Africa and the Africans in the Age of the Atlantic Slave Trade

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Africa and the Africans in the Age of the
Atlantic Slave Trade

• C20
• EQs Why/How did slave trade begin/why was it
  necessary?
• What impacts did slave trade have on Africa?

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The Beginnings

• ONE IMPORTANT POINT Slavery existed in Africa
  BEFORE Europeans arrived
• Remember, Portuguese explorers initiated contact
  with the African coast in the early 15th
  centurythey built factories (forts) for
  tradethe most important was El Minathese forts
  were established with the consent of local
  African kings seeking trade alliances and
  military support
• The Portuguese and Afro-Portuguese (mulatto)
  traders followed traditional routes into the
  interior to open markets with savanna
  kingdomsreligious efforts soon followed,
  particularly in the kingdoms of Benin and Kongo,
  where kings were converted
• In the end, few Portuguese settled
  permanentlyand other European nations soon
  followed this pattern of establishing fortified
  positions and the coast and making contacts with
  regional civilizationsNO COLONIZATION (except
  South Africa)

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The Statistics of Slave Trade

• Between 1450 and 1850 about 12 million Africans
  were shipped across the Atlantic
• About 10 to 11 million made it alive!
• Around 1/3 of those who died were either killed
  in raids by African slave traders or on the trip
  to the coast
• The volume of trade was greatest after 1700, with
  over 80 of the total arriving
• Brazil received more than 40 of the slaves
  shipped to the AmericasWHY???
• High volume was important because of the high
  slave mortality rate in the Americas (WHY?) and
  low fertility rate (only in the Southern US were
  slaves able to have children)
• WHO was most likely captured for slavery?

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Organization of Slave Trade

• Portugal control slave trade until 1630then the
  Dutch seized El Minameanwhile, the British and
  French began to seek slave trade to supply labor
  for their New World coloniesby the 1700s France
  was dominating trade
• In terms of trade, slaves were bought from
  African slave trading kingdoms with iron bars,
  brass rings and cowry shells early onbecause of
  the value of trade benefits for African kings,
  coastal kingdoms began the process of raiding
  interior kingdoms (warfare), capturing prisoners
  and entering them into the slave marketrarely
  did actual Europeans go into interior Africa to
  capture slaves
• The commercial profitability of slave trade was
  great, though many questioned which group was in
  total control of the processwhat has been proven
  is that slave trade led to the expansion of
  Commercial capitalism and the advent of the
  Industrial Revolution in Europe (WHY?)
• English traders estimated their profits from
  slave trade at around 5 to 10 in the late 1700s
• The most important pattern that emerged from
  slave trade was

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The Triangular Trade Network
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African Societies, Slavery and the Slave Trade

• Once againAfrica already had systems of
  slaverytribal kings owned the land, the people
  on the land were tied to it and the number of
  slaves a noble had was tied to their wealth and
  statusslaves had many occupations but still had
  limited rights (no choices about lives or
  actions)
• It is important to remember that enslaving women
  was central to African societyand polygamy
  increased in African societies and Islamic
  religion influenced kingdomsin effect, the male
  slaves were most likely to be sold where female
  slaves became harem members or domestics
• In general, during the early periods of the slave
  trade, Africans did not SELL their own people
  (changes by the mid-1700s)

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Slavery and African Politics

• Slavery shifted the balance of power in Africa
  from powerful central states to newly emerging
  slave trading kingdoms on the coastlinesKingdoms
  in the interior (Ghana, Mali, Songhai) crumbled
  as kingdoms from the coast (Asante, Benin and
  Dahomey) raided them for riches and slaves
• What factors accounted for this shift in power?

