empires of slavery the americas
TRANSCRIPT
Empires of Slavery: The Americas
Slave Trade❖Slaves used by Europeans came from Africa. ❖Why did they need to import labour from so far away? ❖Demographic catastrophe hit Native Americas after Europeans arrived.
❖Destruction, disease, cruelty made indigenous population was severely reduced. ❖Islands of Caribbean were exterminated. ❖Slaves were often POWs or convicted criminals.
Slave Trade
❖Children inherited status of slave (born into it). ❖Portuguese arrived on the west coast of Africa in 15th century, they encountered slavery and slave trade.
Slave Trade
❖Three distinct trade routes.
❖Trans-Sahara route took slaves from western and sub-Saharan Africa across the desert to ports on Mediterranean.
❖Timbuktu, slaves were exchanged for luxury goods (horses, spices, perfumes).
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❖Other slaves were shipped to the Persian Gulf, Arabia, eastern Mediterranean and India. ❖Slaves for the Red Sea route came primarily from the valley of the Nile and the Horn of Africa and were taken to coastal towns where they were sold.
Slave Trade
❖Third route sent slaves taken from East Africa across the Indian Ocean. ❖2/3 of all slaves were women who became domestic slaves or concubines.
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❖In addition, large numbers of Europeans were taken captive and enslaved by North African Muslims. ❖Between 1580 and 1680, about 850 000 Christians were taken as slaves to Africa north of the Sahara.
Slave Trade
❖Most of these people were captured by Muslim pirates in the Mediterranean.
Slave Trade
❖Trans-Atlantic slave trade reached its peak from 1650 to 1807. ❖British, French, and Dutch were principle traders. ❖During the 18th century, British ships carried half of all slaves. ❖Until 1710, main destinations in Caribbean were Barbados and other islands of Lesser Antilles.
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❖Rest of 1700s, destinations included Jamaica and Saint Domingue (Haiti). ❖North America was a relatively minor destination – but slavery important in Maryland and Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, and Louisiana.
Slave Trade
❖1807, Great Britain and United States abolished slave trade, but still carried out in Cuba and Brazil. ❖These 2 destinations received more than 3 million slaves during this period (28% of the total!)
Slave Trade
❖Slave trade was a business. ❖Places of origin were mainly coastal regions, Angola and Kingdom of Kongo (45%), and Gold Coast (Ghana). ❖Often POWs – especially after Kongo civil wars (1680-1740).
Slave Trade
❖Many slaves from Kongo were Christians, persecuted for religious beliefs. ❖People in West Africa were also enslaved for debt and crimes such as murder, adultery, witchcraft, kidnapping, and slave raiding.
Slave Trade
❖Trans-Atlantic trade could not have existed without co-operation of Africans. ❖European merchants established trading centres mainly on African coast (not inland).
Slave Trade
❖Journey from Africa to America was known as the Middle Passage. ❖Crammed into slave ships with little concern for welfare, Africans died in large numbers before reaching America.
Slave Trade
❖Mortality rate between 10 and 20 percent (more than 1 million people).
Slave Trade
Slavery in Americas❖Not equally important in all colonies. ❖North – largely accompanied economic structures. ❖South (Brazil, Caribbean) – foundation of social and economic system.
❖Slaves were property like other goods according to European legal systems (“goods and chattels”). ❖Could be sold; marriage and parenthood among slaves had no legal standing. ❖Children of slaves were also slaves under English law.
Slavery in Americas
❖Under French and Portuguese law, the child of a slave mother inherited the mother’s condition. ❖Enslaved women were sometimes sexually assaulted by whites, and they had no recourse before the law.
Slavery in Americas
❖The French had no comprehensive set of laws governing the status and treatment of slaves until 1685. ❖Louis XIV issued the “Black Code,” which remained in force until the French Revolution. ❖Here are some of the original articles from 1723 revision:
The Code Noir
…we owe our care equally to all the people who Divine Providence has put under our obedience… and [desire] to make them know that, although they inhabit climates infinitely removed from our own, we are always with them…
The Code Noir
1. All the slaves on our islands will be baptized and instructed in the Roman, Catholic and Apostolic religion… 4. We enjoin our subjects…to observe Sundays and religious holidays by not working nor making their slaves work on said days…on pain of…punishment of the masters and confiscation of any slaves caught by officials at work…
The Code Noir
5. We prohibit our white subjects of either sex from marrying blacks, on pain of…punishment and fine… 7. We very expressly prohibit priests from performing marriage ceremonies between slaves unless they have the consent of their masters. We also prohibit masters from coercing slaves to marry against their will.
The Code Noir
8. All children born from marriages between slaves will be slaves… 9. We desire that when a male slave marries a free black woman, all the children will inherit the condition of their mother and be free, and if the father is free and the mother a slave, the children will be slaves…
The Code Noir
23. …In no circumstance may a slave be made to testify for or against his/her master… 26. The slave who strikes his master, his mistress, the husband of his mistress or their children, so as to leave a bruise or draw blood, or on the face, will be sentenced to death.
