After the 15th century, with the opening of new shipping routes, mankind entered the era of geographical discovery, and the world began to slowly connect from the previous state of isolation from each other. European navigators were in a quest for gold and spices, colonizing the newly discovered lands, and Africa was also colonized during this period.
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Africa has been connected with Europe since ancient times, Egypt as one of the four ancient civilizations, its culture greatly influenced and enriched the formation and development of Greek culture, in the Roman Empire period, the Mediterranean Sea became Rome's inland sea, a considerable part of northern Africa is the territory of Rome, Africa is also known as Africa in this period.
However, due to the influence of the Sahara Desert, the in-depth exchanges between Europe and Africa have been cut off, so that the traditional Eu-African relationship is largely limited to the North African region. Many parts of South Africa are still unknown places, but with the development of the Great Navigation Age, South Africa began to appear in people's field of vision.
As the earliest colonial power in the Age of Discovery, Portugal was the first to wave a butcher's knife to Europe, beginning the 300-year Dark Ages of Africa.
Colonial powers such as Portugal initially established a series of strongholds on the coast of Africa by sailing ships at sea, plundering valuable materials such as African gold and ivory, while also facilitating trade with the locals to obtain sufficient supplies, and also as a halfway supply station for ships to the East, such as the Cape of Good Hope.
However, with Columbus's discovery of the New World in 1492 and the opening up of shipping lanes in the Americas, the colonists were slowly not satisfied with obtaining golden ivory, and they set their sights on the local blacks.
After Columbus discovered the New World, thinking that this was India, calling the local people Indians, in order to obtain gold, massacring the local Indians, the subsequent colonists swarmed like bloodthirsty sharks, at this time the colonists were not satisfied with establishing strongholds in the coastal areas, they would touch deep inland, suppress the locals to dig for gold for them, grow cotton, tea, cocoa, coffee and other high-value crops, but the local Indians were slaughtered by them at the same time, they were also killed by the virus brought by the Europeans.
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For the European mainland, the black death caused a large number of depopulation history has just passed, the mainland can not take out so much population, and from the European mainland transport population is very expensive, very uneconomical, in order to meet their colonial needs, from Africa to buy a small number of people became their only choice, so the black trade interest chain began to form.
Spain, also a colonial power, took the initiative directly, and in 1510, the Spaniards for the first time transported blacks as far away in Africa to the Americas as slaves. While provoking wars between African tribes, these colonists created a large number of prisoners of war, sold low-value industrial products such as glass and steel knives to local black tribal chiefs in exchange for population, and even slaughtered some small tribes to plunder black men.
Slowly, a route of black human trafficking from Europe to Africa to the Americas was formed, which later generations called "triangular trade."
Some people may wonder, black people in many races, tall, physical fitness conditions, will not resist, will not run away?
Blacks could resist and escape, but they basically could not win, and the black slaves who escaped and were caught had a very bad fate.
At that time, Europe had begun to enter the primary industrial civilization, while Africa was still a backward agricultural civilization, and in the face of the flintlock muskets of the slave catchers, the blacks armed with backward cold weapons were simply difficult to resist.
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Escorted on the way to the slave ship, a narrow space, dozens of negroes were placed, and there was no food to eat every day, and sometimes there was an epidemic. Any rebellious or sick black man was thrown into the open sea, and many large carnivorous fish such as experienced sharks tended to follow far behind slave ships.
And the black people who are enslaved in the native plantations and mines in the Americas can't eat enough every day, and they have to be forced to work hard every day, the black people who are weak and rebellious can't do without the end of being brutally suppressed, and it is difficult for the blacks to escape, if they escape, it is difficult to fight with wild beasts in the mountains and forests, only Liao Liao survived, but he was caught by the slave owners, cut off his hands and feet, peeled and cut off the flesh is just a common thing, many black people see this typical example of escaping and being caught, and they can't have the heart to resist at all.
According to some statistics, more than 300 years of dark trade, the abduction of nearly 100 million blacks, directly interrupted the process of social development in Africa, and even in order to escape the colonization of Europeans, many blacks fled into the wilderness, the original feudal civilization, directly and completely degenerated into backward tribal slavery.
Backwardness means to be beaten, this is the eternal truth, The encounter in Africa was also experienced in some coastal areas of China at the end of the Qing Dynasty, when the captured Chinese were called piglets by Western capitalists, pulled to the United States to build railways, escorting Chinese slave ships were also called pig boats or floating hells, and one after another human tragedies occurred, so that some people said that the American railways were built on the bones of Chinese workers.
Looking back on these histories, we can't help but wake up to the fact that only by making the country always young and strong will such a tragic situation not happen to us, otherwise today in Africa is our tomorrow.