Slavery in the New World
At the end of the 14th century Europeans started to take people from Africa against their will. Initially,
they were mainly used as servants for the rich. The Europeans justified the taking of slaves by
arguing that they were providing an opportunity for Africans to become Christians. By the 17th
century the removal of slaves from Africa became a holy cause that had the full support of the
Christian Church.
When Spanish and Portuguese sea-captains began to explore the Americas they took their African
servants with them. Some of these Africans proved to be excellent explorers. The most important of
these was Estevanico, who led the first European expedition to New Mexico and Arizona.
The people living in the Americas resisted the attempt by the Europeans to take over their land. One
of he most important struggles took place in Cuba in 1512. The Cubans, led by Chief Hatuey, were
eventually defeated by the superior weapons of the Spanish.
It is estimated that over a million people lived in Cuba before the arrival of the Europeans. Twenty-five
years later there were only 2,000 left. Large numbers had been killed, while others died of starvation,
disease, committed suicide or had died from the consequences of being forced to work long hours in
the gold mines.
After the arrival of the Europeans there was a sharp decline in the local population of most of the
islands in the Caribbean Sea. This created a problem for the Europeans as they needed labor to
exploit the natural resources of these islands. Eventually the Europeans came up with a solution: the
importation of slaves from Africa. By 1540, an estimated 10,000 slaves a year were being brought
from Africa to replace the diminishing local populations.
British merchants became involved in the trade and eventually dominated the market. They built
coastal forts in Africa where they kept the captured Africans until the arrival of the slave-ships. The
merchants obtained the slaves from African chiefs by giving them goods from Europe. At first, these
slaves were often the captured soldiers from tribal wars. However, the demand for slaves becomes
so great that raiding parties were organized to obtain young Africans.
An estimated 15 million Africans were transported to the Americas between 1540 and 1850. To
maximize their profits slave merchants carried as many slaves as was physically possible on their
ships. A House of Commons committee in 1788 discovered that one slave-ship, The Brookes, was
originally built to carry a maximum of 451 people, but was carrying over 600 slaves from Africa to the
Americas.
Chained together by their hands and feet, the slaves had little room to move. It has been estimated
that only about half of the slaves taken from Africa became effective workers in the Americas. A large
number of slaves died on the journey from diseases such as smallpox and dysentery. Others
committed suicide by refusing to eat. Many of the slaves were crippled for life as a consequence of
the way they were chained up on the ship.
By the 17th century slaves could be purchased in Africa for about $25 and sold in the Americas for
about $150. After the slave-trade was declared illegal, prices went much higher. Even with a deathrate of fifty percent, merchants could expect to make tremendous profits from the trade.
American settlers soon found tobacco to be a profitable export crop. It was popular in Europe where
tobacco-smoking and snuff-taking had become fashionable. In Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina,
vast areas were given over to tobacco.
Plantation owners imported large numbers of slaves to cultivate it, dry its leaves and pack it to be
transported to market. When prices fell in the middle of the 17th century, some planters turned to
producing rice and sugar cane.
During the 17th century Europeans began to establish settlements in the Americas. The division of
the land into smaller units under private ownership became known as the plantation system. Starting
in Virginia the system spread to the New England colonies. Crops grown on these plantations such as
tobacco, rice, sugar cane and cotton were labor intensive. Slaves were in the fields from sunrise to
sunset and at harvest time they did an eighteen hour day. Women worked the same hours as the
men and pregnant women were expected to continue until their child was born.
European immigrants had gone to America to own their own land and were reluctant to work for
others. Convicts were sent over from Britain but there had not been enough to satisfy the tremendous
demand for labor. Planters therefore began to purchase slaves. At first these came from the West
Indies but by the late 18th century they came directly from Africa and busy slave-markets were
established in Philadelphia, Richmond, Charleston and New Orleans.
The death-rate amongst slaves was high. To replace their losses, plantation owners encouraged the
slaves to have children. Child-bearing started around the age of thirteen, and by twenty the women
slaves would be expected to have four or five children. To encourage child-bearing some population
owners promised women slaves their freedom after they had produced fifteen children.
A large number of early settlers in America grew cotton. To grow cotton and to pick gin (remove
seeds from the white fluff) and bale it took a great deal of work. Therefore, large numbers of slaves
were purchased to do this work.
