Editing Atlantic slave trade (section)

===Labour and slavery===
[[File:BLAKE10.JPG|thumb|upright|A [[Wedgwood anti-slavery medallion]], produced in 1787 by [[Josiah Wedgwood]]]]

The Atlantic slave trade was the result of, among other things, [[labour shortage]], itself in turn created by the desire of European colonists to exploit New World land and resources for capital profits. [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|Native]] peoples were at first utilized as slave labour by Europeans until a large number died from overwork and [[Old World]] diseases.<ref>{{cite web |title=Smallpox Through History |url=http://encarta.msn.com/media_701508643/Smallpox_Through_History.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091029184350/http://encarta.msn.com/media_701508643/Smallpox_Through_History.html |archive-date=29 October 2009}}</ref> In the mid-16th century, the Spanish [[New Laws]], prohibited slavery of the Indigenous people. A labour shortage resulted. Alternative sources of labour, such as [[indentured servitude]], failed to provide a sufficient workforce. Many crops could not be sold for profit, or even grown, in Europe. Exporting crops and goods from the New World to Europe often proved to be more profitable than producing them on the European mainland. A vast amount of labour was needed to create and sustain plantations that required intensive labour to grow, harvest, and process prized tropical crops. Western Africa (part of which became known as "the [[Slave Coast of West Africa|Slave Coast]]"), Angola and nearby Kingdoms and later [[Central Africa]], became the source for enslaved people to meet the demand for labour.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.africafederation.net/Kongo_History.htm |title=History Kingdom of Kongo |website=www.africafederation.net |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240528152732/https://www.africafederation.net/Kongo_History.htm |archive-date=28 May 2024}}</ref>

The basic reason for the constant shortage of labour was that, with much cheap land available and many landowners searching for workers, free European immigrants were able to become landowners themselves relatively quickly, thus increasing the need for workers.<ref>{{cite book |editor-last=Solow |editor-first=Barbara |date=1991 |title=Slavery and the Rise of the Atlantic System |location=Cambridge |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |isbn=}}</ref> Labour shortages were mainly met by the English, French and Portuguese with African slave labour.

[[File:Slaves embarked to America from 1450 until 1866 by country.jpg|thumb|400px|Slaves embarked to America from 1450 until 1866 by country]]

[[Thomas Jefferson]] attributed the use of slave labour in part to the climate, and the consequent idle leisure afforded by slave labour: "For in a warm climate, no man will labour for himself who can make another labour for him. This is so true, that of the proprietors of slaves a very small proportion indeed are ever seen to labour."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=JefVirg.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=18&division=div1 |title=''Notes on the State of Virginia'' Query 18. }}</ref> In a 2015 paper, economist Elena Esposito argued that the enslavement of Africans in colonial America was attributable to the fact that the American south was sufficiently warm and humid for malaria to thrive; the disease had debilitating effects on the European settlers. Conversely, many enslaved Africans were taken from regions of Africa which hosted particularly potent strains of the disease, so the Africans had already developed natural resistance to malaria. This, Esposito argued, resulted in higher malaria survival rates in the American south among enslaved Africans than among European labourers, making them a more profitable source of labour and encouraging their use.<ref>{{cite thesis |last=Esposito |first=Elena |url=http://eh.net/eha/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Esposito.pdf |title=Side Effects of Immunities: the African Slave Trade |type=Working Paper |date=2015 |publisher=[[Economic History Association]] |access-date=7 May 2019 |archive-date=12 November 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201112014228/https://eh.net/eha/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Esposito.pdf}}</ref>

Historian David Eltis argues that Africans were enslaved because of cultural beliefs in Europe that prohibited the enslavement of cultural insiders, even if there was a source of labour that could be enslaved (such as convicts, prisoners of war and vagrants). Eltis argues that traditional beliefs existed in Europe against enslaving Christians (few Europeans not being Christian at the time) and those slaves that existed in Europe tended to be non-Christians and their immediate descendants (since a slave converting to Christianity did not guarantee emancipation) and thus by the 15th century Europeans as a whole came to be regarded as insiders.

Eltis argues that while all slave societies have demarked insiders and outsiders, Europeans took this process further by extending the status of insider to the entire European continent, rendering it unthinkable to enslave a European since this would require enslaving an insider. Conversely, Africans were viewed as outsiders and thus qualified for enslavement. While Europeans may have treated some types of labour, such as convict labour, with conditions similar to that of slaves, these labourers would not be regarded as chattel and their progeny could not inherit their subordinate status, thus not making them slaves in the eyes of Europeans. The status of chattel slavery was thus confined to non-Europeans, such as Africans.<ref>{{cite book |last=Eltis |first=David |title=The rise of African slavery in the Americas |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |date=2000 |pages=59–84, 224}}</ref>

For the British, slaves were no more than animals and could be treated as commodities, so situations like the [[Zong massacre]] occurred without any justice for the victims.<ref name="Rupprecht 14">{{Cite journal |title=Excessive Memories: Slavery, Insurance and Resistance |last=Rupprecht |first=Anita |date=Autumn 2007 |journal=History Workshop Journal |issue=64 |page=14 |jstor=25472933}}</ref>