Slave Trade

Definitions:
1.The business of buying and selling people for profit. (wikianswers)
2.Traffic in slaves; especially in Black Africans transported to America in the 16th to 19th centuriest
(http://www.thefreedictionary.com/slave+trade)
Explanation:

The violent kidnapping of colored people to use as labour workers in hard working conditions to make profit. The black Africans were transported over seas to America.
Metaphor:
Any movie that features white people sailing off to the Third World to capture something living and carry it back to the West for exploitation is going to be seen as a metaphor for colonialism and racism. A good example of this is the movie King Kong. They captured the giant gorilla and took him back to their country to exploit him and make a profit off of him.

TransAtlantic Slavery

The Life of a Slave...

Olaudah Equiano, an Ibo from Nigeria, was just 11 years old when he was kidnapped into slavery. He was held captive in West Africa for seven months and then sold to British slavers, who shipped him to Barbados and then took him to Virginia. After serving a British naval officer, he was sold to a Quaker merchant from Philadelphia who allowed him to purchase his freedom in 1766. In later life, he played an active role in the movement to abolish the slave trade.

Kidnapped

(read the entire excerpt here)

shackles used to chain slaves together

One day, when all our people were gone out to their works as usual, and only I and my dear sister were left to mind the house, two men and a woman got over our walls, and in a moment seized us both; and, without giving us time to cry out, or make resistance, they stopped our mouths, and ran off with us into the nearest wood. Here they tied our hands, and continued to carry us as far as they could, till night came on, when we reached a small house, where the robbers halted for refreshment, and spent the night. We were then unbound; but were unable to take any food; and, being quite overpowered by fatigue and grief, our only relief was some sleep, which allayed our misfortune for a short time.

The Middle Passage:

(read the entire excerpt here)

Olaudah Equiano vividly recounts the shock and isolation that he felt during the Middle Passage to Barbados and his fear that the European slavers would eat him.

diagram of slaves packed into ship`s hold

The stench of the hold while we were on the coast was so intolerably loathsome, that it was dangerous to remain there for any time...some of us had been permitted to stay on the deck for the fresh air. But now that the whole ship's cargo were confined together, it became absolutely pestilential. The closeness of the place and the heat of the climate, added to the number of the ship, which was so crowded that each had scarcely room to turn himself, almost suffocated us.

Every circumstance I met with, served only to render my state more painful and heightened my apprehensions and my opinion of the cruelty of the whites.

Arrival in the new world

(read the entire excerpt here)

Olaudah Equiano offers a first- hand account of his arrival in the West Indies in 1756.

waiting to be sold

We were not many days in the merchant's custody, before we were sold after their usual manner...On a signal given, (as the beat of a drum), buyers rush at once into the yard where the slaves are confined, and make a choice of that parcel they like best. The noise and clamour with which this is attended, and the eagerness visible in the countenances of the buyers, serve not a little to increase the apprehension of terrified Africans...In this manner, without scruple, are relations and friends separated, most of them never to see each other again. I remember in the vessel in which I was brought over...there were several brothers who, in the sale, were sold in different lots; and it was very moving on this occasion, to see and hear their cries in parting.

Response:
Olaudah Equiano would not have had access to material to write a diary but imagine what he might have written in his diary if he had had the opportunity. Choose one section of the journey into slavery given above and write a journal entry as if you were Olauda Equiano. This writting task asks you to put yourself in his shoes - to write from his perspective. Remember to support your writing with details from the story or other historical facts you know from this time period.

The Secret Ingredient in Chocolate

There is a surprising association between chocolate and child labor in the Cote d'Ivoire. Young boys whose ages range from 12 to 16 have been sold into slave labor and are forced to work in cocoa farms in order to harvest the beans, from which chocolate is made, under inhumane conditions and extreme abuse. This West African country is the leading exporter of cocoa beans to the world market. 
Slave traders are trafficking boys ranging from the age of 12 to 16 from their home countries and are selling them to cocoa farmers in Cote d'Ivoire. They work on small farms across the country, harvesting the cocoa beans day and night, under inhumane conditions. Most of the boys come from neighboring Mali, where agents hang around bus stations looking for children that are alone or are begging for food. They lure the kids to travel to Cote d'Ivoire with them, and then the traffickers sell the children to farmers in need of cheap labor (Raghavan, "Lured...").
The horrendous conditions under which children must toil on the cocoa farms of the Cote d'Ivoire are even more jarring when the facts are juxtaposed with the idea that much of this cocoa will ultimately end up producing something that most people associate with happiness and pleasure: chocolate. The connection serves to illustrate that the existence of misery in one part of the world and joy in another part are no longer divorced as nations are connected together in a globalized web of trade. Thus, the pleasure that people from various nations around the world are deriving from these chocolate confections could possibly be at the expense of child slaves in Africa. The problem of child slavery then is not simply a faraway abstraction with no immediate implications for anybody else except those who are directly affected, but rather it is an issue that everybody around the world should be concerned about and demand action to eradicate. 

This information comes from a leading researcher in international slavery. Link here
 Check out this link: Kevin Bales talking about his project to eradicate slavery