The industry was given a boost invention of Eli Whitney's Cotton Gin in 1793. With the aid of a horse
to turn the gin, a man could clean fifty times as much cotton as before. This increased the demand for
slaves. For example, in 1803 alone, over 20,000 slaves were being brought into Georgia and South
Carolina to work in the cotton fields.
Much of this cotton was exported to Britain where the invention of the Spinning Jenny, the Water
Frame and the Power Loom had rapidly increased the demand for raw cotton. By 1850 America was
producing 3,000,000 bales of cotton and the industry had become a vital element of the South's
economy.
The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade
A brief review of the triangular trade with particular reference to recent statistics.
For two hundred years, 1440-1640, Portugal had a monopoly on the export
of slaves from Africa. It is notable that they were also the last European country to abolish the
institution - although, like France, it still continued to work former slaves as contract laborers, which
they called libertos or engagés à temps. It is estimated that during the 4 1/2 centuries of the transAtlantic slave trade, Portugal was responsible for transporting over 4.5 million Africans (roughly 40%
of the total). During the eighteenth century however, when the slave trade accounted for the transport
of a staggering 6 million Africans, Britain was the worst transgressor - responsible for almost 2.5
million. (A fact often forgotten by those who regularly cite Britain's prime role in the abolition of the
slave trade.)
Africans had been traded as slaves for centuries -- reaching Europe via the Islamic-run, transSaharan, trade routes. Slaves obtained from the Muslim dominated North African coast however
proved to be too well educated to be trusted and had a tendency to rebellion.
Between 1450 and the end of the nineteenth century, slaves were obtained from along the west coast
of Africa with the full and active co-operation of African kings and merchants. (There were occasional
military campaigns organized by Europeans to capture slaves, especially by the Portuguese in what
is now Angola, but this accounts for only a small percentage of the total.) In return, the African kings
and merchants received various trade goods including beads, cowrie shells (used as money), textiles,
brandy, horses, and perhaps most importantly, guns. The guns were used to help expand empires
and obtain more slaves, until they were finally used against the European colonisers. The export of
trade goods from Europe to Africa forms the first side of the triangular trade.
Trans-Atlantic exports by region
1650-1900
Number of slaves
accounted for
%
Senegambia
479,900
4.7
Upper Guinea
411,200
4.0
Windward Coast
183,200
1.8
Gold Coast
1,035,600
10.1
Blight of Benin
2,016,200
19.7
Blight of Biafra
1,463,700
14.3
West Central
4,179,500
40.8
470,900
4.6
Region
South East
Total
10,240,200 100.0
Data derived from tables 1.1, 3.2, 3.4, 4.1 and 7.4
as presented in:
Transformations in Slavery
by Paul E. Lovejoy
Cambridge University Press, 2000,
ISBN 0-521-78430-1
The transport of slaves from Africa to the Americas forms the middle passage of the triangular trade.
Several distinct regions can be identified along the west African coast, these are distinguished by the
particular European countries who visited the slave ports, the peoples who were enslaved, and the
dominant African society(s) who provided the slaves.
So, for example, Senegambia includes the Wolof, Mandinka, Sereer and Fula; Upper Gambia has the
Temne, Mende, and Kissi; the Wndward Coast has the Vai, De, Bassa, and Grebo. (A forthcoming
article will look in more detail at the people and kingdoms involved in the slave trade.)
Slaves were introduced to new diseases and suffered from malnutrition long before they reached the
new world. It is suggested that the majority of deaths on the voyage across the Atlantic - the middle
passage - occurred during the first couple of weeks and were a result of malnutrition and disease
encountered during the forced marches and subsequent interment at slave camps on the coast.
Conditions on the slave ships were terrible, but the estimated death rate of around 13% is lower than
the mortality rate for seamen, officers and passengers on the same voyages. (Again, a forthcoming
article will discuss 'mortality rates of the trans-Atlantic slave trade'.)
As a result of the slave trade, five times as many Africans arrived in the Americas than Europeans.
Slaves were needed on plantations and for mines and the majority was shipped to Brazil, the
Caribbean, and the Spanish Empire. Less than 5% traveled to the Northern American States formally
held by the British.
The third, and final, leg of the triangular trade involved the return to Europe with the produce from the
slave-labor plantations: cotton, sugar, tobacco, molasses and rum.