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Coastal Kingdoms

• Asante On the Gold Coast, the empire of the
  Asante (Ashanti) emerged from slave trade
  interactionsthe clans of the Asante (Akan and
  Oyoko) were unified by Osei Tutu, who created the
  title asantehene (supreme leader)his golden
  stool stood as a symbol of unificationthe
  asantehene had a council of rulers and began to
  use military force to exercise powerthe Dutch
  made connections with the Asante by 1700slaves
  (2/3 trade) and gold became their major exports
  and the Asante maintained their power until the
  1820s

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Coastal Kingdoms

• Benin Was already a well developed, advanced
  society when Europeans arrivedThe obas (leaders)
  of Benin was largely interested in only trading
  goods with arriving Europeanseventually pressure
  from Europeans forced the obas by the 1700s to
  begin slave trade (though it never was their
  dominate source of economic prosperity)
• Dahomey By the 1700s, the influence of Europeans
  and their weapons transformed this society into a
  slave producerthey used the typical pattern of
  forming armies to capture slaves from the
  interiorthey continued as a major slave supplier
  into the 19th C, with slavery having negative
  impacts on their society (Such as?)

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Slavery and East Africa

• The Swahili trading states remained largely
  unaffected by European slave trade to the
  Americas
• Slaves in this region were primarily women who
  were destined to become members of Arabian harems
• Unique to this region was the establishment of
  local plantations with slave labor and the
  establishment of European plantations on offshore
  islands that required E. African and even Hindu
  slaves

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Southern Africa

• South Africa remained unaffected by slave
  trademainly thanks in part to sparse population
  and the colony established by the Dutch East
  India Company
• The Cape Colony was established was a provision
  post for ships traveling east to Indonesiathe
  people who settled it were pioneers and sought a
  measure of separation from the Dutch crownthey
  did use local natives as slaves but a large
  measure of intermarriage occurred as well
• None of these peoples were ever exported out as
  slave labor, but many were locally enslaved by
  the Dutch or killed in constant warfare with
  Dutch and eventually British colonists
• Eventually, the Zulus solidified their power in
  the beginning of the 19th century under their
  greatest warrior Shakahis people carried on the
  traditions he established in the mfecane or wars
  of crushing and wandering...they influenced the
  development of kingdoms (Swazi and Lesotho)
• Afrikaaners (or Boers as they also became known
  as) felt increased pressures from Zulu tribes
  that existed in large numbers on the high plains
  (velds) and the northeastern fringes of the
  territorythis threat lasted well into the latter
  1800s

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The Slave Experience

• Slaves became a significant portion of the
  population in the Americas
• The journey for slaves to America on the Middle
  Passage was horrificslave ships were packed
  fullmany slaves died on the journey (What ways?)
• Those that survived became plantation or even
  mine labor replacing natives and indentured
  servants in the Brazil, Caribbean and Southern US
  (Demographically, Caribbean islands and Brazil
  became predominately black)
• In America, distinct slave hierarchies
  emergedthere was a difference between saltwater
  slaves (pure African) and Creole/mulatto slaves
  (mixed)Creole/mulatto slaves were more likely to
  win freedomand their were free people of color
  (many who had been fortunate to travel to Europe
  and become westernized rather than sold into
  servitude)
• Rebellions were not uncommon, particularly where
  slaves with common ethnicity lived (Brazil,
  Jamaica)
• Despite the negative effects of slavery, African
  societies STILL brought with them their complete
  cultural identity (language, practices,
  religions)only family traditions were hard to
  re-establish, as most areas lacked female slaves

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The Decline of Slave Trade

• Opposition to slavery grew out of Enlightenment
  ideas and religious sentiment
• Writers such as Rousseau and Adam smith decried
  the abuses of traders, characterizing them and
  their practice as backwards and immoralit was
  the abuses and cruelty that brought the movement
  to the forefront of human society in the early
  19th century
• Religious humanists such as John Wesley and
  William Wilberforce began the early abolition
  movements in Britain at the end of the 18th
  century
• In 1807, British parliament outlawed slave trade
• The full end to slavery and slave trade from
  Africa did not come until the end of the 19th
  century

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This WeekSHORT WEEK

• Tuesday Video Clips on Slavery
• Wednesday Change Analysis
• Thursday DBQ on Slave Trade
• Friday Test on C20 MC DBQ NOTES DUE