In the 1700s slavery started to cause a massive influx in ships and trade. In The exercise we took at primary sources of the trade and commerce interactions at the time. It it very useful for gaining a general idea of what was being transported and where is was going and from. Seeing these accounts can show you what is popular at the time, such as perfurmes or fabrics, and also can show what was lacking. If they import a large amount of a certain good such as sugar, we can see that they did not know how and/or couldnt grow in the climate. But a downside to the “commodification” when talking about the slave trade is because they were treated like lesser the documentation is not specific on who exactly came through and where they came from originally, not who currently owned them. This commodification also prevented the owners of the slaves from treating them anywhere near the level a human deserves. This was to make money and not have to feel burdened by guilt, so it was seen as normal to disrespect the slaves you owned and nobody thought anything of it. This makes it very difficult in todays time to see what truly happened as much of the information is very vague on who specifically was transferred. This is why me must also be wary on who wrote these accounts, as they could have just written false or mistaken acoounts. So you have to to everything you find with a grain of salt and make sure to double fact check every piece of evidence you find. If you dont question yourself you can never correct yourself.
