CHAPTER. 1= / G L O B A L C O M M E R C E . 689

Commerce in People: The Atlantic Slave Trade

Of .ill [lit? commercial ties that linked the early modern world into a global networkof excli.inge, none had more profound or enduring human consequences than the

Atlant ic slave trade. Between isoo and 1866. this trade in humankind took an esti-mated I 2 . S million people from Afr ican societies, shipped them across the Atlantic

in the infamous Middle Passage, and deposited some 10.7 million of them in the

AnuTic.is. where they lived out their ot ten brief lives as slaves. About i .S million

( 1 4 . 4 percent) died during the transatlantic crossing, while countless millions more

perished in the process ol capture and transport to the African coast.1 ' (See Map i s . 4

and Documents: Voices ot the Slave Trade, pp. 700-09. tor various perspectives trom

the slave trade.)Beyond the multitude ot individual tragedies that it spawned—capture and sale,

displacement from home cultures, forced labor, beatings and brandings, broken

families — the Atlantic slave trade transformed the societies of all of its participants.Within A f r i ca itself,some societies were thoroughly disrupted, others were strength-ened, and many were corrupted. Elites were otten enriched, while the slaves them-selves, ot course, were vict imized beyond imagination.

Map 15.4 The Atlant icSlave TradeStimulated by the plantationcomplex of the Americas,the Atlantic slave trade represented an enormousextension of the ancientpract ice of people owningand selling other people

. -*' "r - '• i- ~T-~ .-*;'I I Regions of origin

I I Regions of destination

Transat lant ic slave t rade routes

Other slitve t rade routes - .EUROPE

: _ -NORTH,AMERICA . Jangrer\ <*.fclc,l!iiiriincnii .S,-,i ' \B

\ I/T •_ _.-•'"•» .' ""«—. ' \T

\ / / vjTrnitf-Salmran SI arc Trade / ~^.

V-

SOUTHAMERICA

BFL^ZIL

1**"" In t l iL Rericas, the slave trade added a substantial African presence to the mix

ot European and Native American peoples.This African diaspora (the transatlanticspread of African peoples) injected into these new societies issues of race that endurestill in the twenty-first century. It also introduced elements of African culture, such

as religious ideas, musical and artistic traditions, and cuisine, into the making ofAmerican cultures. The profits from the slave trade and the forced labor of African

slaves certainly enriched European and Euro-American societies, even as the practice

of slavery contributed much to the racial thinking of European peoples. Finally, slav-ery became a metaphor for many kinds of social oppression, quite different fromplantation slavery, in the centuries that followed. Workers protested the slavery of wage

labor, colonized people rejected the slavery of imperial domination, and feministssometimes defined patriarchy as a form of slavery.

The Slave Trade in Context

The Adantic slave trade and slavery in the Americas represented the most recent large-scale expression of an almost universal human practice — the owning and exchange ofhuman beings. With origins in the earliest civilizations, slavery was widely accepted

j as a perfectly normal human enterprise and was closely linked to warfare and cap-

ture . Before r_soo , the Mediterranean and Ind ian Ocean basins were the major arenasot the Old World slave trade, and southern Russia was a major source ot slaves. ManyAfrican societies likewise both practiced slavery themselves and sold slaves into these

international commercial networks. A trans-Saharan slave trade had long funneledAfr ican captives into Mediterranean slavery, and an East African slave trade broughtAfricans into the Middle East and the Indian Ocean basin. Both operated largelywithin the Islamic world.

Furthermore, slavery came in many forms. Although slaves were everywherevulnerable "outsiders" to their masters' societies, in many places they could beassimilated into their owners' households, lineages, or communities. In some places,

children inher i t ed the slave status ot their parents; elsewhere those ch i ld ren werefree persons. Within the Islamic world, the preference was for female slaves by a two-to-one margin, while the later Atlantic slave trade favored males by a similar margin.Not all slaves, however, occupied degraded positions. Some in the Islamic worldacquired prominent military or political status. Most slaves in the premodern worldworked in their owners' households, farms, or shops, with smaller numbers laboringin large-scale agricultural or industrial enterprises.

