The Trans-Atlantic Slave
Trade
Vocabulary
Abolitionist: a person who advocated that
the institution of slavery be done away with.
Avaricious: Greedy for money.
Commandeer: To take possession of by
force.
Commerce: The buying and selling of
commodities (goods & services); trade.
Mutiny: The willful refusal to obey authority; a
revolt against one’s superiors.
Slaver: A ship or person engaged in
transporting slaves
Movie Clips Introduction: Slave
Ship
QuickTime™ and a
Sorenson Video 3 decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
African slavery & slavery in the
Americas
African slavery was
more like European
serfdom. It was
harsh servitude, but
they still had rights.
African slavery was
used by Europeans
to justify the transAtlantic slave trade.
Africa: why here?
Not the only source of slaves: “Slavs,”
Caucasus, Balkans, Mediterranean Europe,
indentures
Geography: Old World
Market logic (?) accessibility + iron +
agriculture + disease immunities
Low population (uneven)
Desire for imported goods (see below)
Alternative exports: GOLD, ivory, tropical
hardwoods
Impact on Africa
New Atlantic food crops: maize, cassava, peanuts
Local use of slaves
Land/population ratios (“wealth in people”)
Military (slave raiding)
“Legitimate trade “ production and transport
Import goods
“Luxury” consumer goods: cloth, beads
Weapons: HORSES, sword blades, armor, GUNS
“Currency”: cowry shells
Tools: machetes, iron bars
African Slavery
Lacked two elements
that slavery in the
America’s had.
The desire for massive
profits that comes from
agribusiness.
Reducing the slave to
less than human status
based solely on race
(ethnicity).
Slavery in the Colonies
Why didn’t colonists
enslave the Indians?
How does the
answer of the above
question explain the
choice to import
black slaves?
“…where whites and blacks found themselves with common
problems, common work, common enemy in their master, they
behaved toward one another as equals.” (Zinn, 1997, p. 27)
Trans-Atlantic Trade Route
QuickTime™ and a
Sorenson Video 3 decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
One of the most
profitable business in
the world.
Lasted approximately
400 years.
39,000 voyages from
Africa to the Americas
(South, Central & North America)
Largest forced
migration
Chronology and Numbers*
*all somewhat approximate
Atlantic:
1450-1860
11-12 million
Mediterranean:
700-1900
6-7 million
Indian Ocean (and Red Sea)
800-1900
2-3 million
Economics: Mediterranean
Domestic service
concubinage
eunuchs:A eunuch is a castrated man; the term usually
refers to those castrated in order to perform a specific social function,
as was common in many societies of the past. The earliest records for
intentional castration to produce eunuchs are from the Sumerian cities
of Lagash in the 21st century BC [citation needed]. Over the millennia
since, they have performed a wide variety of functions in many different
cultures such as courtiers or equivalent domestics, treble singers,
religious specialists, government officials, military commanders, and
guardians of women or harem servants.
Military service
agriculture (Sahara, Nile Valley)
Economics: Indian Ocean
Domestic
Military (Yemen, Gulf, India-”Habshi”)
Agriculture (Gulf; “Zenj rebellion” Basra 869–
883)
*Pearl Fishing (Gulf)
Dhow (sailing craft) crews
Economics 1. Atlantic
Plantation system:
SUGAR, coffee, rice, indigo, tobacco &
cotton
Mediterranean & Western Africa to New World,
Caribbean & Brazil
Triangular trade (+ India)
Navigation: “Middle Passage”
Receiving zones: New World
U.S. vs. Brazil/Caribbean
U.S.:
under 10% of slave trade, high population, less explicitly
“African”
cultural impact
Brazil/Caribbean:
90+% of slaves lower population (Brazil “mulatto category),
very explicit “African” culture
Why different demographic patterns?
Sugar vs. other labor/climate regimes (2/3 male imports)
acculturation (?)
Oxum Bahia (Brazil)
Santeria Altar Havana
Receiving zones: Islamic World
Generally less visible
Demography of migrations: numbers,
intensity, gender,
disease/climate
Demography of deployment: domestic
vs.
labor projects
Bibliography
Austen, Ralph A. African Economic History: Internal Development and External Dependency (London: James Currey, 1987).
*Austen, Ralph A., The Trans-Saharan World: Africa’s Great Desert as a Highway of Commerce and Civilization (NY: Oxford,
forthcoming)
Clarence-Smith, William Gervase (ed.). The Economics of the Indian Ocean Slave Trade in the Nineteenth Century (London:
Cass, 1989)
*Curtin, P. Rise and Fall of the Plantation Complex (Cambridge, Cambridge U. Press, 1998).
Fenoaltea, Stefano. "Europe in the African Mirror “The Slave Trade and the Rise of Feudalism," Rivista di storia economica
XV, no. 2 (August 1999), 123-165.
**Gomez, Michael. Reversing Sail : a History of the African Diaspora Cambridge: Cambridge U. Press, 2005.
*Hunwick, John O. and Eve Trout Powell. The African Diaspora in the Mediterranean Lands of Islam. Princeton: M. Wiener, 2002.
Savage, Elizabeth (ed.), The Human Commodity: Perspectives on the Trans-Saharan Slave Trade (London: Cass, 1992).
*Thornton, John. Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World (ambrdie:P Cambridge U. Press,1998)
William and Mary Quarterly, LVIII, 1 (2001) “New Perspectives on the Atlantic Save Trade”