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Atlantic Slave Trade

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The Atlantic slave trade (Atlantic slave trading) was the purchase and transport of black Africans into bondage and servitude in the New World. It is sometimes called the Maafa by African and African-American scholars, meaning holocaust or great disaster in kiSwahili. The slaves were one element of a three-part economic cycle—the Triangular Trade and its infamous Middle Passage—which ultimately involved four continents, four centuries and the lives and fortunes of millions of people. Research published in 2006 http://www.livescience.com/history/060131_first_slaves.html reports the earliest known presence of African slaves in the New World. A burial ground in Campeche, Mexico suggests slaves had been brought there not long after Hernán Cortés completed the subjugation of Aztec and Mayan Mexico. Contemporary historians estimate that some 10 to 12 million individuals were taken from Africa to Europe, North, Central, the Caribbean Islands and South America by European colonial/imperialist powers. [[Citing sources citation needed]]

Contents

Labor and Slavery

The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade originated as a shortage of labour in the new world. The first slaves used by European colonizers were Indigenous peoples of the Americas 'Indian' peoples, but they were not numerous enough and quicjly decimated by European diseases, agricyltural breakdown and harsh regime. It was also difficult to get Europeans to emigrate to the colonies, despite incentives such as indentured servitude or even distribution of free land (mainly in the English colonies that became the United States). Massive amounts of labour were needed, initialy mainly for mining, and soon even more for the plantations in the labor-intensive growing, harvesting and (semi-)processing of sugar (also for rum and molasses), cotton and other prized tropical crops which could not be grown profitably - in some cases, could not be grown at all - in the colder climes of Europe. It was also cheaper to import these goods from American colonies than from regions within the Ottoman Empire. To meet this demand for labour European traders thus turned to Western Africa (part of which became known as 'the Slave coast') and later Central Africa into a major source of fresh slaves.

The Beginning

The first slaves were snatched from West Africa and brought to Portugal in 1441, but the practice of 'kidnapping' slaves died out quickly as Europeans made contact with African kingdoms that boasted well established slave markets dating back or beyond the Trans-Saharan Slave Trade with the Muslim world. The first slaves to be brought to the New World arrived in 1502 at the island of Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and Dominican Republic).

Slaving Regions

There were eight principal areas used by Europeans to buy and ship slaves to the Western Hemisphere.

Distribution by Slaving Region

The number of slaves sold to the new world varied throughout the slave trade. The minimum and least disputed number is 10 million. As for the distribution of slaves from regions of activity, the most widely accepted statistics [[Citing sources citation needed]] claim Senegambia provided about 5.8%, Sierra Leone 3.4%, Windward Coast 12.1%, Gold Coast 14.4%, Bight of Benin 14.5%, Bight of Biafra 25%, Central Africa 23% and Southeast Africa 1.8%.

Trade Versus Capture

As a rule [[Citing sources citation needed]], sleaves were captured by fellow Africans in tribal wars, in many cases even started with a view to the capture of the human commodity- given the modest prices they asked, African labor was clearly considered abundant, not very valuable. African slaves were transported from these markets to the coast and sold at European trading forts in exchange for muskets and manufactured goods such as cloth or alcohol. This practice proved easier to pursue than mounting their own capture expeditions since Europeans were rarely in an ideal position to war against the well established states especially in the largely unexplored, medically unsafe interior. In fact, the majority of European conquests occurred toward the end or right after the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. An exception to this fact is the conquest of Ndongo and Kongo in Angola where warriors, citizens and even nobility were taken into slavery after the fall of the state.

War and Slavery

Europeans bought slaves who were captured in wars between African kingdoms and chiefdoms. In many cases, Europeans tried to instigate wars knowing there would be a flood of slaves on the market in the aftermath. Africans were very rarely kidnapped by Europeans because they could not penetrate the interior. The danger of fatal disease was ever-present and the coastal areas were dominated by powerful warrior kingdoms with well-trained armies. Such was the kingdom of Dahomey one of whose kings was reputed to have an income 5 times that of the most wealthy British Duke from selling neighboring Africans. Enslavement became a major by-product of war in Africa as nation states expanded through military conflicts. During such periods of rapid state formation or expansion (Asante or Dahomey being good examples), slavery formed an important element of political life long before the coming of Europeans. Conviction of a crime was another way to become a slave. Since most if not all of these nations did not have a prison system, convict slaves were often sold.

