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93-461: The City Point Railroad was an eight plus mile railroad in eastern Virginia established in 1836 which ran from City Point (now part of the independent City of Hopewell) on the navigable portion of the James River to Petersburg, Virginia. It was surveyed in 1836 to not need more than around 20 ft of grade every mile and only gentle curves. John Couty, the chief engineer, had previously improved

186-577: A 10 or 12 foot draft to hold the 200 ton carrying ships that commonly carrying tobacco and flour. Smaller ships meant higher freight charges and limited ships would service the port meaning less cargo for the renamed Railroad to ship. The line was later purchased by the Southside Railroad in 1854 to connect much further inland. During the siege of Petersburg the United States Military Railroad rebuilt part of

279-438: A 250-year period, stating: "There are no records of how many men, women and children were enslaved, but it is possible to calculate roughly the number of fresh captives that would have been needed to keep populations steady and replace those slaves who died, escaped, were ransomed, or converted to Islam. On this basis, it is thought that around 8,500 new slaves were needed annually to replenish numbers – about 850,000 captives over

372-578: A Canal around the falls Petersburg, and a turning basin in Petersburg to turn their narrow long boats around, unload the farm products from upstream and load up with manufactured goods from Petersburg. In Petersburg, workers could put goods on ships bound for the Chesapeake Bay and load goods from far away for Farmville and plantations upstream. Canal boats would return up river with manufactured goods. People who could afford it, rode in boats on

465-460: A lock and dam system with a total of 17 locks and 8 miles. It was still designed for bateau. Tolls were paid by shippers to support the cost of maintaining the locks and dams. In fiscal year, 1831, boatmen shipped around 20,000 barrels of flour and 20,000 barrels of wheat; 5,000 hogsheads of tobacco leaf, and some tobacco stems; half a million pounds of manufactured goods, barrel staves , cotton, corn, salt, lime and iron. By 1836, Petersburg

558-464: A number of ways: through wars of conquest and expansion, through gifts to the Oba, who also inherited the slaves of those who died intestate and by tribute paid by dependent territories to the Oba and prominent chiefs. Lastly, hardened criminals or those guilty of serious crimes were either executed or sold into slavery. The possession of a large number of slaves was an index of a man's status. Slaves served in

651-568: A plank, from whence they remove not for months together (commonly half a year), urged on, even beyond human strength, with cruel and repeated blows on their bare flesh.... As late as 1798, the islet near Sardinia was attacked by the Tunisians and over 900 inhabitants were taken away as slaves. Sahrawi - Moorish society in Northwest Africa was traditionally (and still is, to some extent) stratified into several tribal castes, with

744-490: A proclamation outlawing slavery. In Somali territories , slaves were purchased in the slave market exclusively to do work on plantations. In terms of legal considerations, the customs regarding the treatment of Bantu slaves were established by the decree of Sultans and local administrative delegates . These plantation slaves often acquired their freedom through eventual emancipation, escape, and ransom. Slaves were transported since antiquity along trade routes crossing

837-427: A result of undesirable behaviour such as adultery, were unlikely to attempt to flee. The sale of children was also common in times of famine. Captured slaves were however likely to attempt to escape and had to be moved hundreds of kilometres from their homes as a safeguard against this. The slave trade had a profound impact on this region of Central Africa, completely reshaping various aspects of society. For instance,

930-446: A road where their competition would build mills, they paid a much lower price for the water. Hinton suggested that $ 600 was a reasonable rent to charge the mill owner, because there should have been a competitive bid allowed. Senator Hinton, was elected as an officer in 1872 and got the right to sell bonds. In 1876, Bonds are given to Hinton as $ 4000 salary; sold to Captain N. M. Osborne and Major John Robinson of Baltimore and given to

1023-595: Is worse off than a slave; he cannot claim his food from anyone. With the beginning of the Atlantic slave trade, demand for slaves in West Africa increased and a number of states became centered on the slave trade and domestic slavery increased dramatically. Hugh Clapperton in 1824 believed that half the population of Kano were enslaved people. Near the Gold Coast, many of those enslaved came from deep inside

