Bethany Sheepherd, Gnatahlee Bawl, Brittanica Sandoughvall, Samarai Beckfel

Tarantino the Answer:

 From the Old World to the New: The Journey of our Crops

Here we are today; surrounded by diverse recipes, diets and cultures. But was it always like this? Were we always able to run to the grocery store to buy rice or coffee or pet our cat whenever we wanted to? To answer this question, is to simply respond with no. The journey to the world we have today was a long and strenuous one. It was full of travel, innovation and even, exploitation (Carney and Rosomoff, 2009). Before gumbo, in-n-out burger, taco tuesdays, and even banana splits; there were thousands upon thousands of Africans being captured, enslaved, and transported across the Atlantic ocean. This came about in 1492 when Christopher Columbus made his discovery of the New World; commonly known as North and South America (Reader, 1998). As the continents were being discovered, there were many natural resources that were able to be exploited. However, there was a lack of necessary labor. A convenient solution to this major problem was, the slave trade. Over the course of several years, the slave trade transported over thirteen million slaves from Africa to the New World. Along with slaves came their knowledge, cultures, languages and food. In order to maintain a connection to their homeland and to be sure that they would have a meal, seeds were smuggled on the boats, allowing for the transference of various types of crops. Going both ways, this transference also went from the New World to the Old World, introducing crops like tomatoes, corn, and potatoes to Eurasia and Africa (Boundless, 2016). As the Europeans started to settle into the New World specific food and cash crops came to surface. Most of these crops were grown on large plantations and the demand and success of these commodities grew. Landowners were now able to return an increasingly greater profit for the crops they were now able to produce with the assistance of slave labor. “The market success of plantation cash crops such as sugar, tobacco, rice, indigo, and cotton greatly increased labor demands and solidified economic reliance on slavery.” (Battle, 2017)

The demand for these crops increased and spread over many continents, sparking an explosion in their production and trade. However, as many of the crops are labor intensive, even more labor was required. This only perpetuated the continuation and expansion of the Slave Trade. Approximately 12.5 million Africans were shipped to the New World, but only 10.7 million survived (Root, 2014). Of those 10.7 million, generations upon generations were born and made an impact on the world of their time. African Americans continued to live their lives, at first by being oppressed and then by fighting for their rights. Our world has definitely come a long way to get to where it is today.

So here we are, sitting in our air conditioned apartments watching snapchats with our pet cat (thanks to the Old World). There is no longer a need for slavery. What we have today is a more diverse culture, and a variety of crops that came from the Old World. Tomorrow, we might go down the street and try out the new cajun restaurant. Though some may not believe it now, slaves found ways to shape the culture, especially the food, that we have today. From our favorite spicy southern restaurants to even the ways that we fix our food, there is no doubt that the Atlantic Slave Trade influenced our agricultural generation.  

Works Cited

Reader, J. (1998). Africa: a biography of the continent. New York: A.A. Knopf.

Carney, J. A., & Rosomoff, R. N. (2009). In the shadow of slavery: Africa's botanical legacy in the Atlantic world. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Boundless. “The Triangular Trade.” Boundless U.S. History Boundless, 20 Sep. 2016. Retrieved 19 Feb. 2017

Mary Battle, College of Charleston. “New World Labor Systems: African Slavery” LDHI. Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives.2017. Web.

"How Many Slaves Landed in the US?" The Root. N.p., 06 Jan. 2014. Web. http://www.theroot.com/how-many-slaves-landed-in-the-us-1790873989