Africa and The Atlantic Slave Trade

Warm Up:Get out paper

Define: Middle Passage, Mestizo, Mulatto, Triangular Trade, Atlantic Slave Trade

Introduction (pgs. 447-449)

• Mohommah Gardo Baquaqua’s narrative is the epitome of the African experience after exploration.

• Large areas of Africa were brought into the world economy through European exploration and trade– This contact brought Africa under the influence of global trends and

created the African diaspora.• After 1450, slave trade is the main connection to that world

economy• Diaspora occurs of Africans to: Middle East, Europe, Americas• New African societies develop in these new areas• Exchange of foods, disease, animals, ideas, culture results.Define Diaspora

Atlantic Slave Trade: The Portuguese (449)• Begin developing trading factories

(posts and forts) as they explore to the Cape of Good Hope– El Mina (1482), Accra

• Main interest is collecting gold in the forest regions

• Allows for control over an area with little personnel

• Consent of local rulers needed (Trade and support)

• Portuguese trade European goods and slaves to local leaders

• Receive: Ivory, pepper, skins, gold• Begin trading with area of Mali and

SonghayWhat makes El Mina such an important point of control for the Portuguese?

Atlantic Slave Trade: Portuguese Influence (450)

• Missionary Efforts– Try to convert the rulers of Benin and Kongo

• Kongo: Nzinga Muanba (ruler) helps the Portuguese convert the entire kingdom to Christianity.

• Europeanize– Kongo and Portugal set up trade ambassadors– Portuguese will eventually enslave– Portuguese viewed by Africans as strange at first, try to

incorporate them into their ideas of spirits and nature– Traders begin to appear in bronze statues and sculptures– Portuguese view Africans as savages and pagans capable

of being civilized

What is the European view of Africans in the early stages of trade? How do Africans view the Europeans?

AST: Portuguese Colonization (450)• By 16th century have gone beyond the Cape of Good Hope

– Luanda: More permanent settlement in Kongo (1520’s) serves as basis for colony of Angola

• Try to dominate Indian Ocean and Red Sea trade– Bases: Mozambique, Kilwa, Mombasa, Sofala– Gives them access to gold trade from Monomotapa

• Minimal settlements, focus = commerce and military

Describe the Portuguese presence in East Africa. Why are they there, and what do they control?

Atlantic Slave Trade: The Arrival of Other Europeans (450)

• Portuguese are followed by Dutch, English, French around the 17th century– In many places they displace the Portuguese

• Pattern emerged:– Use of trading forts– Combination of force and diplomacy– Alliances with local rulers– Focus on commercial (economic) relations

What was the new game plan for seeking trade and control in Africa?

Trend Towards Expansion: Slave Trade Facts & Figures (451-452)

• 1450-1850: estimated 12 million slaves shipped across the Atlantic– Mortality rate of 10-20% = 11 Million slaves actually arriving in the Americas

• Numbers start out small, gradually increase– 18th century: great age of Atlantic slave trade (7 million)

• Reasons for high numbers of slaves: mortality rate and low fertility (more men than women)

• By 1860, 6 Million slaves work in the Americas, 4 million of them in S. US– South depends on natural population growth instead of slave trade– Slaves never more than ¼ of whole population in British North America, 80-90% in the

Caribbean• Patterns of Slave Trade:

– 1530-1650: Spanish America and Brazil receive majority of slaves– Jamaica, Barbados, St. Domingue (Haiti) import slaves because of sugar plantations– 18th Century: Virginia and Carolinas– 1550-1850: Brazil receives about 3.5-5 million slaves– Trans-Sahara, Red Sea, East African slave trade = 3 million exported

• Slave trade included Africans from all across the continent of Africa– Senegambia region, West Central Africa (Zaire and Angola), Gold Coast , Slave Coast (Dahomey

and Benin)• Benin exporting 10,000 per year

How might the different representations of slaves in North/South America affect culture and history?

What region in the Americas received more slaves than any other between 1519 and 1660?