The slavery that emerged in the Americas was distinctive in several ways. One was

simply the immense size of the traffic in slaves and its centrality to the economies ofcolonial America. Fur the rmore , this New World slavery was largely based on p lan-

ta t ion agriculture and treated slaves as a fo rm ot dehumanized property, lackung anyrights in the society of their owners. Slave status throughout the Americas was inher-ited across generations, and there was little hope of eventual freedom for the vastmajority. Nowhere else, with the possible exception of ancient Greece, was widespreadslavery associated with societies affirming values of human freedom and equality.

iVrhaps most distinctive \v;is the racial dimension: Atlantic s law. --'came to be i d e n t i -fied whol'v with A f r i i r . i and wi th "blackness. How did t h i s exceptional fo rm ol ' s lav -

The o r i g i n s of Atlantic slavery clearly l i e HI Hi t Mediterranean world ,md \ v i t hi l i . u in. i \n sweetener known as sugar. Until the Crusades. Europeans knewn o t h i n g ot sugar and rel ied on honey and I r m t s tu sweeten t h e i r b l a n d die i s . How-

ever, .is t h e y l e a r n e d f r o m the Arabs a b o u t s u g a r c a n e and the l abo r ious t e c h n i q u e s

for prod IK. i n » > usable sugar . Europeans established sugar-producing plantations w i t h i nt i n - 1 M e d i t e r r a n e a n a n d l a t e r o n v a r i o u s i s l a n d s < > l t t h e coast ofWest A f r i c a . I t w a s a"modern industry , perhaps the f i r s t one. in tha i u required huge capi ta l investment.

substantial technology, an almost factory-like discipl ine among workers, and a massmarket of consumers. The immense difficulty and danger of the work, the l i m i t a t i o n sa t t a c h e d to seil labor, and the general absence of waye workers all pointed 10 slavery

as ,1 source ot labor lor sugar p lan ta t ions .Initially, Slavic-speaking peoples from the B lack Sea region l u r n i s h e i l the b u l k o(

the slaves for Mediterranean p l an t a t i ons , so much so t h a t "Slav" became the basis lor

the word "slave" in m a n y European languages. I n I 4 S 1 . however, when the < )i t omanTurks seized Constantinople, the supply ol Slavic slaves was effectively cm off At t h e

same t ime. Portuguese m a r i n e r s were explor-

i n g the coast ofWest A f r i c a ; they were l o o k i n gp r i m a r i l y fo r gold, bu t they also f o u n d there.in a l t e r n a t i v e source of slaves avai lab le f o r sale .Thus, when sugar, and later tobacco and cot-ton. p l a n t a t i o n s took hold in the A m e r i c a s .Europeans hod a l ready established l i n k s to a

West A f r i c a n source of supp ly .Large ly through a process ol e l i m i n a t i o n .

A f r i c a became the p r i m a r v source o t s lave

labor tor t l i e p l a n t a t i o n economies o l theAmericas. S lav ic peoples were no longeravai lable ; Native A m e r i c a n s quickly perishedf rom European diseases: marginal Europeanswere Chr i s t inns and therefore supposedly

exempt from slavery; and European inden-tured servants were expensive and temporary.Afr icans , on the other hand, were skilled farm-

ers; they had some i m m u n i t y to both tropical

and European diseases; they were not Chris-n a n s : t h e y were, r e l a t i v e l y s p e a k i n g , close a t

hand : and they were readi ly avai lable in sub-stant ia l numbers through Afr ican-opera ted

commercial networks.Moreover, Africans were black. The precise

relationship between slavery and European /n

racism has long been n much-debated subject. Historian David Brion Davis has sug-gested the controversial view that "racial stereotypes were transmitted, along withblack slavery itself, from Muslims to Christians." iy For many centuries, Muslims had

drawn on sub-Saharan Af r i ca as one source of slaves and in the process had developeda tonn ot racism. The fourteenth-century Tunisian scholar Ibn K h a l d u n wrote thatblack people were "submissive to slavery, because Negroes have little that is essentially

human and have a t t r ibu tes that are qui te similar to those of dumb animals."20

Other scholars find the origins of racism within European cu l ture itself. For theEnglish, argues historian Audrey Smedley, the process ot conquering Ireland had gen-

erated by the sixteenth century a view of the Irish as "rude, beastly, ignorant, cruel,

and u n r u l y infidels," perceptions that were then transferred to Africans enslaved onEnglish sugar p lanta t ions of the West Indies."' Whether Europeans borrowed such

images of Africans from the i r Muslim neighbors or developed them independently,

s lavery and racism soon went hand in hand. "Europeans were better able to toleratet h e i r b ru t a l explo i ta t ion of Africans," writes a prominent world h i s t o r i an , "by imag-i n i n g that these Afr icans were an i n f e r i o r race, or be t t e r s t i l l , not even human."""