African Versus European Slavery

Slavery in the rigid form which existed in Europe and throughout the New World was not practiced in Africa nor in the Islamic Orient. "Slavery", as it is often referred to, in African cultures generally amounted more to indentured servitude: "slaves" were not made to be chattel of other men, nor enslaved for life. Similar arguments were used by western slave-owners during the time of abolition, for example by John Wedderburn in Wedderburn v. Knight, the case that ended legal recognition of slavery in Scotland in 1776. Regardless of the legal options open to slave-owners, rational cost-earning calculation and/or voluntary adoption of moral restraints often tended to mitigate (not with traders, who preferred to weed out the worthless weak individuals) the actual fate of slaves throughout history, often even resulting in a better socio-economic position and survival rate then the poorest freemen (e.g. in poorhouses), who often also suffered cruelties including physical punishments that many slaves were spared.

African Kingdoms of the Era

There were over 173 city-states and kingdoms in the African regions affected by the slave trade between 1502 and 1853 when Brazil became the last Atlantic import nation to outlaw the slave trade. Of those 173, no less than 68 could be deemed "nation states" with political and military infrastructures that enabled them to dominate their neighbors. Nearly every present-day nation had a pre-colonial forbearer that European traders had to barter with and eventually war against. Below are 38 nation states by country with populations that correspond to African-Americans:

African Peoples of the Slave Trade

The different ethnic groups brought to the Americas closely corresponds to the regions of heaviest activity in the slave trade. Over 45 distinct ethnic groups were taken to the Americas during the trade. Of the 45, the ten most prominent according to slave documentation of the era are listed below.

  1. The Gbe Speakers of Togo and Benin (Adja, Mina, Ewe, Fon)
  2. The Mbundu of Angola (includes Ovimbundu)
  3. The BaKongo of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola
  4. The Igbo of Nigeria
  5. The Yoruba of Nigeria
  6. The Akan of Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire
  7. The Mande Speakers of Upper Guinea
  8. The Wolof of Senegal
  9. The Chamba of Nigeria
  10. The Makua of Mozambique

The Cost in Life

It is estimated that the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade involved some 30 million Africans from start to finish. Half of them would die in Africa as a result of combat or waiting for months in coastal "factories". The slaves were then loaded into extremely cramped ships and given only minimal amounts of food and water. The horrific Middle Passage as it is called killed 3 million Africans as a result of torture, malnutrition, disease and even infighting between slaves of warring ethnic groups. Treatment improved little upon reaching their destination as Africans were herded into "Seasoning Camps" located throughout the Caribbean. Jamaica boasted one of the most brutal of these camps operated by the British. Before being shipped off to the mainland or even local plantations on the islands, the slaves were tortured into submission in an attempt to break the will to resist. Another 2 million would die in these camps. By the end of the process, two Africans died for every one that successfully arrived culminating in a minimum of 20 million dead over 351 years.
Slave ship: from Thomas Clarkson's 1786 "Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of Human Species"
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Slave ship: from Thomas Clarkson's 1786 "Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of Human Species"

New World Destinations

African slaves were brought to Europe and the Americas to supply cheap labor. Central America only imported around 200,000. Europe topped this number at 300,000, North America, however, imported 500,000. The Caribbean was the second largest consumer of slave labor at 4 million. South America, with Brazil taking the lion's share of the slaves, imported 4.5 million before the end of slavery.

European Competition

The first Europeans to bring slaves to the New World were the Spaniards who desired workers for their mines and sugar plantations on the island of Hispaniola (what is now Haiti/Dominican Republic).When the Dutch seized much of Brazil and became the dominant trading power in seventeenth century, they became the leading traders selling slaves to their own colonies as well as to British and Spanish ones. As Britain rose in naval power and controlled more of the Americas, they became the leading slave traders, mostly operating out of Liverpool and Bristol. By the late 17th century, one out of every four ships that left Liverpool harbour was a slave trading ship [[Citing sources citation needed]]. Other British cities also profited from the slave trade. Birmingham was the largest gun producing city in Britain at the time, and guns were traded for slaves. 75% of all sugar produced in the plantations came to London to supply the highly lucrative coffee houses there.

