Enslaved people suffered appalling conditions and cruelty. If they survived the voyage from Africa then life on the West Indian plantations was harsh. Some enslaved people resisted by rebelling or trying to escape.
The Atlantic slave trade promoted a racist ideology with the idea that black Africans were inferior to white Europeans.
It has been suggested that Europeans preyed on black Africans for the slave trade because they believed that:
Plantation society saw a large black population being ruled over by a small but powerful white minority. Jamaica was like this.
In Jamaica, most whites thought that only the application of brute force could keep enslaved people under control.
During his first year on Jamaica, British plantation owner Thomas Thistlewood lived in an almost exclusively black world.
For weeks on end he saw no European people at all. White planters felt threatened and outnumbered and were fearful of the consequences of losing control over enslaved people.
With almost no restraints placed on their personal freedom, white people ruled over enslaved African people with violence.