The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade

VocabularyAbolitionist: a person who advocated that the institution of slavery be done away with.Avaricious: Greedy for money.Commandeer: To take possession of by force.Commerce: The buying and selling of commodities (goods & services); trade.Mutiny: The willful refusal to obey authority; a revolt against one’s superiors.Slaver: A ship or person engaged in transporting slaves

Movie Clips Introduction: Slave Ship

African slavery & slavery in the Americas

African slavery was more like European serfdom. It was harsh servitude, but they still had rights.African slavery was used by Europeans to justify the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

Africa: why here?Not the only source of slaves: “Slavs,”

Caucasus, Balkans, Mediterranean Europe, indentures

Geography: Old WorldMarket logic (?) accessibility + iron +

agriculture + disease immunitiesLow population (uneven)Desire for imported goods (see below)Alternative exports: GOLD, ivory,

tropical hardwoods

Impact on AfricaNew Atlantic food crops: maize, cassava, peanuts

Local use of slaves Land/population ratios (“wealth in people”)Military (slave raiding)“Legitimate trade “ production and transport

Import goods“Luxury” consumer goods: cloth, beadsWeapons: HORSES, sword blades, armor, GUNS“Currency”: cowry shells Tools: machetes, iron bars

African Slavery Lacked two elements that slavery in the America’s had.

The desire for massive profits that comes from agribusiness.

Reducing the slave to less than human status based solely on race (ethnicity).

Slavery in the Colonies

Why didn’t colonists enslave the Indians?

How does the answer of the above question explain the choice to import black slaves?

“…where whites and blacks found themselves with common problems, common work, common enemy in their master, they behaved toward one another as equals.” (Zinn, 1997, p. 27)

Trans-Atlantic Trade RouteOne of the most profitable business in the world.

Lasted approximately 400 years.39,000 voyages from Africa to the Americas (South, Central & North America)

Largest forced migration

QuickTime™ and aSorenson Video 3 decompressorare needed to see this picture.

Chronology and Numbers**all somewhat approximate

Atlantic: 1450-1860 11-12 million

Mediterranean: 700-1900 6-7 million

Indian Ocean (and Red Sea)800-1900 2-3 million

Economics: MediterraneanDomestic service

concubinageeunuchs:A eunuch is a castrated man; the term usually

refers to those castrated in order to perform a specific social function, as was common in many societies of the past. The earliest records for intentional castration to produce eunuchs are from the Sumerian cities of Lagash in the 21st century BC [citation needed]. Over the millennia since, they have performed a wide variety of functions in many different cultures such as courtiers or equivalent domestics, treble singers, religious specialists, government officials, military commanders, and guardians of women or harem servants.

Military serviceagriculture (Sahara, Nile Valley)

Economics: Indian OceanDomesticMilitary (Yemen, Gulf, India-”Habshi”)

Agriculture (Gulf; “Zenj rebellion” Basra 869–883)

*Pearl Fishing (Gulf)

Dhow (sailing craft) crews

Economics 1. AtlanticPlantation system:

SUGAR, coffee, rice, indigo, tobacco & cotton

Mediterranean & Western Africa to New World, Caribbean & Brazil

Triangular trade (+ India)

Navigation: “Middle Passage”

Receiving zones: New World U.S. vs. Brazil/Caribbean

U.S.: under 10% of slave trade, high population, less explicitly

“African” cultural impact

Brazil/Caribbean: 90+% of slaves lower population (Brazil “mulatto

category), very explicit “African” culture

Why different demographic patterns? Sugar vs. other labor/climate regimes (2/3 male

imports)acculturation (?)

Oxum Bahia (Brazil)

Santeria Altar Havana

Receiving zones: Islamic WorldGenerally less visible

Demography of migrations: numbers, intensity, gender,

disease/climate

Demography of deployment: domestic vs. labor projects

Austen, Ralph A. African Economic History: Internal Development and External Dependency (London: James Currey, 1987).

*Austen, Ralph A., The Trans-Saharan World: Africa’s Great Desert as a Highway of Commerce and Civilization (NY: Oxford, forthcoming)

Clarence-Smith, William Gervase (ed.). The Economics of the Indian Ocean Slave Trade in the Nineteenth Century (London: Cass, 1989)

*Curtin, P. Rise and Fall of the Plantation Complex (Cambridge, Cambridge U. Press, 1998).

Fenoaltea, Stefano. "Europe in the African Mirror “The Slave Trade and the Rise of Feudalism," Rivista di storia economica XV, no. 2 (August 1999), 123-165.

**Gomez, Michael. Reversing Sail : a History of the African Diaspora  Cambridge: Cambridge U. Press, 2005.

*Hunwick, John O. and Eve Trout Powell. The African Diaspora in the Mediterranean Lands of Islam. Princeton: M. Wiener, 2002.

Savage, Elizabeth (ed.), The Human Commodity: Perspectives on the Trans-Saharan Slave Trade (London: Cass, 1992).

*Thornton, John. Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World (ambrdie:P Cambridge U. Press,1998)

William and Mary Quarterly, LVIII, 1 (2001) “New Perspectives on the Atlantic Save Trade”

Bibliography