Demographic Patterns (453)• Trans-Saharan Trade: Women

– Concubines and domestic servants in N. Africa and M.East• Atlantic Slave Trade: Men

– Heavy labor: planters, miners• African societies that sold slaves preferred to sell men

– Kept women for domestic servants, extend kin groups• Effects on Population of Africa

– West and Central Africa population was about half of the what it should have been• Numbers rebound due to women and children• New crops (Maize and Maioc) help population increase• The end result is a stable population but a skew towards women.

How was Africa’s population affected by the Atlantic slave trade?

Organization of the Slave Trade (453)• Control of Slave trade– Until 1630 controlled by Portuguese (sold slaves

to Brazil and Spanish colonies)– Dutch seize El Mina (1637)– English establish Royal African Company to

provide own slaves to Barbados, Jamaica, Virginia– France begins in 1660’s, becomes a major carrier

in 18th century– Denmark has agents in Africa– Merchant towns/Trade forts: Axim, Nembe,

Bonny, Whydah, Luanda (source of captives)– Very dangerous, “graveyard”, fewer than 10% of

RAC survive the first year, tropical diseases (malaria)

What is the connection between England’s RAC and the development of commercial agriculture?

Organization of the Slave Trade (453)• Agents had to deal directly with local rulers (pay tax, offer gifts)• Currency: iron bars, brass rings, cowrie shells• Spanish System:

– Healthy man: Indies Piece– Women and Children: fraction of the price

• Brought to the coast in many ways– Military campaigns– Agents purchase slaves at trade centers– Dahomey: royal monopoly to control movement of slaves

• Some tax the slave trade

What aspect of the Spanish system of slave trade shows their preference for male slaves?

Warm Up

• Define– Maroons (not the color)– Royal Chartered Monopoly Companies– Vodun– Plantations

Organization of Trade: Profit of Slave Trade (454)

• Likely very great and constant• European and Africans were involved• Single voyage may provide 300% profit• Merchants in slave ports could make money (Liverpool,

Nantes)• African suppliers• Does not remain high , 18th century profit likely 5-10

percent of initial profits.What impact would the % profit have on the Atlantic Slave trade? What would the 300% profit compel and what would the vast drop in profits compel?

Organization of the Trade: Triangular Trade (454)• Slaves sent the Americas• Sugar, tobacco, other goods sent to Europe• European manufactured products sent to Africa

What is triangular trade? Who does it benefit? Why?

African Society, Slavery, and the Slave Trade: Introduction (454)

• Forms of slavery existing in Africa– Peasantry– Chattel Slavery: people considered things “property with a

soul”• Europeans use the existing slave trade in Africa to justify

the Atlantic slave trade• Africans don’t enslave their own people, but do enslave

their neighbors• Owning slaves would be one of the only ways people

could increase their wealth and status.How does Chattel Slavery help explain how people have justified slavery as a practice throughout the years and why they typically enslave people outside their own group?

Slaving and African Politics (455)• 1500-1750: African states and societies are transformed

– Instability (competition and warfare)– Expansion/incorporation of subject provinces– Warrior emerges as important social type– Endless wars show importance of military– Captives sold into slavery– Coastal towns try to monopolize European trade– Europeans fear strong states on the coast– Just beyond coast, African kingdoms redirect trade toward the coast and

expand influence• Gun and slave cycle: firepower allows them to expand over neighbors, produce more

slaves, trade for more guns

– Unending warfare and disruption of societies in search for slaves

Why do you think a French Agent from this time period said, “The trade in slaves is the business of kings, rich men, and prime merchants.”?

In what way did the European slave trade enable centralizing states to expand more rapidly?

Arrival of the Dutch in South Africa• 1652: Dutch East India Company establishes colony at Cape of

Good Hope (post for ships sailing east)– Farms develop on fertile lands– Depends on slave labor– Expansion of colony and need for labor led to series of wars with San and

Khoikhoi people who are pushed north and west– Boers (Dutch) see the land as theirs and Africans as intruders and source

of labor• By 1800: 17,000 Settlers (Afrikaners), 26,000 slaves• 1795: Cape Colony seized by the British, British help clear Africans

from farm land• Voortrekkers- Boers who move north looking for better land

– Move into southern land of Nguni, create autonomous Boer states– Great Trek: move to the north to get away from government influence

Why might the Boers see themselves as the landowners and the San as outsiders?