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1116-978: The Benin Empire , in what is now southern Nigeria , and in several small independent states in the same region. In the Ashanti Region , human sacrifice was often combined with capital punishment . Many nations such as the Bono State , Ashanti of present-day Ghana and the Yoruba of present-day Nigeria were involved in slave-trading. Groups such as the Imbangala of Angola and the Nyamwezi of Tanzania would serve as intermediaries or roving bands, waging war on African states to capture people for export as slaves. Historians John Thornton and Linda Heywood of Boston University have estimated that of

1209-686: The Caucasus served in the army and formed an elite corps of troops, eventually revolting in Egypt to form the Burgi dynasty . According to Robert Davis between 1 million and 1.25 million Europeans were captured by Barbary pirates and sold as slaves to North Africa and the Ottoman Empire between the 16th and 19th centuries. However, to extrapolate his numbers, Davis assumes the number of European slaves captured by Barbary pirates were constant for

1302-752: The Edo people (in modified forms, it also existed among the Efik people , the Igbo people , the Ijaw people , and the Fon people ). Military slavery involved the acquisition and training of conscripted military units which would retain the identity of military slaves even after their service. Slave soldier groups would be run by a Patron , who could be the head of a government or an independent warlord, and who would send his troops out for money and his own political interests. This

1395-574: The Hassane warrior tribes ruling and extracting tribute – horma – from the subservient Berber -descended znaga tribes. Below them ranked servile groups known as Haratin , a black population. Enslaved Sub-Saharan Africans were also transported across North Africa into Arabia to do agricultural work because of their resistance to malaria that plagued the Arabia and North Africa at the time of early enslavement. Sub-Saharan Africans were able to endure

1488-699: The Muslim caliphs and the Ayyubid Sultans during the Middle Ages . The first Mamluks served the Abbasid caliphs in 9th century Baghdad . Over time, they became a powerful military caste , and on more than one occasion they seized power for themselves, for example, ruling Egypt from 1250 to 1517. From 1250 on Egypt was ruled by the Bahri dynasty of Kipchak Turk origin. White enslaved people from

1581-522: The Muslim World were the destinations, and Central and Eastern Europe an important source of slaves. The slave trade in medieval Europe was carried out in parts of Europe by both Christians and Jews. In the early medieval period, Jews had a near-monopoly on trade between Islamic and Christian countries, but by the thirteenth century this no longer applied to the slave trade. The Mamluks were slave soldiers who converted to Islam and served

1674-563: The Roman institution of slavery (and the later Christian views on slavery ), the Islamic institutions of slavery via the Muslim slave trade , and eventually the Atlantic slave trade . Slavery was a part of the economic structure of African societies for many centuries, although the extent varied. Ibn Battuta , who visited the ancient kingdom of Mali in the mid-14th century, recounts that

1767-524: The Roman republic expanded, it enslaved defeated enemies and Roman conquests in Africa were no exception. For example, Orosius records that Rome enslaved 27,000 people from North Africa in 256 BC. Piracy became an important source of slaves for the Roman Empire and in the 5th century AD pirates would raid coastal North African villages and enslave those captured. Chattel slavery persisted after

1860-523: The Senegambia region between 1300 and 1900, close to one-third of the population was enslaved. In early Islamic states of the western Sahel, including Ghana (750–1076), Mali (1235–1645), Segou (1712–1861), and Songhai (1275–1591), about a third of the population were enslaved. In Sierra Leone in the 19th century about half of the population consisted of enslaved people. Among the Vai people during

1953-552: The Southside Railroad . The Farmville and Powhatan was connected all the way to Bermuda Hundred on the James River and Chester, Virginia , just north of Petersburg, in 1891. The railroad was narrow gauge but could provide transportation for goods and people over a similar route as the canal in just four hours. The railroads were pricing lower due to competition and made the trip in hours rather than days. The wing dams can still be seen in some places. The first few miles of

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2046-863: The Upper Appomattox Canal Navigation System in 1830. The debt needed to build the railroad was made greater by the Panic of 1837 . The City point Railroad began to operate on September 7, 1838. The railroad started at City Point, where the Appomattox River runs into the James River because the Appomattox River was not as deep and wide as would allow large ships to dock closer to Petersburg. By 1841, millions of dollars of tobacco were shipped, through City Point and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth in flour were shipped. Tobacco accounted for almost half of

