Early Modern African Slave Trade

1450-1750

• During the Early Modern period, the growing demand for goods and availability for resources increased demand for labor and demand for higher work output per laborer:

• Effects- Intensified peasant labor/ exploitation of the lowest classes, particularly in colonized regions.

• Increase in slave trade in West and East Africa

• The slave trade of Africa existed long before the rise of plantation slavery. East African slaves were captured and sold along the Swahili coast out through the Indian ocean trade network

• West African Slaves were sold across the Saharan Desert trade Network with the Arab world

• Going East as a slave was generally preferable to heading west, as a slave in the Arab world, your previous skills may be called upon, some basic human rights of slaves were recognized in some regions (ex: if a slave owner impregnated a slave, it was considered his child, there could be fines or punishment for outright maiming or killing of a slave, slaves could by freedom, children were not necessarily enslaved due to their parents status, slaves were incorporated into the owner’s family, ect.)

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• Portuguese settlements (trading post empire) around Africa became major shipping points for a new branch of the African Slave trade as a demand for laborers in the New World Sugar plantations grew.

• Development of the triangular trade

• Reasons for African slave labor being most preferable:• Europeans did not survive at high rates on these

plantations due to climate differences and lack of previous exposure to tropical diseases.

• Indigenous people were dying on a massive scale from genocide, European disease, overwork and suicide.

• African’s had exposure to Eurasian and tropical diseases, came from similar climate zones and therefore were able to survive the working conditions better* than any other group. *Relatively- Average life span for a sugar plantation slave was around 2 years.

• *Unique profile of slaves- healthy working age males were more commonly purchased because of their ability to weather the terrible climate and working conditions. Previously, a majority of slaves were women and children

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Chattel Slavery

• By the 17th century, Slavery in the Americas was no longer an economic status, but an entrenched, racially based social caste. In Chattel slavery, a slave had the same exact legal status as any piece of inanimate property or livestock (wagon, mules, horses ect.) As such their children were deemed legally the product of someone’s personal property, therefore slavery became entirely hereditary and defined by race.

• Effects on Africa• This period of the Slave trade in Africa is known as:

Maafa- or- “Great Disaster”• Also known as the African Holocaust• Africans played a direct role in the slave trade,

selling their captives or prisoners of war to European buyers.[20] The prisoners and captives who were sold were usually from neighboring or enemy ethnic groups

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Effects on Africa Cont.• A database compiled on demographic effects of the Slave trade put the figure

for just the transatlantic slave trade at more than 12 million slaves between the 16th and 19th century

• About 1.5 million died on board ship • About 10.5 million slaves arrived in the Americas • Besides the slaves who died on the Middle Passage, more Africans likely died

during the slave raids in Africa and forced marches to ports. A• round 4 million likely died inside Africa after capture, and many more died

young. 12 million -originally destined for the Atlantic,• 6 million destined for Asian slave markets • 8 million destined for African Markets. • Total number removed from the African Population during this period:• Around 30 million• Decimated the population and culture of many regions of Africa for centuries

CCOT

• What were the changes and continuities (social, economic, geographic) seen in the slave trade from 700-1750 CE

• DUE FRIDAY, FEBRURARY 13th