ShmoopTube

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[ musical flourish ]

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And here's your shmoop du jour,

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brought to you by island hopping.

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Every giant's favorite schoolyard activity.

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Really. It's what they do.

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Okay, check out this excerpt.

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These Arabs also have many Berber horses...

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[ mumbles ]

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[ mumbling continues ]

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Hodor, Hodor, Hodor.

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[ mumbling continues ]

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All right, and the question:

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Slavery of Africans in the New World was possible partly because of...

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what?

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And here are your [ indistinct ]...

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[ mumbles ]

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All right, who's following?

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[ clears throat ]

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Okay, here we go.

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So...

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All of these countries played a big part in the slave trade,

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but we need to figure out which one led the charge

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in bringing Africans to the New World.

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Now, let's see what we've got here.

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So, did African slaves arrive in the New World because of B -

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Spain's dominance throughout South America?

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Hmm. Well, Spain was definitely dominating South America,

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sort of like the Jordan era of the Chicago Bulls.

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Ask your parents about it; it was an awesome era.

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Go Mike, everyone wants to be like him.

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But the population density of indigenous tribes in South America

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was high enough to support Spanish sugar plantations

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when they first arrived. So, we can eliminate this one.

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Yeah. Did African slaves arrive because of Great Britain's

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conquest of the West Indies?

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Well, they certainly arrived after Britain's conquest of the Carribean,

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but not because they were there in the first place.

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That's putting the ice cream cart, uh, before the horse.

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Ding ding.

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Let's cross this one off, too.

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What about D -

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France's cooperation with American Indians in North America?

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Well, the French did, in fact, hook up

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with the Native American tribes when they first arrived.

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But it was for trading posts and military alliances,

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not agriculture or, you know, anything dirty.

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[ clears throat ]

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And labor for plantations was the main reason

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slaves were brought to North America in the first place.

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So, our search continues.

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That leaves us with A -

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Portugal's partnership with tribes in West Africa.

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Ding, ding, ding.

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So, believe it or not, Europeans weren't the only ones

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involved in the slave trade.

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When the Portugese arrived in West Africa,

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they actually found a continental African slave trade

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already in existence.

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And since trade is all about what you have

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that the other party doesn't,

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the West African leaders exchanged slaves

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for those fancy European factory goods.

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So, A is our answer, and the rest is...

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just a terrible stain on history.

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