The Slave Trade

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The African Slave Trade
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Slavery in Africa
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European - African Pre-Slavery Trade
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European Background

• Portuguese started African slave trade in 1441
• First Africans in Hispanola in 1505
• 1450-1850 12 million Africans sent to Americas

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Why Africans?

• No written language , many languages
• Native Americans dying off
• Some degree of disease resistance
• No muskets and gunpowder
• Africans participated in trade by enslaving
  others, selling debtors and criminals, and
  kidnapping
• Skilled workers
• Knew how to extract precious ore from mines
• Familiar with soils and crops
• Not familiar with the landmaking escape less
  likely

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How to Get Slaves?

• TRADE!
• Africans traded slaves for manufactured goods
  like clothe, silk, guns, pots, and copper
• African Kingdoms (Ashanti) gained wealth and
  power from the trade
• States sold POW (method of deportation)
• Participated to defend themselves
• African entrepreneurs Middle Men
• Kidnapping

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Capture

• The original capture of slaves was almost always
  violent.
• As European demand grew, African chieftains
  organized raiding parties to seize individuals
  from neighboring societies.
• Others launched wars specifically for the purpose
  of capturing slaves.

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March to the Coast

• What does this picture tell you?
• Europeans did not penetrate the African interior
• Guns

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Slave Trade in the Congo
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Cape Coast Castle, W. Africa
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What role did geography play in the Triangle of
Trade?
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Portuguese Slave Trade

• The Portuguese population was too small to
  provide a large number of colonists.
• The sugar plantations required a large labor
  force.
• Slaves filled this demand.

Europeans and Africans Meet to Trade
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Slave Trade and Sugar

• Portuguese crop growers extended the use of slave
  labor to South America.
• Because of this, Brazil would eventually become
  the wealthiest of the sugar-producing lands in
  the western hemisphere.

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European Slave Trade
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Plantations

• After crossing the Atlantic, most African slaves
  went to plantations in the tropical or
  subtropical regions of the western hemisphere.
• The first was established by the Spanish on
  Hispaniola in 1516.
• Originally the predominant crop was sugar. In
  addition to sugar, plantations produced crops
  like tobacco, indigo, and cotton.
• In the 1530s Portuguese began organizing
  plantations in Brazil, and Brazil became the
  worlds leading supplier of sugar.

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Plantations

• All were designed to export commercial crops for
  profit.
• Relied almost exclusively on large amounts of
  slave labor supervised by small numbers of
  European or Euro-American managers.

Brazilian sugar mill in the 1830s
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As the major European powers of Portugal,
Britain, France, and the Netherlands looked for
ways to exploit the fertile lands of the New
World, they looked to Africa for a steady supply
of labor. Soon, African slaves had become
absolutely vital to the cultivation of sugar,
tobacco, cotton, and rice plantations. As
European demand for sugar began to increase,
plantations began to spring up throughout Brazil
and the Caribbean. Sugar cultivation created a
huge demand for slave labor from Africa. Many
plantations produced additional crops such as
indigo, rice, tobacco, and coffee.
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Justification

• Slavery made development of the New World
  profitable
• Native American slaves died of diseases, escaped
  easily
• African tribes needed weapons and supplies
  from Europe

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Slavery Expands

• In 1518, the first shipment of slaves went
  directly from West Africa to the Caribbean where
  the slaves worked on sugar plantations.
• By the 1520s, the Spanish had introduced slaves
  to Mexico, Peru, and Central America where they
  worked as farmers and miners.
• By the early 17th century, the British had
  introduced slaves to North America.

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Black Gold for Sale!
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Triangular Trade
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Exportation

• Trip called the Middle Passage
• 5000 miles, 3 wks. to 3 mos.
• 20-25 died
• Strip Africans self respect and self identity

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The Middle Passage
Unimaginable Suffering
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Slave Master Brands
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The Middle Passage
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The Middle Passage
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Correcting Misconceptions

• Africans sold their brothers and sisters into
  slavery
• There was no one African identity
• Africa is a BIG placemany different ethnic groups

WRONG
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Inspection and Sale
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First Slave AuctionNew Amsterdam (Dutch New York
City - 17c)
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IMPACT ON WEST AFRICA
Europeans began the Atlantic slave trade in the
1500s. Their colonies in the Americas needed
labor to work on large plantations. European
traders sold enslaved Africans to colonists.
Families were split up, and many people died. By
the time the slave trade ended in the 1800s,
millions of Africans had been taken from their
homes.
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Impact of Slave Trade on the Americas

• Cultural Diffusion
• --The slave trade spread ideas
• and goods between cultures (cultural
  diffusion).
• --Europeans brought new weapons to Africa.
• --Africans brought part of their culture (like
  music
• food, traditions, Language) to the Americas.