2139-648: The Upper Guinea region and I. A. Akinjogbin contends that European accounts reveal that the slave trade was not a major activity along the coast controlled by the Yoruba people and Aja people before Europeans arrived. In a paper read to the Ethnological Society of London in 1866, the viceroy of Lokoja , Mr T. Valentine Robins, who in 1864 accompanied an expedition up the River Niger aboard HMS  Investigator , described slavery in

2232-741: The 19th century, three quarters of the people were slaves. In the 19th century at least half the population was enslaved among the Duala of the Cameroon and other peoples of the lower Niger , the Kongo , and the Kasanje kingdom and Chokwe of Angola . Among the Ashanti and Yoruba a third of the population consisted of enslaved people. The population of the Kanem (1600–1800) was about one-third enslaved. It

2325-502: The 19th century. Although archaeological evidence is not clear on the issue prior to European contact, in those societies that practised human sacrifice, slaves became the most prominent victims. The Annual Customs of Dahomey were the most notorious example of human sacrifice of slaves, where 500 prisoners would be sacrificed. Sacrifices were carried out all along the West African coast and further inland. Sacrifices were common in

2418-680: The Africans captured and then sold as slaves to the New World in the Atlantic slave trade, around 90% were enslaved by fellow Africans who sold them to European traders. Henry Louis Gates , the Harvard Chair of African and African American Studies, has stated that "without complex business partnerships between African elites and European traders and commercial agents, the slave trade to the New World would have been impossible, at least on

2511-627: The Appomattox Railroad in 1847. The City of Petersburg was allowed, by the Virginia General Assembly in 1848, to sell up to one hundred thousand dollars of bonds to finance repairing the Appomattox Railroad. In 1849, Albert Stein made the port deep enough for ships with a 7-foot draft . A.G. McIlwaine, who would later found the Life Insurance Company of Virginia, complained that the port needed

2604-609: The Congo River slave trade only went to a small number of traders, this aspect of the trade provided some benefit to local producers and consumers. In parts of the Congo Basin , it was not rare for slaves to be killed and eaten , especially (but not only) at festive occasions. Eyewitness accounts describe the purchase, butchering, and consumption of slaves as a "daily-life activity, free from strong emotions", seen by those who practised it as not essentially different from

2697-490: The Interior of Africa v. II, Chapter XXII – War and Slavery . The forms of slavery in Africa were closely related to kinship structures. In many African communities, where land could not be owned, enslavement of individuals was used as a means to increase the influence a person had and expand connections. This made slaves a permanent part of a master's lineage, and the children of slaves could become closely connected with

2790-716: The Sahara. Oral tradition recounts slavery existing in the Kingdom of Kongo from the time of its formation with Lukeni lua Nimi enslaving the Mwene Kabunga whom he conquered to establish the kingdom. Early Portuguese writings show that the Kingdom did have slavery before contact, but that they were primarily war captives from the Kingdom of Ndongo . Slavery was common along the Upper Congo River , and in

2883-651: The State of Virginia, the Bank of Petersburg, and private banker N.M. Osborne and E.S. Stith as collateral. The money from the bonds, was used to rebuild the Navigable Aqueduct on Old Town Creek, now called Rohoic Creek, and rebuild a lock keeper's home, buildings, several locks and dams for mills. The next year the General Assembly gave the company the right to sell bonds to buy company stock back from

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2976-569: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. The prerequisites for slave societies to exist weren't present in West Africa prior to the Atlantic slave trade considering the small market sizes and the lack of a division of labour . Most West African societies were formed in kinship units which would make slavery a rather marginal part of the production process within them. Slaves within Kinship-based societies would have had almost

3069-510: The Upper Appomattox Canal Company, asked shareholders to agree to correct mismanagement, since there had not been a shareholder meeting since 1866. This mismanagement included paying out dividends before making repairs to the canal. Dividends were paid out ignoring 70 shares of stock, out of roughly 1100, which allowed others to get a higher dividend. Also, one shareholder who tore down canal property tried to sell off

3162-477: The Upper Appomattox Canal company to build a dam and locks around the falls in 1819. Archibald Thweatt and his heirs were also given leave to build a grist mill on the dam. In the 1830s Eppington plantation at Epps Falls on the Appomattox River had 100 slaves, a warehouse and a dock. Neighboring farmers could ship farm produce from the docks. There were large loading facilities. When coal