Trans-Atlantic imports by region
1450-1900
Number of slaves
accounted for
%
Brazil
4,000,000
35.4
Spanish Empire
2,500,000
22.1
British West Indies
2,000,000
17.7
French West Indies
1,600,00
14.1
British North America and United States
500,000
4.4
Dutch West Indies
500,000
4.4
Danish West Indies
28,000
0.2
200,000
1.8
Region
Europe (and Islands)
Total
11,328,000 100.0
Data derived from table II as presented in:
The Slave Trade
by Hugh Thomas
Simon and Schuster, 1997,
ISBN 0-68481063-8
Traders set out from European ports towards Africa's west coast. There they bought people in
exchange for goods and loaded them into the ships. The voyage itself generally took 6 to 8 weeks.
Once in the Americas, those Africans who had survived the journey were off-loaded for sale and
put to work as slaves. The ships returned to Europe with goods such as sugar, coffee, tobacco,
rice and later cotton, which had been produced by slave labor.
The triangle, involving three continents, was complete. European capital, African labor and
American land and resources combined to supply a European market.
Even before the first Africans were brought to the shores of Virginia in 1619, the slave trade had
become the basis for most aspects of the Atlantic economy. The Middle Passage across the Atlantic
became the essential part of a system of trading routes between Europe, Africa, and North America.
The exchange of goods along these routes became known collectively as the triangular trade.
Developed primarily by sea captains from England and New England, ships in the triangular trade
carried goods between Europe, Africa, and the new world, although not necessarily in that order.
The triangular trade system was highly successful because each region produced goods which were
not produced elsewhere, and therefore were considered extremely valuable to the others, hence
netting a great profit for the seamen who transported these goods.
England produced both textiles and manufactured goods which were not available in either North
America or Africa. These products, along with rum obtained from New England would be traded in
Africa for slaves and various riches such as gold and silver. Next, England would trade slaves and
their domestic goods to the West Indies, where sugar and molasses were available. From there the
sugar, molasses, and the remainder of the slaves, textiles, and domestic goods would be traded in
America for tobacco, fish, lumber, flour, foodstuffs, or perhaps rum which had been distilled in
New England. The triangular trade was obviously quite necessary at this time because none of the
regions were truly self-sufficient, each depended on the others for goods they could not provide for
themselves.
While the Middle Passage served as a great source of wealth for many whites, it was an inhuman
practice and the Africans who were enslaved were subjected to atrocious conditions during
the voyage.
The Middle Passage was the most infamous route of this triangular trade. Although danger
lurked constantly throughout the voyage across the Atlantic, the greatest danger to the slave
ships always came when they were loading on the African coast. Once aboard the ships, the
negroes realized that they were being sent far away from home, and often there was violence
even before the ship set sail. However, most of these uprisings were easily put down. Others
jumped overboard and plunged from the ship into the sea, choosing to either drown or be
devoured by blood-thirsty sharks rather than be taken from their homeland.
Once aboard the ships the blacks would be packed below deck. Captains of slave ships were
known as either "loose packers" or "tight packers", depending upon how many slaves they
crammed into the space they had. Most ships, especially those of the later 18th century, were
"tight packers", carrying a huge quantity of slaves who were often forced to lie in spaces
smaller than that of a grave, or in some cases stacked spoon-fashion on top of one another.
Regardless, life for a slave in the "tween decks", as they were called, was extremely uncomfortable.
In addition to extreme overcrowding, there was also inadequate ventilation, not to mention little or
no sanitation. Although some captains would have their crew periodically clean the "tween decks"
with hot vinegar, most chose rather to leave them alone, resulting in their atrociously unclean
condition. In addition to disease and suffocation below deck, it would not be uncommon to find the
body of a slave completely covered by lice.
Eventually, after the arduous 3,700 mile voyage, the slave ship would reach North America. In
order to strengthen them before sale, the slaves were normally fed better in the days directly before
their arrival in the new world, however their suffering was far from over. Before they could be sold,
the slaves would be oiled to make their skin shiny and any imperfections, such as scars from
whippings, would be filled in with hot tar in order to improve their appearance and get the best
market price. Most slave ships would not be allowed to dock in the ports which they came to due to
their horrible stench and the fear of the spread of any diseases which had been spread throughout
the ship. Therefore, the slavers would drop anchor a few miles off shore and carry the slaves to land
in smaller boats which had been stored aboard the ship. The slaves would then be sold at auction
and would live through the rest of their lives in wicked involuntary servitude.
Clearly, life on board the slave ships was hellish for the black captives. To learn more about their
their experience during the Middle Passage, continue to Brutal Voyage: The Daily Routine on the
Slave Ships.