Sources for the Americas:
SOURCE 1
EXCERPT FROM BARTOLOME DE LAS CASAS’ A SHORT ACCOUNT OF THE DESTRUCTION OF THE
WEST INDIES
1.
2.2.
3.3.
4.4.
5.5.
6.6.
7.7.
8.8.
9.9.
Of Hispaniola
In the island of Hispaniola—which was the first, as we have said, to be invaded by the Christians—the immense massacres
and destruction of these people began. It was the first to be destroyed and made into a desert. The Christians began by
taking the women and children, to use and to abuse them, and to eat of the substance of their toil and labour, instead of
contenting themselves with what the Indians gave them spontaneously, according to the means of each. Such stores are
always small; because they keep no more than they ordinarily need, which they acquire with little labour; but what is
enough for three households, of ten persons each, for a month, a Christian eats and destroys in one day. From their using
force, violence and other kinds of vexations, the Indians began to perceive that these men could not have come from
heaven.
Some hid their provisions, others, their wives and children: others fled to the mountains to escape from people of such
harsh and terrible treatment. The Christians gave them blows in the face, beatings and cudgellings, even laying hands on
the lords of the land.
After this deed, the Indians consulted to devise means of driving the Christians from their country. They took up their
weapons, which are poor enough and little fitted for attack, being of little force and not even good for defence; For this
reason, all their wars are little more than games with sticks, such as children play in our countries.
The Christians, with their horses and swords and lances, began to slaughter and practise strange cruelty among them. They
penetrated into the country and spared neither children nor the aged, nor pregnant women, nor those in child labour, all of
whom they ran through the body and lacerated, as though they were assaulting so many lambs herded in their sheepfold.
They made bets as to who would slit a man in two, or cut off his head at one blow: or they opened up his bowels. They tore
the babes from their mothers by the feet, and threw them against the rocks. Others they seized by the shoulders and threw
into the rivers, laughing and joking.
They made a gallows just high enough for the feet to nearly touch the ground, and by thirteens, in honour and reverence of
our Redeemer and the twelve Apostles, they put wood underneath and, with fire, they burned the Indians alive.
They wrapped the bodies of others entirely in dry straw, binding them in it and setting fire to it; and so they burned them.
They cut off the hands of all they wished to take alive, made them carry them fastened on to them, and said: “Go and carry
letters”: that is; take the news to those who have fled to the mountains.
They generally killed the lords and nobles in the following way. They made wooden gridirons of stakes, bound them upon
them, and made a slow fire beneath: thus the victims gave up the spirit by degrees, emitting cries of despair in their torture.
I once saw that they had four or five of the chief lords stretched on the gridirons to burn them, and I think also there were
two or three pairs of gridirons, where they were burning others; and because they cried aloud and annoyed the captain or
prevented him sleeping, he commanded that they should strangle them
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SOURCE 2
Excerpts from: The Encomienda in the Caribbean Islands
Author: Hugo R. Viera Vargas, Ph.D.
Published: August 23, 2013
[…]The encomiendas constituted forced labor — not slavery, under the Spanish jurisprudence of
the era — in which thousands of indigenous people were forced to work, mainly in extracting gold
from the rivers of the conquered territories.[…]
[…]The poor working conditions and long hours negatively impacted the indigenous populations
on the islands. Friar Bartolomé de las Casas witnessed these conditions in his Brevísima relación
de la destrucción de las Indias in 1552, saying "the cause for which so many died and so many
Christian souls have been destroyed is only for the goal of gold and stuffing oneself with riches in
a few days."[…]
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SOURCE 3
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SOURCES FOR AFRICA
SOURCE 4
The African Slave Trade Explodes
To establish themselves on the coast of West Africa, the Portuguese constructed small bastions and trading posts. From there,
they circumnavigated the continent, continuing to build forts and trading posts. They also raided the coastal cities of Mombasa
and Malindi, centers of international commerce, and took over the Arabs’ trade network in East Africa.
Since ancient times, East Africa housed slavery, and by the 1500s, cheap labor became extremely important to the Europeans
and their colonial plantations, making the business expand physically and monetarily. Several African leaders, such as Affonso I,
the ruler of Kongo, tried to slow down this transatlantic slave trade, but, despite their efforts, it continued.
New African States Arise
The African states were greatly affected by the slave trade, with some states completely vanishing, and new states, dependent on
the slave trade, being born. Toward the end of the 17th century, Osei Tutu, a great military leader, assumed control of Kumasi, a
trading city. He went onto conquer nearby states and unify the kingdom of the Asante. Under Tutu, the Asante kingdom
developed a monopoly on gold mining and slave trade.
Major African States (1700)
Due to the constant settlement of what is present-day Nigeria by the Yoruba, the Oyo empire came to being, and amassed an
army using its profit from the slave trade.
Source: UC World Studies
https://ucworldstudies-2012.wikispaces.com/The+development+of+an+organized+slave+trade+within+and+beyond+Africaz
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SOURCE 5
The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. Written by
Himself
Section 1
I was soon put down under the decks, and there I received such a salutation in my nostrils as I had never
experienced in my life; so that, with the loathsomeness of the stench, and crying together, I became so sick
and low that I was not able to eat, nor had I the least desire to taste anything. I now wished for the last
friend, death, to relieve me; but soon, to my grief, two of the white men offered me eatables; and, on my
refusing to eat, one of them held me fast by the hands, and laid me across I think the windlass, and tied my
feet, while the other flogged me severely[…]
Section 2
The crew used to watch us very closely who were not chained down to the decks, lest we should leap into
the water; and I have seen some of these poor African prisoners most severely cut for attempting to do so,
and hourly whipped for not eating. This indeed was often the case with myself.
[…] I had never seen among any people such instances of brutal cruelty; and this not only shown towards
us blacks, but also to some of the whites themselves. One white man in particular I saw, when we were
permitted to be on deck, flogged so unmercifully that he died in consequence of it and they tossed him over
the side as they would have done a brute.
Section 3
…[The] air soon became unfit for respiration, from a variety of loathsome smells, and brought on a
sickness among the slaves, of which many died, thus falling victims to the improvident avarice of their
purchasers[…] and the filth of the necessary tubs, into which the children often fell, and were almost
suffocated. The shrieks of the women and the groans of the dying, rendered the whole a scene of horror
almost inconceivable[…]
Section 4
In this situation I expected every hour to share the fate of my companions, some of whom were almost
daily brought upon deck at the point of death, which I began to hope would soon put an end to my miseries.
One day, two of my wearied countrymen who were chained together, preferring death to such a life of
misery, somehow made through the nettings and jumped into the sea: immediately another quite dejected
fellow […] also followed their example […] However two of the wretches were drowned, but they got the
other, and afterwards flogged him unmercifully for thus attempting to prefer death to slavery.
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Sources for Europe
SOURCE 6
Source: Dayton University
http://homepages.udayton.edu/~santamjc/Caribbean1.html
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SOURCE 7: Textbook page 110-117
Link to online textbook:
https://sso.rumba.pearsoncmg.com/sso/login?profile=snp&k12int=true&service=https://www.pea
rsonsuccessnet.com:443/snpapp/login/login.jsp
Username: ljhhistory
Password: leota!
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Sources for Southern Asia
SOURCE 8
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SOURCE 9: Textbook Page 95-97
Link to online textbook:
https://sso.rumba.pearsoncmg.com/sso/login?profile=snp&k12int=true&service=https://www.pea
rsonsuccessnet.com:443/snpapp/login/login.jsp
Username: ljhhistory
Password: leota!