COMING TO AMERICA

     During the 1500s, slave ships brought more than 250,000 Africans to the Americas. At first, most slaves were shipped to islands in the Caribbean where they were sold and put to work on huge sugar plantations. Soon the rapidly developing trade was spread throughout North and South America.

     Life for the enslaved Africans was hard, and many died within a few years, but there were always more to take their place. The supply seemed endless to the plantation owners and slave traders. The word of this steady supply traveled quickly.

     Soon farmers, plantation owners, and other crop growers in the American colonies also wanted Black workers. This was due in part because the Native Americans, called Indians, whom they were using as workers, died by the thousands from the hard labor, as well as the diseases they had caught from the Europeans. Others ran away. The need for an adequate supply of  labor was in huge demand.

     When a slave ship arrived in a city of the American colonies, it was a great event. The news was shouted throughout the streets by the town crier. The local newspapers printed stories and ran classified ads for sales on human cargo. People hurried to the auction blocks to see the new arrivals.

     The haggard Black slaves, dressed in  rags, could not understand the strange language these white people spoke. They did not know what would happen to them in this new world in which they found themselves. It would not be long, however, before they  would come to an understanding of what coming to America was all about.