What was impact of the slave trade on African societies?

• Rodney: Europe underdeveloped Africa• Fage: Slave trade helped to control population growth• Archaeology provides:

– necessary social scientific generalization to balance historical particulars

– Long-term view to trace continuity and change and put Atlantic slave trade into better context

– Provides a view from inside African societies largely missing from documentary record

Slave trade in SenegambiaSusan Keech McIntosh

• Islamic Saharan slave trade was larger than most think• transformed smaller-scale Senegambian societies into complex

chiefdoms/states, especially Jolof/Wolof empire• Linguistic study shows Mandé governing terminology for

Chief (Farba) and slave (Jamm) date to this era• Pre-Atlantic Slavery tied to competitive acquisition of prestige

– Slaves labored in fields, mines, and hauling for trade, also in military providing owners access to wealth used to enhance prestige

• One sign of this is elite burials which contain sacrificed servants: taking slaves to afterlife

• Analysis of servant teeth show poor childhood nutrition: caries and hypoplasies

Archaeology of Atlantic trade in Senegambia• Tobacco pipes explode in

numbers, likely derived from Moroccan sources at end of 16th century

• Pottery shows significant decline in quality– Extremely porous paste

because of use of organics for temper: weak and friable pots

– Limited range of vessel forms– Sharp decline in decoration– Decline in labor investment:

time-consuming elements such as crushing and sieving pottery temper and kneading clay were eliminated

• Social distress caused by slave trade and collapse of Jolof empire: ie. greater social and political unrest and restrictions

Pre-Atlantic Trade

Post-Atlantic Trade

Archaeology of Atlantic trade in Senegambia, con’t

• Upper Senegal River in 18th and 19th centuries, directly connected to Atlantic trade by French and British expeditions

• Pre-Atlantic-era: region was sparsely populated.• Tata: fortified elite residences at higher elevations.

Overlooking plages, commoner/slave residences on valley floors

• Settlement system emerged as elite adopted large-scale commercial agriculture and slave raiding to compete with and supply European traders

• Archaeology also shows domesticated animals (sheep/goat and cattle) and a rise in alcoholic beverage bottles: prestige efforts?

Banda, Ghana 1300-1925Anne Brower Stahl

“Frontier community” between southern forest states (Akan, Asante) and Saharan trading empires

Study Area

Banda, Ghana• Early site: Kuulo Kataa, occupied 1300-1650• Likely manufacturing center for pottery and iron tools, serving

Begho a large trading entrepôt connecting forest states to trans-Sahara trade

• Cosmopolitan associations• Fauna: wide ranging and diverse

– Long-distance: Lion, leopard, hippo, warthog, forest primates– Local: tortoise, lizard, rodents

• Flora:– Local and imported crops: tobacco, maize

• Artifacts– Huge pottery mounds, iron slag– Trade goods: copper (north), gold weights (south), marine shells, glass beads

(coast)

Banda, Ghana• Later site: Makala Kataa. History:

– Early Makala, 1750-1820– Hiatus, 1820-1890– Late Makala, 1890-1920

• Conflict between Begho and rising Asante state disrupted area in late 17th Century

• Banda chiefdom re-unified in late 18th century with shared multi-ethnic authority with chieftancy passing back and forth between factions

• Early Makala Kataa established as part of Asante expansion, connecting Banda population to Atlantic trade in slaves, gold, agricultural products

• Conflict in region after 1820 disrupted communities again• Late Makala Kataa, resettled after British stabilized the region and

expelled Samroi jihad. Site abandoned as part of British led sanitation/rationlization scheme in 1920s that invokved forced relocation of rural communities

Banda, Ghana• Changes at Makala Kataa in Banda during the 19th century are

similar to those in Senegambia• Ceramics

– Early MK: Neutron activation shows jars were from clays on west side of Banda hills, bowls were from closer east side

– Late MK: no jars, all pottery from closer eastern clay source sites

– imported iron pots replace jars– Clay tobacco pipes reveal parallel trading network to

pottery vessels, increasing specialization• Fauna:

– Early and Late MK: local species dominate• Flora:

– Early and Late MK: Maize dominant domesticate

Banda, Ghana• Housing:

– Early MK: multi-purpose L-shaped mud brick buildings and compounds

– Late MK: smaller “pole and daga” ephemeral/temporary huts, arranged as individual freestanding houses

• Artifacts:– Early MK: suggest domestic production of most needs with

pottery and iron artifacts revealing connection local trade networks, few European goods

– Late MK: more restricted local trade combined with surge in European produced goods: white clay tobacco pipes, bottle glass, glass beads

• Pattern shows decrease in local production and trade, replaced with individualized household focus tied directly to inter-continental market exchange

Clark and Blake: the power of prestige

• AGGRANDIZERS (Big Men)– self-interest and the accumulation of prestige

• Alliance vs. domination: cultivation of followers– gift-exchange and social debt

• Internal competition and factionalism• External/regional relations

– From marriage to trade

– Development of local exclusivity, enhancing prestige and increasing competition

• Peer-polity interaction sphere

Barra Phase ceramics

Mazatan, Mexico

Increased value with new imported technology but maintained

traditional gourd forms

Clark and BlakeCounter-intuitive processes

• Population concentration – Vs. population pressure

• Technology: Ceramics– moves from complex to simple

• Agriculture: Maize– focused on prestige/social status vs.

subsistence

Location of Savi and the Hueda kingdom and surrounding cities

Historical context of Hueda and Savi• Slave Coast coastal state• Under domination of inland Allada kingdom in 16th

and 17th century• Late 17th century increase in demand for slaves for

New World plantations supported Hueda independence

• Capital at Savi became powerful international trading center

• Savi palace housed Hueda elite, weekly market, and trading lodges of the English, Dutch, Portuguese, and French.– Only African capital to house traders from multiple nations

• Conquered by Dahomey Kingdom in 1727

Central Area of Savi.

