The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade - Essay Example

The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade 1. The Trans-Atlantic slave trade was one of the largest forced migrations in world history. The slave trade was a long held process from the early 16th century to the mid-19th century during which about 10.5 million Africans were captured from their homes, herded onto ships to the West. On their voyage, the slaves were packed so tightly on board where they could hardly move, and they were sent to entirely strange land. They had to undergo hard times on their way to bondage and even after reaching there. As seen in the movie Amistad, the slaves were filled into a ship, having passed six weeks and running out of food and fresh water (Leong). This process caused great population loss for Africa, and many died before boarding the ships, making the situation worse. Ghana was chosen as the headquarters for the African slave trade. The Trans-Atlantic slave created great impacts on Africa as well as on the social life of people. Even though slavery existed in Africa before the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, it was not been so intensive and flourishing. No African origin was ever as prominent slaveholders as they later became. It had altered the societal structure of the country and capturing and selling of slaves across the Atlantic boosted up and stimulated the expansion of slavery within Africa. And the system of slavery became central element to societies all across the African continent. The Trans-Atlantic slave trade sooner or later changed the American slavery in some of its unique several elements. America was not in war with any of the nations like Ireland, or China, but had compensated several wars with the Native Americans, for the natives made poor slaves. African slaves were forcefully brought to America and were kept against their will. However, they wanted to become a part of the nation “America”, but were denied the option to enjoy their full rights and freedom within America. The Trans-Atlantic slave trade moreover, changed the social structure of America and had a great impact on its development. 2. Enlightenment was one of the important ideas of European intellectual movement of the 17th and 18th centuries. This principle holds ideas relating to God, reason, man, and nature synthesizing all into an all-inclusive atmosphere, which gained a wide acclamation and assent. The intellectual movement had initiated innovative development in the areas of art, politics, and philosophy. The central point to Enlightenment idea was the utilization and exploitation of reason, the power which enables man to recognize the universe and his own condition. The fundamental objectives of rational man were considered to be freedom, knowledge, and happiness. The Enlightenment movement was the great revolt against inherited intellectual authority, both classical and Christian alike that passed across Europe during the eighteenth century (Voltaire, XIV). The roots of the thought can be traced back fro the intrepid thinkers from the middle of the former century. The prominent figures among them were later called the Scientific Revolutionists, like Galileo Galilee, William Harvey, and Isaac Newton, and also the philosophers such as, René Descartes, Benedict de Spinoza and Gottfried Leibniz (Voltaire, XIV). The Enlightenment at first instance was used by the French Thinkers to translate and popularize the thoughts of their more advanced Dutch and English predecessors. These concepts did not ever formulate a single coherent until the Enlightenment reached its final stage of its development. By the middle of the century, the rough consensus about the idea among the major contributors lightened, and major themes of the intellectual movement started to influence the European society. The foremost themes and ideas of the movement, which had an impact on the European social life were; scriptural Christianity, in favor of deism or natural religion, rejection of orthodox, confidence about the dominance of modern over ancient ideas, and most of all the recent achievements in the natural sciences. One of the most important elements is that how the Enlightenment easily influenced and provided itself to the expression in imaginative literature. The French Enlightenment was in a way revealed itself in an epistolary novel, the Baron de Montesquieu’s dazzling Persian Letters (1722), which brought in a critical image of European society by recounting the visit of two Muslims to France (Voltaire, XV). The Enlightenment, in its maturity which overrides the mere belief in “progress”, would act as a fundamental optimism about the capacity of modern Europeans in reshaping the social and political world for a greater cause of having a better atmosphere. By the mid-eighteenth century, the political theoretical approach adapted into its mainstream of Enlightenment, the fundamental theoretical vocabulary of the natural rights tradition such as, natural rights, civil society, sate of nature, social contract, etc. In implementing the practical politics, Enlightenment theorists implemented a pragmatic approach with monarchy, which is significantly still the dominant state-form in Europe, and followed a programmatic system of proto-liberalism. The results of such intellectual movement was activities concentrated on protecting and preserving civil liberties of one kind or another, such as freedom of religion, self-expression, and trade. 3. The Enlightenment impacted the French and American revolutions during the 18th century. The revolution was a period when the radial political disturbances in French and Europe experienced important changes in power and politics as well as revolutionary war. The single and absolute authority that had been ruling France for decades crumpled down in three years. The French community was seen undergoing an epic renovation as feudal, aristocratic, and religious advantages disappeared into the thin air due to assault from radical left-wing political authorities and the people on the streets. The new ideologies and enlightenment principles of citizenship, equality, nationalism, and democracy have overthrown the traditional ideas and conventional methods of monarchy, aristocracy and religious authority. Philosophers and social theorists within and beyond France though had been struggling to find out the deepest meaning of the revolution’s doctrines and events, have discovered the theory and philosophy of history that played an important role in influencing modern consciousness. However, some of the historical models identified many of the causes for French Revolution with the same causes of the Ancien Régime, the aristocratic, social and political system established and prevailed in France since the 15th century. Besides, economic factors, including hunger and malnutrition among the most abandoned population and the rising bread prices all together boosted up the starting of a revolution. Still, the state’s bankruptcy as a result of enormous cost of earlier wars and the financial strain contributed to the French participation in the American Revolutionary War. The French Revolution passed brushed away the traditional order within one of the oldest and powerful dominions of Europe and thereby influenced and changed the process of social and political life in many others. The revolutionists’ new political logic changes all aspects of French life, and moreover, spilled beyond the borders into the European continent, leaving the political, social, and military capabilities hitherto unknown. From the very beginning of the Revolution, it had highly influenced contemporaries and instilled them with varying degrees of excitement, suspicion, and terror. Politicians and statesmen faced a hard time in directing and controlling the unpredictable course of revolution. It had been a traumatic journey from monarchy to republic and from constitutionalism to revolutionary dictatorship. In fact, the history of the modern world has ascertained, repudiated, accepted, and transformed many of the principles of the French revolution such as, nationalism, liberalism, conservatism and radicalism, socialism and democracy, and revolution and reaction. Works Cited Leong, Anthony. Amistad Movie Review. Medacircus.net, 1997. Web 11 Oct 2011 Voltaire. Candide: Or Optimism.Yale University Press, 2006. Print. Read More