THE TRANSATLANTIC
SLAVE TRADE
• 800 YEARS AFTER THE East African trade
• The Transatlantic slave trade may have
involved between 11 and 20 million Africans.
The Captives
Physical & Psychological
Scared, frightened, powerless,
helpless, terrified, anguished,
humiliated, angry, vulnerable,
determined, and defiant.
The main area where African’s were
captured was the West coast of Africa
in modern day countries: Ghana, Togo,
Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, Gabon,
Congo and Angola.
*Ghana had the most trading forts
• The Capture of African peoples was controlled by
powerful African traders and the reasons varied:
1) Some captives were taken as a byproduct of war.
2) Some were kidnapped during raids.
3)Some were sold into slavery as punishment for
committing crimes or practicing witch –craft.
4) Some were offered as tribute to enemies
The Journey
• Initial encounters between
captors and captives were
brutal.
• Many captives died during their
struggle and those who
survived were forced to march
to the coast in chains.
• Journey’s from the interior to
the coast could last weeks and
even months.
Enslavement
•
Europeans used their own rigid concepts of civilization to justify the manipulation and abuse
of Africans. They considered the achievements of European civilization to be the most
important. Because African societies and culture were unfamiliar, Europeans denounced the
continent as barbaric and overrun with savage tribes and religious despotism. These racist
beliefs would later be used as a justification for colonial activity in Africa.
• Africans sold other Africans by choice
because they stood to gain from it. Coercion
and seduction took place. The advent of
white people introduced the ideology of
race to slavery. Europe justified its brutality
on the basis of its ‘natural’ superiority to
black people.
• Slave forts were established all along the
coast of West Africa to house captured
Africans in holding pens awaiting
transport. Also, to defend European
interests on the coast by keeping
competitors at bay, they were equipped
with up to a hundred guns and cannon.
They all have the same basic design; with
narrow windowless stone dungeons for
captured male and female Africans and
fine European residences. In other cases,
the enslaved Africans were kept on board
the ships until sufficient were captured,
waiting perhaps for months in cramped
conditions before setting sail.
SLAVE TRADE PORTS
• From the moment of capture the process of
dehumanizing the Africans began. Removing
their clothes was the first step in taking away
their outward identity and reducing them to
the status of cargo.
The Triangle Trade
After dropping their cargo of slaves off in
the New World, Ships would return to
Europe carrying their cargo of raw
materials such as whale oil, Lumber, furs,
rice, silk, indigo, tobacco, sugar
molasses. Wood, fish, livestock, and flour.
The Caribbean
and the
Americas
EUROPE
Manufactured Goods and Luxuries
(ie. Guns, Cloth, Iron, Beer) sailed
from Europe to the West Coast of
Africa and were exchanged for
captured Africans. Raw materials
such as gold, ivory, spices and
hardwoods were sent back to
Europe.
AFRICA
Enslaved Africans crossed the Atlantic Ocean
(aka THE MIDDLE PASSAGE) and were sold
for cash or traded for other goods.
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The Triangle Trade (TT) provided
the money and resources to fuel
the Industrial Revolution in
Europe.
Ships used in the TT were
specially built to maximize profits.
African captives were chained in
the holds for the Atlantic crossing
using two different types of
cargo: 1) Tight Pack, or 2)
Loose Pack
After the ships reached the
colonies, the ships’ holds were
converted to carry as much raw
materials as they could.
Once in Europe, these raw
materials were processed into
manufactured goods and sold for
big profits.
THE MIDDLE PASSAGE
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75% of all Africa’s exports in the 18th century were
enslaved humans - at its height the slave trade
removed 80,000 Africans per annum.
The Middle Passage is the central voyage of the
triangular transatlantic slave trade. It was the ordeal
suffered by millions of enslaved people as they were
carried forcibly from Africa to the Americas.
Enslaved Africans were packed in unbelievably hot,
cramped conditions in the hold of the ship. They were
kept below decks; men, women and children
separated. The men were usually kept shackled, handcuffed in pairs by their wrists and with iron leg-rings
riveted around their ankles. Frequently they had so
little space they could only lie on their sides. They
could not sit or stand up: headroom was only 2 feet 8
inches (68 cm).