The Slave Trade in Practice

The European demand for slaves was clearly the chief cause of this tragic commerce,and from the point of sale on the Afr ican coast to the massive use of slave labor on

American plantations, the entire enterpr ise was in European hands. Within Africai t se l f , however, a different picture emerges, for over the four centuries of the Atlanticslave trade, European demand elicited an African supply. A few early efforts by thePortuguese at slave raiding along the West African coast convinced Europeans thatsuch efforts were unnecessary and unwise, for African societies were qui te capableot defending themselves against European intrusion, and many were willing to sellthe i r slaves peacefully. Fur thermore, Europeans died like flies when they entered the

interior because they lacked immuni t ies to common tropical diseases.Thus the slavetrade quickly came to operate largely with Europeans waiting on the coast, eitheron their ships or in fortified settlements, to purchase slaves from African merchantsand pol i t ica l elites. Certainly Europeans tried to exploit African rivalries to obtainslaves at the lowest possible cost, and the firearms they tunneled into West Africa maywell have increased the warfare from which so many slaves were derived. But fromthe point of in i t i a l capture to sale on the coast, the entire enterpr ise was normally

in Afr ican hands. Almost nowhere did Europeans attempt outr ight military con-quest; instead they generally dealt as equals with local African au thor i t i e s .

An arrogant agent ot the Br i t i sh Royal Afr ica Company in the r f i S o s learned the

hard way who was in control when he spoke improperly to the king ot N i u n u . a small

s ta te in wha t is now Gambia.The company's records describe what happened next:

the grandees [ot the king], by name Sambalama, taught him better man-eaching him a box on the ears, wh ich beat oft" his hat, and a few t h u m p s '

on the back , and seizing him, disarmed h i m together wi th the rest of his a t t en -dance. Limong which was Benedict Stafford, commander of the Mfiyiin-t... (whomade h i ? escape and ran l i ke ;i lusty fellow to his ship) ;md several ci thers, who

together wi th the agent were taken and put i n t o the kind 's pound and stayedthere th ree or four days t i l l t h e i r ransom was brought , v a l u e five hundred bars."'1

In exchange for slaves. A f r i c a n sellers sought both European and I n d i a n textiles,cowrie shells (widely used as money in West A f r i c a ) , European m e t a l goods, f i r e a r m sand gunpowder, tobacco and a lcohol , and va r ious decorative i tems such as beads.Europeans purchased some of these i t ems — cowrie she l l s and I n d i a n t ex t i l e s , for

example-—with silver m i n e d in the Amer i ca s .Thus the s lave trade connected w i t hcommerce in silver and textiles as it became part of an emerging worldwide networkof exchange. Issues about the precise mix ot goods A f r i c a n au thor i t i e s desired, about

the number mid quality of slaves to be purchased, and always about the price of every-t h i n g were se t t led in end less n e g o t i a t i o n (see D o c u m e n t i s . 2 , pp. 703-05). In mostplaces most of the t ime, a l ead ing schola r c o n c l u d e d , the slave trade took place "not

u n l i k e international t r ade anywhere m the wor ld ol r h e period.""If Af r i can a u t h o r i t i e s and e l i t e classes m m a n y places control led t h e i r side of

the slave trade, on occasion they were almost overwhelmed by it. Many small-scalekinship-based societies, lacking the protection of a strong state, were thoroughly dis-rupted by raids from more powerfu l neighbors. Even some s izable states were desta-

bi l ized. In the early s i x t e e n t h cen tury , the k ingdom of Kongo, located most ly in

present-day Angola, was badly damaged by the commerce in slaves and the au thor -in,.' of its ru ler severely undermined (see Document i s . 3 , pp. 705-07).