Zulu• Nguni people begin unification process with Northern chiefdoms and new military

organization• Shaka: leader and brilliant military tactician

– Takes loose forces and puts them in regiments by lineage and age, live in separate villages, can marry only after service

– Iron and new tactics are used (short stabbing spear)– Army made a permanent institution– Begins to absorb and destroy neighbors, destroys ruling families– Rules with iron hand Earns enemies Assassinated in 1828

• Zulu power continues to grow into the 1800’s• Mfecane- wars of crushing and wandering

– Constant fighting and forced migrations, survive by fleeing, emulating, or joining the Zulu

– Go north and south (Fight Port. on the coast, Euro. to the south, fight neighbor chiefs)• New African States (Swazi- adapted aspects of the Zulu)• Lesotho- resisted Zulu influence

• Southern continent thrown into turmoil• Boers retain land due to firepower• Zulu Wars (1870’s) Zulu power crushed by Great Britain

What made Shaka a good leader for the Zulu?

Slave Lives (466)• Faced destruction of villages• Capture in war• Forced marches to inland trade towns or slave pens on the

coast (Deadly 1/3 die)• Slave ships

– As many as 700 could be crammed on to the ships– Dark, unsanitary (18% mortality)

• Middle Passage: voyage to the Americas– Branded, confined, shackled, dysentery, disease, poor treatment– Suicide, resistance, mutiny

What impact did the Middle Passage have the Africans involved? Why would it be seared on the memory of Baquaqua?

Africans in the Americas (466)• Brought to plantations and mines• Plantations: Sugar, rice, cotton, tobacco• The Americas first used Native Americans as slave,

then Africans– Africans were already familiar with herding, metallurgy,

and intensive agriculture• Slaves also served as artisans, street vendors,

servants

Why did Europeans see Africans as a better source of labor than Native Americans?

American Slave Societies (467-468)

• Two divisions– Saltwater slaves: African born, all black– Creole slaves: American born, some mulatto• Given more opportunities for skilled jobs, more likely to be

freed

• Race plays a role in the treatment of slaves in the Americas

• African nobles or religious leaders could retain authority in some slave communities

How would the presence of mixed race slaves impact the system?

The People and Gods in Exile (468-469)• Languages, religion, art, etc. continue in the Americas• Some slave holders try to reduce the African identity by mixing slaves• Slaves continued to live in family units even when marriages were not

recognized.• Religion:

– Spanish and Portuguese slaves converted to Catholicism– N. American and British Caribbean slaves converted to protestant denominations– Many Africans combine Christianity with African religions– Some African religions develop in the Americas:

• Obeah- name given to African religions• Brazil: Candomble• Haiti- Vodun

• Resistance and Rebellion– Communities of runaways develop (Palamares- Brazil)– Suriname Maroons- group of runaways that resisted in the rainforest

How is religion impacted by the slave trade?In what ways did Africans resist slavery?

End of the Slave Trade (469-470)• End was a result of economic, political, and

religious changes in Europe and the Americas – Enlightenment, Christian revivalism, Industrial

Revolution• Opponents of slavery emerge mid 18th century

– Jean Jacques Rousseau, Adam Smith• England: John Wesley and William Wilberforce

lead abolition movements– In the end, the abolition of slavery had more to do

with new philosophies and moral pressure than changes in economy.

• Slavery ends in the Americas in 1888 when Brazil abolishes slavery

What ends the Atlantic Slave Trade?

Mohommah Gardo Baquaqua

• With a partner, look at Mohommah’s life story at the beginning of Chapter 20.

• Draw a picture that shows Mohommah or a representation of his life.

• The picture should include 5 objects that symbolized experiences in his life.

• On the back, explain the symbols and how they connect to 5 important components of the Atlantic Slave Trade and its impact.