• The physical conditions, fear and
uncertainty left many totally traumatized
and unable to eat. There were revolts on
one in ten slave voyages. Most were
unsuccessful and put down with brutal
ferocity. Beatings and brandings were
common, as was the abuse of the women
by the ships’ crews. The journeys could last
up to six weeks and sometimes more.
• Disease and brutality took its toll: between
one tenth and one quarter of the enslaved
Africans died on every journey. Even more
died after reaching their destination as a
result of their treatment on the crossing.
• Which European
Power
Transported the
most enslaved
Africans?
Conditions on a Slave Ship
Olaudah Equiano 1745-1797
•
"I was soon put down under the decks, and there I
received such a greeting in my nostrils as I had never
experienced in my life; so that, with the loathsomeness
of the stench, and crying together, I became so sick and
low that I was not able to eat, nor had I the least desire
to taste anything. I now wished for the last friend,
death, to relieve me; but soon, to my grief, two of the
white men offered me eatables; and, on my refusing to
eat, one of them held me fast by the hands, and laid
me across, I think, the windlass, and tied my feet, while
the other flogged me severely. I had never experienced
anything of this kind before; and although, not being
used to the water, I naturally feared that element the
first time I saw it; yet nevertheless, could I have got
over the neetings, I would have jumped over the side,
but I could not.” Olaudah Equiano, 1789
Alexander Falconbridge
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"The deck that is the floor of their rooms, was
so covered with blood and mucus which had
proceeded from them in consequence of the
flux that it resembled a slaughter-house. It is
not in the power of human imagination, to
picture itself a situation more dreadful or
disgusting"
Alexander Falconbridge
"…frequently finds several dead; and among the
men, sometimes a dead and living negroe
fastened by their irons together. When this is
the case, they are brought upon the deck, and
being laid on the grating, the living negroe is
disengaged, and the dead are thrown
overboard"
Alexander Falconbridge
• This morning buried a
woman slave (No. 47). Know
not what to say she died of
for she has not been
properly alive since she first
came on board"
• John Newton
This is a print showing how
Africans were packed into the
slave ship Brookes, with text
recording the dimensions and
amount of space available. It
was commissioned by
Thomas Clarkson from the
abolitionist publisher James
Phillips in 1788, and the
Committee of the Abolition of
Slavery used it to inform and
shock the public. Each person
only had a space 16 inches
(40 cm) wide to lie in and they
could neither sit up fully nor
stand..
• SLAVE AUCTIONS
On arrival the enslaved Africans were
prepared for sale like animals. They were
washed and shaved: sometimes their skins
were oiled to make them appear healthy and
increase their sale price. Depending on where
they had arrived, the enslaved Africans were
sold through agents, by public auction or by a
‘scramble’ in which buyers simply grabbed
whomever they wanted. Sales often involved
measuring, grading and intrusive physical
examination.
Suffering of the Middle Passage
Physically
Psychologically
Emotionally
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From being squeezed into
ships, creating excessively
cramped and crowded
conditions
By being chained and
shackled
By the spread of diseases
such as dysentery,
influenza, measles, and
smallpox
By the oppressive heat
and the barely breathable
air
From seasickness and a
lack of food and water
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Anxiety caused by fear of
the unknown
Inability to communicate
with members of their
own culture
Driven to commit suicide
Being force fed to prevent
them from starving
themselves to death
Watching other captives
being beaten and
tortured or thrown
overboard
Being chained to a dead
captive
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Grief-stricken over
separation from their
families
Mourning the loss of family
members who died
Uncertain about their future
Fear of torture and even
death
The rights of slaves 1764
 Slaves are property and can
be sold
 Slaves must be locked up at
night
 Masters can do as they like with
their slaves
 Slaves must wear a ball and
chain
 Masters must destroy slave
culture
 Slaves cannot become
Christians
 Slaves are given new names
 Slaves can be killed
 Slaves cannot possess
property/sell anything
 Slaves cannot marry
 All blacks are slaves
 Slaves cannot be educated
 Slaves’ children are the
property of the master