the slave trade between 1815 and 1865?

Abolition of slavery in the United States
53. When was the slave trade abolished in the United States?
54. What event ended slavery in the United States in 1865?
55. What movement brought about more legal equality of African Americans in the mid 1900s?

Abolition of slavery in the Caribbean and South America
56. During what time period or time frame did Britain abolish slavery in the Caribbean colonies?
57. When did Brazil end slavery?
58. How has the African slave trade and African slavery impacted the world?