Reproduction of a handbill advertising a slave auction in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1769.
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Reproduction of a handbill advertising a slave auction in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1769.
The slave trade was part of the triangular Atlantic trade, which was probably the most important and profitable trading route in the world. Ships from Europe would carry a cargo of manufactured trade goods to Africa. They would exchange the trade goods for slaves which they would transport to the Americas. In the Americas, they would sell the slaves and pick up a cargo of agricultural products, often produced with slave labour, for Europe. The value of this trade route was that a ship could make a substantial profit on each leg of the voyage. The route was also designed to take full advantage of prevailing winds and currents. For example, the trip from the West Indies or the southern US to Europe would be assisted by the Gulf Stream. The outward bound trip from Europe to Africa would not be impeded by the same current.

Even though since the Renaissance some ecclesiastics actively pleaded slavery to be against the Christian teachings, as now generally held, others supported the economically opportune slave trade by church teachings and the introduction of the concept of the black man's and white man's burdens (Rudyard Kipling). Under this black men were expected to labour because they were not Christian and white men were charged with the duty of imposing the conditions of labour upon them.

Economics of Slavery

Slavery was involved in some of the most profitable industries of the time: 70% of the slaves brought to the new world were used to produce sugar, the most labour intensive crop. The rest were employed harvesting coffee, cotton, and tobacco, and in some cases in mining. The West Indian colonies of the European powers were some of their most important possessions and they went to extremes to protect and retain them. For example, in 1763, France agreed to giving the vast colony of New France in exchange for keeping the minute Antillian island of Guadeloupe (still a French overseas département).

By far the most successful West Indian colonies in 1800 belonged to the United Kingdom. After entering the sugar colony business late, British naval supremacy and control over key islands such as Jamaica, Trinidad, and Barbados and the territory of British Guiana gave it an important edge over all competitors; while many lost their shirt, some made enormous fortunes, even by upper class standards. This advantage was reinforced when France lost its most important colony, St. Dominigue (western Hispaniola, now Haiti), to a slave revolt in 1791 and supported revolts against its rival Britain, after the 1793 French revolution in the name of liberty (but in fact opportunistic selectivity). The British islands produced the most sugar, and the British people quickly became the largest consumers of sugar. West Indian sugar became ubiquitous as an additive to Chinese tea. Products of American slave labour soon permeated every level of British society with tobacco, coffee, and especially sugar all becoming indispensable elements of daily life for all classes.

End of the Atlantic slave trade

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In Britain, and in other parts of Europe, opposition developed against the slave trade. Led by the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) and establishment Evangelicals such as William Wilberforce, the movement was joined by many and began to protest against the trade, but they were opposed by the owners of the colonial holdings. Denmark, who had been very active in the slave trade, was the first country to ban the trade through legislation (1792) that took effect in 1803. Britain banned the slave trade in 1807, imposing stiff fines for any slave found aboard a British ship. That same year the United States banned the importation of slaves. The Royal Navy, which then controlled the world's seas, moved to stop other nations from filling Britain's place in the slave trade and declared that slaving was equal to piracy and could be punished by death.

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For the British to end the slave trade, significant obstacles had to be overcome. In the 18th century, the slave trade was an integral part of the Atlantic economy: the economies of the European colonies in the Caribbean, the American colonies, and Brazil required vast amounts of man power to harvest the bountiful agricultural goods. In 1790 the British West Indies, islands such as Jamaica and Barbados had a slave population of 524,000 while the French had 643,000 in their West Indian possessions. Other powers such as Spain, the Netherlands, and Denmark had large numbers of slaves in their colonies as well. Despite these high populations more slaves were always required. Harsh conditions and demographic imbalances left the slave population with well below replacement fertility levels. Between 1600 and 1800 the English imported around 1.7 million slaves to their West Indian possessions. The fact that there were well over a million fewer slaves in the British colonies than had been imported to them illustrates the conditions in which they lived.

Before the Second World War the abolition movement was primarily studied by British scholars who believed that the anti-slavery movement was probably "among the three or four perfectly virtuous pages ... in the history of nations" (Lecky, cited in Thomas 1997, p.798).

This opinion was controverted in 1944 by the West Indian historian, Eric Williams, who argued that the end of the slave trade was a result of economic transitions totally unconnected to any morality. Williams' thesis was soon brought into question as well, however. Williams based his argument upon the idea that the West Indian colonies were in decline in the early 19th century and were losing their political and economic importance to Britain. This decline turned the slave system into an economic burden that the British were willing to do away with.

