AP World History
POD #11 – Transatlantic Slave Trade
Gold Coast & Slave Coast
Class Discussion Notes
Bulliet – “Africa, the Atlantic, and
Islam”, pp. 520-525
Assessing the Slave Trade
 “Any assessment of the Atlantic system’s effects in
Africa must take into consideration the fact that some
Africans profited from the trade by capturing and selling
slaves. They chained slaves together or bound them
to forked sticks for the march to the coast, then
bartered them to the European slaves for trade goods.
The effects on the enslaver were different from the
effects on the enslaved. Finally, a broader
understanding of the Atlantic system’s effects in subSaharan Africa comes from comparisons with the
effects of Islamic contacts.” (Bulliet, p. 520)
Slave Trade in Africa
 African kings and merchants sold slaves and goods at
many coastal cities, but the growing slave trade did not
lead to substantial European colonization
 Although slaves were the most valuable export from
Africa, gold, ivory and timber were still important
 African merchants were very particular about the goods
they would accept, if the quality was not good or in
demand locally European merchants found it very
difficult to make a profit
 Africans were interested in acquiring textiles, hardware,
and guns
 Both Europeans and Africans would engage in “shady”
business practices in an attempt to gain the best deal
Cost of Slaves
 African bargaining power increased as
the demand for slaves in the New World
grew
 In addition, slaves were in high demand
in Africa
 The cost for purchasing a slave began to
double and even triple or quadruple in
the 18th century
Slave Traders
 African governments demanded that European slave
merchants observe local African trading customs and
procedures
 The slave merchants were prohibited from taking
control of African territory (they had no real interest in
this as it was the slaves that earned profits)
 Slave merchants had to pay local kings large customs
duty before they were allowed to engage in the slave
trade
 Rivalries developed between the European nations
involved in the trade
Bight of Biafara
 “Using a network of markets and inland routes, regional
merchants supplied supplied European slave traders at
the coast with detbors, victims of kidnapping, and
convicted criminals. As the volume of the Atlantic trade
along the Bight of Biafra expanded in the late
eighteenth century, some inland markets evolved into
giant fairs with different sections specializing in slaves
and imported goods. In the 1780s an English ship’s
doctor reported that African merchants collected slaves
at fairs in the interior and that groups of twelve hundred
to fifteen hundred enslaved men and women were then
sent to the coast from a single fair.” (Bulliet, p. 522)
Atlantic Slave Trade
 The majority of the African slaves were
men who were desired for their physical
strength for labor on the North and South
American plantations
Islamic Slave Trade
 Most African slaves in the Islamic world were
soldiers and servants
 Unlike the Americas, most of the African slaves
taken to the Islamic world were women who
served wealthy families as concubines,
domestic servants and entertainers
 The Trans-Saharan slave trade also included a
much greater number of children
Slave Trade & African
Population
 Even at the peak of the slave trade in 1700, subSaharan Africa’s overall population remained very large
 Localities that contribute heavily to the slave trade,
such as the lands near the Slave Coast, suffered acute
losses
 The ability of a population to recover from losses was
related to the proportion of fertile women who were
shipped away. The fact that Africans sold fewer
women than men into the larger Atlantic trade
somewhat reduced the long-term demographic effects
of this larger trade.
(Bulliet, p. 525)