SLAVERY IN ARABIAN SOCIETIES
While Europeans targeted men in West Africa, the 'Arab'
trade primarily harvested the women of East Africa to
serve as domestic slaves.
10 million Africans were taken during the Arab slave trade.
The Atlantic Slave Trade
When?
•1450 - Spanish & Portuguese start
slaving in Africa
•1865 - still smuggling slaves until
the end of the Civil War (technically
illegal in 1808)
2
Why?
•1. Labor shortage (not enough workers)
•2. Ethnocentrism –(feelings of
superiority)
•3. Greed
4
A Typical Slave Ship,
at port in London’s
East India docks –
getting ready for the
next slave run.
A typical cargo
included:
IRON BARS
COWRIE SHELLS
Middle Passage – route that slaves took from Africa, crossing
the Atlantic to North or South America.
CHEAP MANUFACTURED
GOODS
Trinkets – pots, pans
beads, shells, cloth
SLAVES WERE USED
ON PLANTATIONS,
GROWING SUGAR,
TOBACCO, COTTON.
U.S.A.
TRIBAL CHIEFS EXCHANGE SLAVES ,
OR SLAVES ARE CAPTURED
Mexico
Caribbean
Islands
SLAVE TRADERS THEN
SOLD THE SLAVES TO
PLANTATION OWNERS
Brazil
THE ‘MIDDLE PASSAGE’ –
THE JOURNEY ACROSS THE
ATLANTIC..
Number of people enslaved
•30 million
taken from
their homes
•10 million die during
capture phase
•10 million die
during middle
passage
•10 million survive to
make it over the ocean
8
Phases of the Slave Trade
• Phase 1: Capture
•Most captured 50-100 miles inland
9
Phases of the Slave Trade
•Capture
Christiansborg Castle, Gold Coast, ca. 1750
Cape Coast Castle, Gold Coast, 1727
10
This engraving, entitled An African man being inspected for
sale into slavery while a white man talks with African slave
traders, appeared in the detailed account of a former slave
ship captain and was published in 1854.
Phases of the Slave Trade
Phase 2. The Middle Passage
•Journey over the Atlantic Ocean
•400-500 people in a boat with
little air & much disease
12
Slaves being rowed to a newly
arrived slaving ship off the
Guinea coast – note the trading
fort in the background.
Crosssection
of a slave
embarkat
ion
canoe.
Boarding
the
ship
Boarding the
ship
andand
being
and
then
beingchained
chained
and
being
sent down
the
then being
senttodown
slave decks.
to the slave decks.
This model [right] and the charts
were used by slave reformers at the
end of the 18th century, to show how
a Liverpool slave ship of 320 tons
could carry 400 slaves. On one
voyage the ship carried 609 slaves.
A successful slave voyage could
expect a loss rate of 1 in 20 slaves. A
bad run might suffer losses as high
as 1 in 3, mainly due to disease.
The space between the deck shelves could
vary from 72 cm.to 1 m.
• Africans were crowded and chained cruelly aboard slave
ships.
"...the excessive heat was not the only thing that
rendered their situation intolerable. The deck, that is
the floor of their rooms, was so covered with the
blood and mucus which had proceeded from them in
consequence of the flux, that it resembled a
slaughterhouse."
Taken from Alexander Falconbridge, a surgeon aboard
slave ships and later the governor of a British colony for
freed slaves in Sierra Leone.
Slaves were fed
twice a day.
Male slaves were chained,
women and children usually
went unshackled.
Slaves were brought up on to the top
deck to be‘exercised’ or ‘danced’
usually once a day. This was usually at
the point of a whip. This was the most
dangerous time for the ship’s crew
when the slaves had an opportunity to
rebel. A loaded cannon was always kept
ready with a lighted match.
Heading for Jamaica in 1781, the ship Zong was nearing the
end of its voyage. It had been twelve weeks since it had sailed
from the west African coast with its cargo of 417 slaves. Water
was running out. Then, compounding the problem, there was
an outbreak of disease. The ship's captain, reasoning that the
slaves were going to die anyway, made a decision. In order to
reduce the owner's losses he would throw overboard the slaves
thought to be too sick to recover. The voyage was insured, but
the insurance would not pay for sick slaves or even those killed
by illness. However, it would cover slaves lost through
drowning.
The captain gave the order; 54 Africans were chained together,
then thrown overboard. Another 78 were drowned over the next
two days. By the time the ship had reached the Caribbean,132
persons had been murdered.
Diseased
and
rebellious
slaves were
often thrown
overboard.
Phases of the Slave Trade
•3.“Seasoning”
•Brutal work camps, 4-5 months in Caribbean
•Meant to train people to be slaves
25
Auctioneer
Gavel
Slaves
Plantation
Owners
European port
towns, such as,
Bristol and
Liverpool,
largely grew
up on the slave
trade
New social habits like the
drinking of tea and coffee,
smoking tobacco and
eating chocolate, were
introduced into Europe.
Slave owners
became
immensely rich.
One result of
this personal
wealth was the
building of
many
impressive
mansion houses
Rivalries began between European countries for
control of the rich slave areas in the Americas’, Africa
and Asia, this led to many colonial wars and the growth
of empires