Shirley Ichisholm: African Background, Slave Trade

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Introduction
This paper is an overview of the black history or the African-American history. The research paper presents an examination of the experience of the African-American in America. It gives an understanding of the role blacks played in the American history. It traces the experience from their way back in Africa. The analysis focuses on the various economic, political and socio-cultural methods the African-American employed to survive in the hostile conditions and also explain a bit about how black slavery was central to the politics of the new nation.
African Background
During the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, there were thousands of people from different cultures, languages and ethnic groups that got brought to the New World from various regions across Africa. Before the slave trade in the centuries of AD 1000 to 1500, there was the spread of metal working; this was as a result of the growth in trade inside West Africa and across the Sahara region in North Africa. The prosperity of the market led to rising cities, towns and markets. Most of the West African communities worked out ways of organizing the life of their communities and enforced some laws and order. There was the growth of cities, and there was an accumulation of wealth, this period was known as the golden age due to its fruitful nature.
The old West Africa had gold and ivory as their source of wealth, this was much desired by the people of North Africa, Asia and Europe. The people of North Africa, in turn, had salt, which was the desire of people from West Africa, thus creating a basis for trade "salt for gold."
Slave Trade
The slave trade is the transatlantic patterns of trading that got established in the mid-17th century. Ships set sail from European countries; they had manufactured goods which they brought to the west coast of Africa. After months and weeks, they would trade these goods with captives (African slaves). The African traders would raid settlements and bring energetic young men and sell them into slavery. Upon satisfaction, the European ships would return to America or the Caribbean through the middle passage. The slaves were tied together, leaving them no space for movement. The conditions there were very hostile such that most of the slaves were not able to survive. By the 1790s around 480000 Africans were enslaved in the British colonies.
The majority of the slaves positioned to work on the plantations across America and the Caribbean, the areas colonized by the Europeans. The farms provided tobacco and sugar back to Europe. Once the slaves entered the world of the plantation, they had to cope with the environment. They received the task of weeding tobacco using hands, hoes and axes. After two months, they got the job of harvesting the crops. The slaves got stripped of their native names and given new ones that had to mean something in Europe. The African-American after that developed their cultures and social ties. Those in support of slave trade put an argument that slavery made contributions to the growth of the economy in the country and also a rise in consumerism in Britain.
Omar ibn Seid was a North Carolina slave in 1831.He undermined the argument by the slaveholders that the African ...