The main difficulty with this argument is that the decline only began to manifest itself after slave trading was banned in 1807. Before then slavery was flourishing economically. The decline in the West Indies is more likely to be an effect of the suppression of the slave trade than the cause. Falling prices for the commodities produced by slave labour such as sugar and coffee can be easily discounted as evidence shows that a fall in price leads to great increases in demand and actually increases total profits for the importers. Profits for the slave trade remained at around ten percent of investment and showed no evidence of being on the decline. Land prices in the West Indies, an important tool for analyzing the economy of the area did not begin to decrease until after the slave trade was discontinued. The sugar colonies were not in decline at all, in fact they were at the peak of their economic influence in 1807.

Williams also had reason to be biased. He was heavily involved in the movements for independence of the Caribbean colonies and had a motive to try to extinguish the idea of such a munificent action by the colonial overlord. A third generation of scholars lead by the likes of Seymour Drescher and Roger Anstey have discounted most of Williams' arguments, but still acknowledge that morality had to be combined with the forces of politics and economic theory to bring about the end of the slave trade.

The movements that played the greatest role in actually convincing Westminster to outlaw the slave trade were religious. Evangelical Protestant groups arose who agreed with the Quakers in viewing slavery as a blight upon humanity. These people were certainly a minority, but they were a fervent one with many dedicated individuals. These groups also had a strong parliamentary presence, controlling 35-40 seats at their height. Their numbers were magnified by the precarious position of the government. Known as the "saints" this group was led by William Wilberforce, the most important of the anti-slave campaigners. These parliamentarians were extremely dedicated and often saw their personal battle against slavery as a divinely ordained crusade.

After the British ended their own slave trade, they felt forced by economics to press other nations into placing themselves in the same economic straitjacket, or else the British colonies would become uncompetitive with those of other nations. The British campaign against the slave trade by other nations was an unprecedented foreign policy effort. Denmark, a small player in the international slave trade, and the United States banned the trade during the same period as Great Britain. Other small trading nations that did not have a great deal to give up, such as Sweden, quickly followed suit, as did the Dutch, who were also by then a minor player.

Four nations objected strongly to surrendering their rights to trade slaves: Spain, Portugal, Brazil (after its independence), and France. Britain used every tool at its disposal to try to induce these nations to follow its lead. Portugal and Spain, which were indebted to Britain after the Napoleonic Wars, slowly agreed to accept large cash payments to first reduce and then eliminate the slave trade. By 1853 the British government had paid Portugal over three million pounds, and Spain over one million in order to end the slave trade. Brazil, however, did not agree to stop trading in slaves until Britain took military action against its coastal areas and threatened a permanent blockade of the nation's ports in 1852.

For France, the British first tried to impose a solution during the negotiations at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, but Russia and Austria did not agree. The French people and government had deep misgivings about conceding to Britain's demands. Not only did Britain demand that other nations ban the slave trade, but also demanded the right to police the ban. The Royal Navy had to be granted permission to search any suspicious ships and seize any found to be carrying slaves, or equipped for doing so. It is especially these conditions that kept France involved in the slave trade for so long. While France formally agreed to ban the trading of slaves in 1815, they did not allow Britain to police the ban, nor did they do much to enforce it themselves. Thus a large black market in slaves continued for many years. While the French people had originally been as opposed to the slave trade as the British, it became a matter of national pride that they not allow their policies to be dictated to them by Britain. Also such a reformist movement was viewed as tainted by the conservative backlash after the revolution. The French slave trade thus did not come to a complete halt until 1848.

See also

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Notes

References

  • Anstey, Roger: The Atlantic Slave Trade and British abolition, 1760-1810. London: Macmillan, 1975.
  • Clarke, Dr. John Henrik: Christopher Columbus and the Afrikan Holocaust. Slavery and the Rise of European Capitalism
  • Diop, Er. Cheikh Anta: Precolonial Black Africa: A Comparative Study of the Political and Social Systems of Europe and Black Africa
  • Drescher, Seymour: From Slavery to Freedom: Comparative Studies in the Rise and Fall of Atlantic Slavery. London: Macmillan Press, 1999.
  • Emmer, P.C.: De Nederlandse slavenhandel 1500-1850 [The Dutch Slave Trade 1500-1850]. Amsterdam and Antwerpen: Uitgeverij De Arbeiderspers, 2000.
  • Franklin, John Hope: From Slavery to Freedom
  • Rodney, Walter: How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Howard University Press; Revised edition, 1981.
  • Thomas, Hugh: The Slave Trade: The History of the Atlantic Slave Trade 1440 - 1870. London: Picador, 1997.
  • Williams, Chancellor: Destruction of Black Civilization
  • Williams, Eric: Capitalism & Slavery. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994.

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