The Code Noir
27. Verbal excesses committed by slaves against free people will also be punished by death. 42. We want to mention that when a husband, wife and children who have not yet reached puberty belong to a single master, they may not be seized and sold separately.
The Code Noir
❖British colonies, slaves were not sole source of labour. ❖Large number came as servants from Britain, Ireland, and other European countries (16th and 17th centuries). ❖Signed contract to work for specific master (usually between 4 and 7 years). ❖At the end of the contract, they became free and could acquire land of their own.
Slavery in Americas
❖Slaves were always black, indentured (contract) servants white. ❖Second half of 17th century – sharply defined rigid racial distinctions. ❖Maryland and Virginia: interracial marriage and sexual relations was a crime.
Slavery in Americas
❖Virginia passed a law allowing a master to kill a slave while administering punishment. ❖18th century, colonies prohibited masters from freeing slaves. ❖Property of slaves was confiscated and masters were permitted to mutilate disobedient slaves.
Slavery in Americas
❖Characteristic economic unit of most slave societies was plantation.
Slavery in Americas
❖Large land + large numbers of slaves to produce crops for export to Europe: tobacco, cotton, rice, and coffee. ❖Most important plantation crop – sugar. ❖Mining was also important in some places.
Slavery in Americas
Slave Resistance❖Began before they boarded slave ships and continued throughout journey to Americas. ❖Some Africans tried to jump overboard, others went on hunger strikes and were tortured so they would eat.
Slave Resistance❖According to Alexander Falconbridge, the doctor on a British slaver: ❖Upon Negroes refusing to take sustenance, I have seen coals of fire, glowing hot, put on a shovel and placed so near there lips as to scorch and burn them. And this has been accompanied by threats of forcing them to swallow the coals if they any longer persisted in refusing to eat.”
❖There were also frequent attempts to take over the slave ships (possibly affecting up to 10% of all ships). ❖Hundreds of slave revolts from 17th – 19th centuries. ❖Only the revolt in Saint Domingue (Haiti) in 1791 succeeded in abolishing slavery entirely.
Slave Resistance
❖Escaping was common. ❖Usually fled to Canada where slavery was not legal or remote locations where owners would not follow. ❖Most effective resistance was conducted on a daily basis.
Slave Resistance
❖Slaves would work slowly, steal or destroy property, commit physical violence against whites. ❖Vast majority of rebels and runaways were males. ❖Females rebelled by doing domestic duties poorly, fake illness, poison owners.
Slave Resistance
❖Most successful form of resistance was creation of own culture. ❖Includes music, language, and religion, all based on African forms. ❖Legacy has done much to enrich and define the cultures in the Americas and the Caribbean.
Slave Resistance
❖Example: African religion Voodoo, practised primarily in French colony of Saint Domingue, Cuba, and Brazil. ❖Name comes from Vodun, the religion practiced in Ouidah and Allada (Benin).
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❖Voodoo gods could be invoked for protection and vengeance. ❖Gods could communicate with the believer through possession. ❖Voodoo hymns were entirely in African languages. ❖French authorities banned Voodoo.
Slave Resistance
Abolitionism❖During late 18th century movement brought together Blacks and whites to demand abolition of the institution. ❖Move to abolish slavery assumed dimensions of a religious and political crusade, first in Britain, then other countries. ❖Quakers and evangelical Protestants argued against the evils of slavery.
❖1807, United States and Britain abolished slave trade. ❖British abolished slavery in their possessions in 1833. ❖Underground Railroad developed as a result of civil unrest that spirited fugitives to Canada.
Abolitionism
❖Between 1776 and 1823, all the colonies on the mainland of the Americas, south of the current US-Canadian border, became independent nations. ❖US abolished slavery in 1863, Cuba in 1886, and Brazil in 1888.
End of Slavery in Americas
❖After 1840s, Cuba remained an extremely important market for Spanish-manufactured goods. ❖Spanish government passed the Moret Law (1870), which granted conditional freedom to the children of slaves born after it came into effect.
End of Slavery in Americas
❖Slavery was recognized in the Constitution of the United States for the purpose of taxation and representation. ❖Extension of slavery became a major issue in domestic politics during the 1840s and 1850s and slavery was a major cause of the Civil War (1861-1865).
End of Slavery in Americas
❖President Abraham Lincoln was concerned with keeping the union together: ❖“A house divided against itself cannot stand…I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.”
End of Slavery in Americas
❖It was during the Civil War that Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation (1863). ❖Two years later, Congress passed the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution abolishing slavery entirely :)
End of Slavery in Americas
❖Wherever slavery had existed, its elimination raised a crucial question: What would replace slave labour? ❖In the US South, agricultural labour continued to be provided by former slaves.
After Slavery
❖They were legally free, but failure to provide them with an adequate economic compensation after emancipation left them open to being caught in sharecropping.
After Slavery
❖Under this system, African Americans rented land from white landowners and paid them a share of the crop (usually half). ❖Many fell quickly into debt, which they couldn’t repay, and they were forced to remain on the land. ❖Plantation owners found a new supply of labour in immigrants from southern Europe.
After Slavery