Film Summary: The Middle Passage

Another job that enslaved Africans had was to raise animals for milk and use them for meat. The reason slaves were so impactful on colonial south and their economic status was that they created a slave trade. This created an economic hierarchy as well as economic wealth for many people that lived in the

The European discovery of the Americas quickly led to the establishment of plantations to grow cash crops such as sugar, coffee and cotton. To generate the largest profit possible, slaves were used to cultivate these crops. Most of these slaves were taken from Africa. Soon, a system of triangular trade was formed. Goods and rum were shipped to Africa in exchange for enslaved people.

Planters charged outrageously high prices and interest rates for the supplies purchased by sharecroppers. This made it to where the croppers legally were bound to keep working for the planters to try to pay off the debt. But, each year, they would get more and more in debt, making an economic nightmare in the

The Americas were full of tons of ways to make money. Originally the Native Americans were forced to work in mines and plantations, but eventually the use of Native Americans was outlawed. Because of this the african slave trade increased. They were treated horribly and without dignity. The absence of humanitarian concerns influenced the african slave trade in three main ways: treatment, punishment, and transportation.

They enslaved over 11million Africans. As a lot of land was set up for agriculture and plantation, that is why the need for laborers was huge. Before, Native Americans used to work as slaves but when they died because of the diseases, they started looking for more slaves and turned to Africa. Atlantic slave trade was also developed and Africans used to sell other Africans as slaves to the Europeans. Because of the Columbian Exchange, Africa was introduced to potatoes and other new crops.

The ships would go to Africa from Europe to pick up the African slaves, they would sail to America to sell the slaves and make them work on the cotton, sugar and tobacco fields. The ships would then take the cotton, sugar and tobacco back to Europe and then start again. The Europeans were quite barbaric as they branded the African slaves with an iron to show ownership. In either a scramble or auction, the slaves were sold like animals. There was no equality.

The slaves were all from Africa and were brought through the Atlantic slave trade. These slaves were mostly acquired through slave raids, which were becoming more and more frequent and penetrated farther inland as demand for slaves increased. The captured people were from different groups than the hunters’ own. They were then sold to the Europeans and the majority of them were shipped to the Americas. The African slave traders in exchange, received firearms and gunpowder, tobacco and alcohol, and European and Indian

The Atlantic slave trade was an event that those in the African societies did not envisage to occur. An atmosphere of destruction and horror was spread all around, engulfing mostly the western side of Africa, due to brutal foreigners ambushing and taking captive of the Africans. In the beginning of enslavement from the Europeans, during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the numbers of Africans who were enslaved were on the lower side of the scale. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, however, due to growing opportunities of wealth in which the Europeans could benefit from the slaves, the amount of slaves rapidly increased. The Atlantic slave trade were long years of chaotic events that changed the whole African societies drastically,

Slaves were taken as a conquest of war and also through private industry. The slave trade was active and strong during this time. As slaves were brought back to Rome and other large cities, they brought with them their home culture which influenced Roman culture. Slavery was considered moral and necessary and slaves became almost invisible to the average Roman.

The lack of natives to work for the Europeans in the New World as well as to ship to the Old World urged the Europeans to look for a new source of “slaves” to do their labor work. They eventually looked towards Africa and the slave trade began. About 12 million slaves were shipped (Page 3). The governments in Africa were weak and the Europeans took control of the massive continent. Beginning in the 1500s, thousands of slaves were being shipped to the New World and Europe.

12 Years a Slave is a memoir of Solomon Northup filmed with passion and conviction giving the viewer heartache and an addition to the many other perspectives that we already know of slavery, another lingering thought of how ghastly the method of slavery really was is added to our

The Author of this historic book, Twelve Years a Slave, did a good job of conveying his story clearly. This is partially because of the fact that it wasn’t a story created in Solomon Northup’s head, but for a period of time it was actually his life firsthand. Stories of slavery from a firsthand perspective like this are important because of the fact we get the victims point of view on things rather than just hearing one side of history. It’s refreshing how the author starts off in the beginning by taking the audience and connecting with us emotionally in a way.

The Middle Passage refers to the part of the trade where Africans, were tightly packed onto ships, and transported to the West Indies from the Atlantic. The voyage took approximately two to four months and, the slaves were chained in rows coffin like to one another on the floor or on shelves. The shelves were less than three feet high; being that almost everyone was above three feet tall, the slaves were not able to sit up. There could be up to more than six hundred enslaved people on each ship. The slaves that were held captive were from different nations and were mixed together; women and children were held separately.

The movie “Twelve Years a Slave” is about a free African American named Solomon Northups living in Saratoga, New York being tricked and kidnapped in another state waking up as a slave the next morning. Two men lied to Solomon saying that they knew he could play the violin and said they needed him to play the violin for some event in another state. They got Solomon drunk at dinner and then Solomon woke up in a box chained up. This movie relates to what I have learned in class because Solomon was a free man in one state and in another state Solomon became a slave. The way Solomon and other slaves were treated was absolutely brutal.

I think that 12 Years of Slave had achieved its goal because it accurately shows both extreme sides of the spectrum of slavery. Which was very much needed to convince the Northerners who believed that slavery wasn’t that bad was actually disgusting thing. I signed up for this book mainly because of the film, (that my family of four went together to see it in theatres) and I remember how emotional I felt while seeing Solomon’s pain. But as I read the book you can see the striking difference between the film and the book.