This chapter illustrates how the success of European empires was based on a system of slavery, and particularly how the English benefited from that system in the Americas and at home. Just as the English gained knowledge and skills from the Indians, colonists also were aided by the skills and agricultural knowledge of African slaves. The hardship and suffering of slavery was buffered by the development of African-American communities among people drawn from many different West African cultures, and from positive if unintended cultural exchanges between Europeans and enslaved peoples.
After reading this chapter you should be able to:
- Illustrate how African slaves made a community of their own from many different cultures using the area of coastal Georgia as your example.
- Trace how the system of slavery developed and entrenched itself in the Americas.
- Describe the effects of the slave trade on enslaved Africans and on the African economy.
- Describe the process of acculturation in becoming an African American as well as the process of Africanizing the South.
- Explain the connection between slavery and empire indicated in the chapter title.
- Summarize the skills of both Indians and Africans that enabled European colonists to survive in the New World.
