The African Slave Trade has affected a very large part of the world. This phenomenon has been described in many different ways, such as slave trade, forced migration and genocide. The problem with these descriptions is that none of them accurately describe the African Slave Trade or it's consequences because they are all biased points of views. Although none of the descriptions alone form a decent view on the subject, all three appellations seem to provide a more concise understanding of why the slave trade started and how it has affected so many people, societies and countries. .
Slave Trade is the most general term used for representing this historical account. The point of view expressed here is that of the western European and European American settlers which enslaved Africans. Slave trade dehumanizes Africans because it focuses on the legal institution created by law in America, which allowed white American settlers to actually own Africans. This type of chattel slavery was severe and brutal, and also degenerated Africans. The rise of industrialization in America brought the demand for large amounts labor and Americans only cared about money. They saw slavery as the easiest way to become profitable. That is why to them, the term slave trade, was nothing more than a capitalist way of production where buying human lives and exploiting them was the norm. Putting a price on a human being is one of the most outrageous things I have ever heard of! Americans were trading guns, gunpowder, cloth, breads, pots and liquor in exchange for human lives. The term slave trade only emphasizes one viewpoint of the whole phenomenon and gives only a brief and biased description. .
The next term, forced migration, gives the viewpoint of Africans. It describes how so many Africans were forced to leave their homeland to become a part of a capitalist society where they would be used as the primary source of labor.
