Reynolds, Edward. , Stand the Storm: A History of the Atlantic Slave Trade.
             My Responses from Reading Stand the Storm
             With my sallow understanding of slavery, I imagined slavery only happening in the New World, where they obtained a better treatment than the book recorded; at least, slaves would have enough nutritious food on their trip to North and South America. After reading this book, Stand the Storm, the pains of African slaves conjured up on my mind, and I thought their suffering and humiliation was difficult to compensate with any amount of money. This book portrays thorough history and impacts of how African slaves were captured and sent to North and South America. One thing was true that slave trade favored the economic development of Americas to expand in a fast pace. However, it was absolutely an evil economic activity that brought great suffering and incredible distress to many thousands of the Africans. In this paper, I would like to probe deeply on how the Africans slaves were treated in their tribes. Also, in that sense they were captured to serve as slave on their own continent of Africa. Comparing with North and South America, I will find out the differences of practicing slavery between both places, and the ways of the African salves adapted to the new environment and conditions in the New World.
             Slavery was common in many African tribal societies long ago before the Europeans introduced slavery to the New World. In Africa, a slave was generally known as servant or property of his host whose social status was lower than the other society members'. In the most inferior case, especially in Eastern Nigeria, they could be pawned by their masters, or even acted as a medium of exchange. Their lives were worth nothing that could be completely controlled by their masters; it meant he could take it or leave it. Once slaves were captured or traded to another kinship society, they would probably be treated as outs...