Ch. 14 Documents

The chapter fourteen documents start off by talking about the voices that were from the slave trade. It goes on to saying that it was an enormous enterprise and enormously significant in modern world history. This is important because that is what we are going to be talking about in this class. This slave trade took over four continents and spread throughout four centuries! There were millions of people involved. The first document they talk about is the life of Olaudah Equiano who was born in 1745 what is now known as Nigeria. He was taken from his home at the age of 11 and sold into the Atlantic Slave Trade. He was passed around between three different owners and was taught to read, write, travel as a seaman and finally bought his freedom in 1766. He then became a huge voice in the emerging abolitionist movement of the late 18th century. The Business of Slave Trade is a document regarding the horror for kings and merchants of both European and African decent. The Slave Trade and the Kingdom of Kongo who welcomed Portuguese traders as early as the 1480s. They believed an alliance with Portugal could strengthen their regime. The royal family converted to Christianity in hopes to make this alliance work. Of course none of this worked out as planned which is what I feel like happens in life more times than none. Finally the last document, The Slave Trade and the Kingdom of Asante was about a very powerful conquest state that invested in the slave trade. They occupied over 100,000 square miles and incorporating 3 million people!! That is nearly taking everyone in the city of San Francisco and multiplying it 3.5 times!!!!! That is very crazy to me and not a surprise why they were one of the most powerful conquest states.