Whatever the re la t ionsh ip between European buyers and A f r i c a n sellers, for theslaves themselves—who were seized in the interior,often sold several times on the har-rowing journey to the coast, sometimes branded, and held in squal id slave dungeonswhile awaiting transportation to the New World — it was any th ing but a normal com-

mercial transaction (see Document 15 .1 , pp. 700-03). One European engaged in thetrade noted tha t "the negroes are so wijjful and loath to leave thei r own country, thatthey have often leap'd out ot the canoes, boat, and ship, in to the sea, and kept underwater till they were drowned, to avoid being taken up and saved by our boats.""-"

Over the four cen tur ies of the slave trade, millions of A f r i c a n s underwent somesuch experience, but t he i r numbers var ied considerably over t ime. During the six-teenth century, slave exports from Africa averaged under 3,000 annual ly. In thoseyears, the Portuguese were at least as much interested in Af r ican gold, spices, and

textiles. Furthermore, as in Asia, they became involved in t ranspor t ing Af r i cangoods, i n c l u d i n g slaves, from one A f r i c a n port to a n o t h e r , thus beconiing the "truck

drivers"of coastal West A f r i c a n commerce." ' In the seventeenth century, the pacepicked up as the slave trade became highly competit ive, with the Br i t i sh , Dutch, andFrench contesting the earlier Portuguese monopoly.The century and a half between1700 and iSso marked the h igh po in t of the slave t rade as the pla 1 \on economies

of the Americas boomed (see the Snapshot on p. f i < ; 4 ) . y

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not investing in the productive capacities of Afr ican societies. Al though Europeanimports generally did not displace traditional artisan manufactur ing, no technolog-ical breakthroughs in agriculture or industry increased the wealth available to these

societies. Maize and manioc (cassava), introduced from the Americas, added a newsource of calories to African diets, but the international demand was for Africa'speople, not its agricultural products.

Within particular African societies, the impact of the slave trade differed consid-

erably from place to place and over time. Particularly in small-scale societies that werefrequently subjected to slave raiding and that had little centralized authori ty , inse-

curity was pervasive. Oral traditions in southern Ghana, for example, reported that

"there was no rest in the land," that people went about in groups rather than alone,and that mothers kept their children inside when European ships appeared."''1 Somelarger kingdoms such as Kongo and Oyo slowly disintegrated as access to trading

opportunities and firearms enabled outlying regions to establish their independence.However, African authorities also sought to take advantage of the new commercialopportunities and to manage the slave trade in their own interests, as the contrasting

experience of the neighboring kingdoms of Benin and Dahomey illustrates.30

The kingdom of Benin, in the forest area of present-day Nigeria, was one of theoldest and most highly developed states in the coastal hinterland of West Afr ica , dat-

ing perhaps to the eleventh century C.E. Its capi ta l was a large walled city wi th wideavenues, a lavish court, a wealthy elite, and a powerful monarch, or oha, who s t r ic t ly

controlled the country's trade. Benin's uniqueness lay in its relativelysuccessh.il efforts

to avoid a deep involvement in the slave trade and to diversify the exports with whichit purchased European firearms and other goods. As early as 1516, the oba began torestrict the slave trade and soon forbade the export of male slaves al together, a banthat lasted until the early eighteenth century. By then, the oba's authori ty over out-lying areas had declined, and the country's major exports of pepper and cotton clothhad lost out to Asian and then European competition. In these circumstances, Benin

felt compelled to resume limited participation in the slave trade. But even at the

height ot the trade, in the late eighteenth century, Benin exported fewer than 1,000slaves a year.

Among the Aja-speaking peoples to the west of Benin, the s i tua t ion was verydifferent.There the slave trade had thoroughly d is rupted a series ot small and weakstates along the coast. Some distance inland, the kingdom of Dahomey arose in theearly eighteenth century, at least in part as an effort to contain the constant raidingand havoc occasioned by the coastal trade. It was a unique and highly author i tar ian

state in which commoners and chiefs alike were responsible directly to the king andin which the power of lineages and secret societies was considerably weakened. For atime, Dahomey tried to limit the external slave trade, to import European craf tsmen,and to develop plantation agriculture within the kingdom, but all this fa i led. I n viewot hostile relations with the neighboring kingdom of Oyo and others. Dahomeyinstead turned to .1 vigorous involvement in the slave trade, under str ict royal control.

The army conducted a n n u a l slave raids, and the government soon came to dependon the trade for its essential revenues. Unlike in Benin, the slave trade in Dahomey

became the chief business ot the state and remained so u n t i l well into the n ine teenth

century.

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