Str. 710

Chain and shackles for confinement of slaves at Savi. Structure 710. Found in situ with larger storage jars

Palace at Savi.• Brick paving in select

rooms: – few artifacts, public

rooms• Concentration of key

European trade goods: – European and Chinese

fine ceramics – firearms– fine glassware– alcoholic beverage

bottles• Tobacco pipes and beads

found in all Savi households

Ditch system at Savi• Extensive system of

ditches enclose the palace center

• Large: 10-70m wide; up to 220m long, up to 8m deep

• Causewayed, meandering layout: poor defensive structure

• Possible effigy of Dangbe: python deity

Temple of Dangbe in Ouidahfrom Chaudoin (1891:343).

• Dangbe is supreme deity, associated with weather, fertility, the control of movement, and the transition between social categories

• Dangbe defended Savi by protecting the rivers at its borders

• Procession of King to Dangbe temple was most sacred ceremony on Huedan calendar

Procession to the Temple of Dangbe from Des Marchais (1731: Plate 7).

Huedan coronation ceremony. Note the conical python shrine in the center of the

palace courtyardfrom Des Marchais (1731:plate 4).

Appropriation of Dangbe after defeat of Hueda

• Savi conquered and destroyed by Dahomey kingdom in 1727

• Dahomey incorporate Dangbe deity in form of Dan Ayido Houédo: rainbow serpant

• Also constructed ditch system surrounding at Abomey

Ogundiran, Of Small Things Remembered: Beads and Cowries

• Study of Bight of Benin on Slave Coast before and during slave trade

• Shows the connection between imports, political power, and culture change, emphasizing strategic indigenous continuities

• No region consumed nearly as many cowries as Slave Coast.

• Tracing connections between cowries and local transformations caused by the slave trade.

Ogundiran, Of Small Things Remembered: Beads and Cowries

• Exotic trade beads were sumptuary objects

• Used to display status, materialize alliances, and reward hard work on behalf of the king (p.436)

• Archaeology has identified a bead production factory at Yoruba kingly center of Ile-Ife: “attached specialists”

Ogundiran, Of Small Things Remembered: Beads and Cowries

• Cowries date to 1500s, and explode in numbers after 1600

• Indian Ocean origin, Portuguese transport

• Used as currency in Allada and Yoruba hinterlands

• Monopolized by aggrandizing Oyo and Dahomey empires

Why Cowrie Currency?

• State control of Atlantic trade economy

• Managed all parties through a common standardized medium used for collecting taxes, tribute, tolls, and fines

• Supported “ever increasing volume and variety of trade goods” (p. 439)

• Could not be counterfeited

Why Cowrie Currency?

• Cowries were unifying agent during time of stressful change (Atlantic and slave trades)

• Cowries were used by all people, not just elites and merchants. – Used for brideprice, tribute, other debts

• Cowries intimately connected to vast increase in slave trade after 1630 through the Allada port.

• Cowries were slave money

Cowrie Mythology

• Elite Myth– Oba Eresoyen (1735-37) made peace with Ocean

deity, Olokun, creating a balance between land and sea

– Olokun transformed from sea and fishermen’s deity to god of wealth, giver of children, deity of traders, source of all life

– Could be seen as sanctioning European presence and slave trade

Cowrie Mythology

• Non-elite Myth– Tied to slavery and human-cowrie conversion– Cowries as fished from the ocean with slave

corpses as bait– Quote, bottom p. 443 as indictment of monarch– Vulture/buzzard sacralization:

• Bringing cowries to women in the market• symbolizing greed, death, and destruction wrought by

merchant economy• Illustrates mutual interdependency by tying destruction

to creation in the form of the market and women

Self-Realization and Individualization

• Cowries are not sumptuary goods, they also symbolized – “the new men and women and new wealth, people

… [with] the potential to challenge the old political order”

• Simultaneous elaboration of private individualized deities:– Orí; representing “the spiritual inner head”

• Ibori shrines: conical cowrie covered leather containers stored in Ile Orí

Ile Ori House of Head

Triumph of Orí• By the late 19th century Ori was the most

universal deity• Came to assign to the deities “their different

functions”, a transformation that revels the depersonalization of market exchange

• The market was shifting to be about the production of wealth rather than the exchange of goods

• cowries as money helped smooth the ruptures this process caused.

Triumph of Cowrie• Cowrie wealth flowed independent of state and

lineage control

• It was rather under individual control

• Cowries and the market challenged traditional social relations of production

• Men pulled to new market towns, women’s textile production gives them new power

• Cowries increased freedom and insecurity and must be rationalized

Feminization of cowries• Marketing of previously domestically-produced cloth

prompted a separation in divinations• Òpèlè=male divination chain of palm and iron links• Eerindinlogun= female divination of cowries• Associated with Osun (diviner of cowries), who

saved the life of Orunmila, who in turn granted her a seat at the pantheon

• Only female deity in pantheon• Osun is tied to rise of women as traders in cloth and

as creators of wealth in Yoruba societies• Osun associated with imports: cloth, beads, brass,

cowries and drank only maize beer