3255-754: The West), Kemal Reis , Salih Reis , and Koca Murat Reis . In 1544, Hayreddin Barbarossa captured Ischia , taking 4,000 prisoners in the process, and deported to slavery some 9,000 inhabitants of Lipari , almost the entire population. In 1551, Dragut enslaved the entire population of the Maltese island Gozo , between 5,000 and 6,000, sending them to Libya . When pirates sacked Vieste in southern Italy in 1554 they took an estimated 7,000 slaves. In 1555, Turgut Reis sailed to Corsica and ransacked Bastia , taking 6,000 prisoners. In 1558 Barbary corsairs captured

3348-486: The advantages to the aristocracy of slavery and what would best suit the region. This sort of governing used the "political tool" of discerning the different labours and methods of assimilative slavery . Domestic and agricultural labour became more evidently primary in Western Africa due to slaves being regarded as "political tools" of access and status. Slaves often had more wives than their owners, and this boosted

3441-408: The bateau, six feet wide and three feet deep. With another $ 10,000 it could carry all river traffic. Slaves enhanced the Appomattox River from Farmville over 100 miles to Petersburg with numerous wing dams to keep the flow high. The river also had four stone staircase locks . Four watermills along the river had locks in their dams . Two of these watermills had stone locks. The Canal around

3534-411: The bricks. An unauthorized grist mill was built using the canal water. One officer who let the city of Petersburg take cobbles from canal property to build a road across the canal property to the officers own mill. This made other rentals of water useless, since a road lay where their mills would be. The mill owner would have had to buy water rights to the water power in a competitive bid, but having built

3627-464: The canal as the fastest and most comfortable ride. The river was used for transportation and shipping goods for over 100 years. The River was modified for transportation around 1745 and further modified over its years of use. Much of the canal system was built by slaves. Freed Blacks of Israel Hill worked as Boatman. The Canal took damage in the Civil War and was used until faster rail transportation

3720-559: The canal from the abutment dam, a contour canal , can be walked in Appomattox River Park in Petersburg. Remains of the navigable aqueduct and other stone work remain on the Appomattox River & Heritage Trail in Petersburg, Virginia. The straight part of the canal to the turning basin follows Upper Appomattox Street and was part of the Seaboard Air Line Railroad for many years. The location of

3813-417: The century from 1580 to 1680. By extension, for the 250 years between 1530 and 1780, the figure could easily have been as high as 1,250,000." Davis' numbers have been disputed by other historians, such as David Earle, who cautions that the true picture of European slaves is clouded by the fact the corsairs also seized non-Christian whites from eastern Europe and black people from West Africa. In addition,

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3906-609: The early 1930s, out of an estimated population of between 8 and 16 million. Slavery continued in Ethiopia until the Italian invasion in October 1935, when the institution was abolished by order of the Italian occupying forces. In response to pressure by Western Allies of World War II , Ethiopia officially abolished slavery and involuntary servitude after it regained its independence in 1942. On 26 August 1942, Haile Selassie issued

3999-471: The eating of goats and other animals. Various forms of slavery were practised in diverse ways in different communities of West Africa prior to European trade. According to Ghanaian historian Akosua Perbi , indigenous slavery in locations like Ghana had been established by the 1st century AD, with origins sometime in the ancient period. Even though slavery did exist, it was not nearly as prevalent within most West African societies that were not Islamic before

4092-510: The end of the voyage. The Virginia General Assembly passed laws to protect navigation on the James River and Appomattox. By statute, a dam could not be built unless it had locks for boat passage. The Virginia General Assembly incorporated the Upper Appomattox Company in 1795. The state had bought 125 shares by 1801 to support the growth of transportation. In 1807, the company is allowed to sell bonds for one fourth of

4185-639: The expense of building the canal. A 335 foot long dam in the Appomattox diverted water to the canal. The canal was built entirely by enslaved Africans owned by the company. The Appomattox Canal, built in 1816, connected 5.5 miles from the head of the falls at the Fall Line on the Appomattox River to the Turning basin in Petersburg, Virginia . Built for $ 60,000, the canal was big enough to carry

