chapter 14 (part 2): commerce in people

The Atlantic Slave Trade was the trading of African people among the countries, specifically in the Americas. I thought it was interesting how cassava was a source of diet for the African slaves to keep them a bit healthy, but people didn't care about that. People wanted more African slaves and not agricultural products. Males were traded more than women slaves as it provided slave owners more power and wealth. Women slaves would often marry men from different cultures where they would become wealthy and employ a number of female slaves. When reading this section, I'm just reminded of modern slavery in our world today which is human trafficking. Children, women, and men are trafficked and profit for forced labor, sex slavery, and debt bondage. I think men have equally affected as women when it comes to the Atlantic slave trade because families were being brought to different countries and were being separated. The average life span of slaves was 7 years, which is such a short amount of time to live!