markellion's video: Trans-Atlantic Slave trade part 1 Introduction

I recommend watching this video: "16th century Equality 21st Century White Supremacy" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Mq6z5Uq4gs&feature=channel_page I want to redo the information I have already presented so it is more viewable. I will continue to work on it Wonders of the African world page 198, we learn the Portuguese come to the so called Gold Coast and soon this area is producing 1/10 of the worlds supply of gold. Many people may be relieved to know that during this period; most of the African slaves that the Portuguese bought were then sold to the Gold Coast. The Portuguese didnt really have anything that the people of the Gold Coast desired, but slaves were sufficient for exchange in gold. It also needs to be emphasized that during this early period slavery in America was not based on race. But as we get closer and closer to 1700, a sort of racial slavery becomes a concrete thing in the colonies. Lets hear was the PBS site on the slave trade has to say PBS http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/map1.html "From 1619 on, not long after the first settlement, the need for colonial labor was bolstered by the importation of African captives. At first, like their poor English counterparts, the Africans were treated as indentured servants, who would be freed of their obligations to their owners after serving for several years. However, over the course of the century, a new race-based slavery system developed, and by the dawn of the new century, the majority of Africans and African Americans were slaves for life. The Middle Passage: 1680: The Royal African company transports 5000 African captives annually. By the 18th century, 45,000 Africans are transported annually on British ships." As that last bit showed us there was a boom, amongst the English slave traders, in the 18th century. Gates also tells us that there was a dramatic reversal where people on the Gold Coast ceased purchasing slaves, and instead sold slaves for gold. He mentions reasons for the increasing European demand for slaves, that in 1662 the Dutch won a contract to supply slaves to Spanish America. I can only conclude that the ensuing political turmoil was a result of the slave trade rather than just something that happened by coincidence and just happened to feed the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. Many states even banned gold exports and turned from buying slaves to selling them Quoting from the book page 199 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0375709487/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_2?pf_rd_p=304485901&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B0000DG013&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0YH0JQ8VJ4CT28F7TKN9 "For a male slave in 1704, the English were offering merchandise worth nearly three ounces of gold. General William de la Plama wrote in 1704, So that the Negroes seeing this, now pay more attention to the slave trade than the gold trade, as they do better by it. And Director General William Butler of Elmina complained that the gold trade had decreased in volume by 50 percent du to the very heavy payments, which the Negroes receive for their slaves. Page 200: By the first two decades of the eighteenth century, the Gold Coast was increasingly identified with the slave trade, while the gold trade had decreased in volume by something like 50 percent. Six years later another report indicated that the gold trade had dwindled to nothing. This transformation was accelerated by the increased demand for slaves from the New World plantations, and higher prices. To the West Africans gold had always been more than just a median of exchange, and they were reluctant to part with it. Also, the king of Dahomey had banned the export of gold from his kingdom, and many traders on the Gold Coast accepted only gold for slaves." This last part is significant and completely supports my theory that European slave traders had to manipulate African money markets in order to expand and maintain the slave trade on a mammoth scale. And one has to ask reluctant to part with it why the hell would they decide they didnt like exporting gold after supplying 1/10 of the worlds supply for over a century.? John Newton On the slave trade 227-252: http://books.google.com/books?id=OjI3AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA245 =onepage&q=&f=false "I verily believe, that the far greater part of the wars, in Africa, would cease, if the Europeans would cease to tempt them, by offering goods for slaves I have not sufficient data to warrant calculation but, I suppose, not less than one hundred thousand slaves are exported, annually, from all parts of Africa, and that more than one-half of these are exported in English bottoms. If but an equal number are killed in war, and if many of these wars are kindled by the incentive of selling their prisoners ; what an annual accumulation of blood must there be, crying against the nations of Europe concerned in this trade, and particularly against our own!"