4278-771: The fall of the Roman Empire in the largely Christian communities of the region. After the Islamic trade expansion across the Sahara , the practices continued and eventually, the assimilative form of slavery spread to major societies on the southern end of the Sahara (such as Mali , Songhai , and Ghana). The medieval slave trade in Europe was mainly to the East and South: the Christian Byzantine Empire and

4371-506: The falls had a navigable aqueduct made with Stone Arches and stone culverts to take boats over the Rohoic Creek confluence on the way to the canal basin . A short distance from the Basin, connected a by carriage route, were deep water ports that allowed for transport of to goods to and from the Chesapeake Bay and beyond. One third of Bateau were owned by Free people of color . Bateau owned by White People employed white boatmen as well as freemen and slaves. One fourth of all cargo

4464-447: The household, and participated in a network of face-to-face links." With the development of the trans- Saharan slave trade and the economies of gold in the western Sahel , a number of the major states became organized around the slave trade, including the Ghana Empire , the Mali Empire , the Bono State and Songhai Empire . However, other communities in West Africa largely resisted the slave trade. The Jola refused to participate in

4557-466: The houses of their masters or mistresses, and were not employed to any significant extent for productive purpose. The enslaved were regarded as second-class members of their owners' family. The first attempt to abolish slavery in Ethiopia was made by Emperor Tewodros II (r. 1855–68), although the slave trade was not legally abolished until 1923 when Ethiopia ascended to the League of Nations . Anti-Slavery Society estimated there were 2 million slaves in

4650-463: The interior of the continent as defeated people from numerous wars and were sold off as part of a practice called "eating the country" that aimed to disperse fallen enemies and prevent regrouping. According to Ghanaian historian Akosua Perbi, from the 15th to 19th centuries in Ghana, major sources of slaves were warfare, slave markets, pawning, raids, kidnapping and tributes, while minor sources were from gifts, convictions, communal or private deals. In

4743-443: The land on to their children in many cases. Pawnship , or debt bondage slavery, involves the use of people as collateral to secure the repayment of debt . Slave labour is performed by the debtor , or a relative of the debtor (usually a child). Pawnship was a common form of collateral in West Africa . It involved the pledge of a person or a member of that person's family, to serve another person providing credit . Pawnship

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4836-426: The larger family ties. Children of slaves born into families could be integrated into the master's kinship group and rise to prominent positions within society, even to the level of chief in some instances. However, stigma often remained attached, and there could be strict separations between slave members of a kinship group and those related to the master. Chattel slavery is a specific servitude relationship where

4929-524: The late 1500s and early 1600s observers, estimate that around 35,000 European Christian slaves held throughout this period on the Barbary Coast , across Tripoli , Tunis , but mostly in Algiers . The majority were sailors taken with their ships, but others were fishermen and coastal villagers, and overall most of the captives were people from lands close to Africa, particularly Spain and Italy. The coastal villages and towns of Italy , Portugal , Spain , and Mediterranean islands were frequently attacked by

5022-576: The local inhabitants vied with each other in the number of slaves and servants they had, and was himself given a slave boy as a "hospitality gift." In sub-Saharan Africa , the slave relationships were often complex, with rights and freedoms given to individuals held in slavery and restrictions on sale and treatment by their masters. Many communities had hierarchies between different types of slaves: for example, differentiating between those who had been born into slavery and those who had been captured through war. "The slaves in Africa, I suppose, are nearly in

5115-467: The major kingdoms, particularly along the coast, and there is little evidence of widespread slavery practices in stateless societies. Slave trading was mostly secondary to other trade relationships; however, there is evidence of a trans- Saharan slave trade route from Roman times which persisted in the area after the fall of the Roman Empire . However, kinship structures and rights provided to slaves (except those captured in war) appears to have limited

5208-472: The malaria-infested lands they were transported to, which is why North Africans were not transported despite their close proximity to Arabia and its surrounding lands. In the Horn of Africa , the Christian kings of the Ethiopian Empire captured slaves primarily from the pagan Nilotic Shanqella and Oromo peoples from their western borderlands, or from newly conquered or reconquered lowland territories. The Somali and Afar Muslim sultanates, such as

