The year was 1776 when terrible actions between Africa and America started. The Africans were captured like animals and transferred to America in ships. The ships had horrifying conditions; they almost slept on top of each other, it was hot and the stench was unbearable. When the food was served, only some of them got some, and the ones that got, were like animals protecting their food. At that time, dying on the trip to America was natural, which is terrifying to think of despite the conditions all over the world today. They then died of hunger, sickness and even committed suicide.

When the ships with the slaves arrived in America, they were sold to the highest bidding person, usually plantation owners. On the plantations they were working from early in the morning until late at night at the cotton- and tobacco fields. Despite the fact that cotton has these were sharp edges, it must have been very painful for them to pick them. Some plantation owners were kind to the slaves, and gave them food and clothes, but some were the completely opposite. Among the latter, they were maybe whipped if they did something wrong or unacceptable. That, for a matter of fact, is unacceptable, at this time though. Obviously they didn’t have a heart for the slaves.

When the plantation owners were going to bid on the slaves, they had to check their body shape. They checked their teeth, physical shape and most likely their mental shape, kind of. Think of yourself in a ship loaded with over thousand people squeezed into each other for several days. This scenario has to tear your mental health down, underground almost. It had to be hard for them, really.

You might have heard about Rosa Parks? Well, she is actually an historic person. Because, one day she was on her way home from work, and she was supposed to give her seat to a white person. The black ones had to do that at that time, because of the discrimination. Well, she refused to move herself because she was so tired of being discriminated and felt that it was time to do something about it. That made the police having to arrest her. Dr Martin Luther King, a pastor in a local Baptist church, suggested a bus boycott. A few days later it began and lasted for over a year. This made the US Supreme Court doubt a little bit, so they decided that segregation on buses was illegal in December 1956. This was an important step in the struggle for equal rights for blacks and whites. This doesn’t exactly have a lot to do with slave trading, but all of the slaves were black, and so was Rosa Parks, this was simply discrimination.

There were a whole lot of slaves who was brought to North America, but even more were brought to Latin America and also different parts of the Caribbean. The international slave trading ended in 1808, but in the USA they just as well waited a few years, so the institution of slavery ended the end of the Civil War in 1865. But there was Brazil left, and they finally ended it in 1888. After this, slavery has hopefully never been an option for anyone.

When I think about it now, I can’t imagine how it was for the slaves at all, but think about the persons who whipped and tortured the slaves, they weren’t exactly goodhearted. Well, laws were laws, but I would never be a part of that, it must have been horrible for some of them. My point is that segregation and discrimination isn’t good at all, it’s really, really bad. I also think that Rosa Parks is very brave doing what she did to the rest of the black people, considering the conditions in towns all over. It’s great that it isn’t anything that bad in the world today, thank yourself and others around you for that.