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

Africa and the Africans in the
Age of the Atlantic Slave
Trade
Chapter 20
Focus Questions:
Why/How did slave trade begin/why was it
necessary?
What impacts did slave trade have on Africa?
The Beginnings
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ONE IMPORTANT POINT: Slavery existed in
Africa BEFORE Europeans arrived
Remember, Portuguese explorers initiated
contact with the African coast in the early 15th
century…they built “factories” (forts) for
trade…the most important was El
Mina…these 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
kingdoms…religious efforts soon followed,
particularly in the kingdoms of Benin and
Kongo, where kings were converted
In the end, few Portuguese settled
permanently…and other European nations
soon followed this pattern of establishing
fortified positions and the coast and making
contacts with regional civilizations…NO
COLONIZATION (except South Africa)
The Statistics of Slave
Trade
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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 Americas…WHY???
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?
Organization of Slave
Trade
 Portugal control slave trade until 1630…then the Dutch seized El
Mina…meanwhile, the British and French began to seek slave
trade to supply labor for their New World colonies…by 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
on…because 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
market…rarely 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 process…what
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…
The Triangular Trade
Network
African Societies, Slavery
and the Slave Trade
 Once again…Africa already had systems of
slavery…tribal 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 status…slaves 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 society…and polygamy increased in
African societies and Islamic religion influenced
kingdoms…in 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)
Slavery and African
Politics
 Slavery shifted the balance of
power in Africa from powerful
central states to newly
emerging slave trading
kingdoms on the
coastlines…Kingdoms 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?
Coastal Kingdoms
 Asante: On the “Gold Coast”, the
empire of the Asante (Ashanti)
emerged from slave trade
interactions…the 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 unification…the
asantehene had a council of
rulers and began to use military
force to exercise power…the
Dutch made connections with the
Asante by 1700…slaves (2/3
trade) and gold became their
major exports and the Asante
maintained their power until the
1820s
Coastal Kingdoms
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Benin: Was already a well developed,
advanced society when Europeans
arrived…The obas (leaders) of Benin
was largely interested in only trading
goods with arriving
Europeans…eventually 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
producer…they used the typical
pattern of forming armies to capture
slaves from the interior…they
continued as a major slave supplier
into the 19th C, with slavery having
negative impacts on their society
(Such as?)
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
Southern Africa
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South Africa remained unaffected by slave
trade…mainly 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 Indonesia…the
people who settled it were pioneers and sought a
measure of separation from the Dutch crown…they
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 Shaka…his 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 territory…this
threat lasted well into the latter 1800s
The Slave “Experience”
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Slaves became a significant portion of the population in the Americas
The journey for slaves to America on the Middle Passage was
horrific…slave ships were packed full…many 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 emerged…there was a difference
between saltwater slaves (pure African) and Creole/mulatto slaves
(mixed)…Creole/mulatto slaves were more likely to win freedom…and
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
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 immoral…it 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