5301-411: The medieval Adal Sultanate , through their ports also traded Zanj ( Bantu ) slaves captured from the hinterland. Slavery, as practised in Ethiopia , was essentially domestic and was geared more towards women; this was the trend for most of Africa as well. Women were transported across the Sahara, the Middle East, the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean trade more than men. Enslaved people served in

5394-421: The militia and were also the main labour force for the chiefs, as well as serving the local need for human sacrifices. The eventual abolition of slavery created a host of problems which had economic, political and social ramifications. Martin Klein has said that before the Atlantic trade, slaves in Western Sudan "made up a small part of the population, lived within the household, worked alongside free members of

5487-499: The number of slaves traded was hyperactive, with exaggerated estimates relying on peak years to calculate averages for entire centuries, or millennia. Hence, there were wide fluctuations year-to-year, particularly in the 18th and 19th centuries, given slave imports, and also given the fact that, prior to the 1840s, there are no consistent records. Middle East expert John Wright cautions that modern estimates are based on back-calculations from human observation. Such observations, across

5580-409: The old line for the City Point & Army Railroad. Upper Appomattox Canal Navigation System The Upper Appomattox Canal Navigation system allowed farmers who took their wheat and corn to mills on the Appomattox River , as far way as Farmville, Virginia , to ship the flour all the way to Petersburg from 1745 to 1891. The system included a navigation, modifications on the Appomattox River,

5673-405: The pirates, and long stretches of the Italian and Spanish coasts were almost completely abandoned by their inhabitants; after 1600 Barbary pirates occasionally entered the Atlantic and struck as far north as Iceland . The most famous corsairs were the Ottoman Barbarossa ("Redbeard"), and his older brother Oruç , Turgut Reis (known as Dragut in the West), Kurtoğlu (known as Curtogoli in

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5766-413: The power of the master extend not to the care of prisoners taken in war, nor to that of slaves purchased with money. All these unfortunate beings are considered as strangers and foreigners, who have no right to the protection of the law, and may be treated with severity, or sold to a stranger, according to the pleasure of their owners." Travels in the Interior of Africa , Mungo Park , Travels in

5859-517: The proportion of three to one to the freemen. They claim no reward for their services except food and clothing, and are treated with kindness or severity, according to the good or bad disposition of their masters. Custom, however, has established certain rules with regard to the treatment of slaves, which it is thought dishonourable to violate. Thus the domestic slaves, or such as are born in a man's own house, are treated with more lenity than those which are purchased with money. ... But these restrictions on

5952-481: The region: Upon slavery Mr Robins remarked that it was not what people in England thought it to be. It means, as continually found in this part of Africa, belonging to a family group-there is no compulsory labour, the owner and the slave work together, eat like food, wear like clothing and sleep in the same huts. Some slaves have more wives than their masters. It gives protection to the slaves and everything necessary for their subsistence – food and clothing. A free man

6045-442: The relevant literature African slavery is categorized into indigenous slavery and export slavery, depending on whether or not slaves were traded beyond the continent. Slavery in historical Africa was practised in many different forms: Debt slavery , enslavement of war captives, military slavery, slavery for prostitution, and enslavement of criminals were all practised in various parts of Africa. Slavery for domestic and court purposes

6138-419: The rest of the ancient and medieval world . When the trans-Saharan slave trade , Red Sea slave trade , Indian Ocean slave trade and Atlantic slave trade (which started in the 16th century) began, many of the pre-existing local African slave systems began supplying captives for slave markets outside Africa. Slavery in contemporary Africa is still practised in some parts despite it being illegal. In

6231-472: The rest of the continent prior to written records by Arab or European traders. Many slave relationships in Africa revolved around domestic slavery, where slaves would work primarily in the house of the master, but retain some freedoms. Domestic slaves could be considered part of the master's household and would not be sold to others without extreme cause. The slaves could own the profits from their labour (whether in land or in products), and could marry and pass

6324-465: The same roles that free members had. However, Nigerian historian Professor Philip Igbafe says that until the late 19th Century, slavery in the Kingdom of Benin, as well as in other West African kingdoms had its own place in the structure of the state, having its roots in the "economic, military, social and political necessities of the Benin kingdom". Slaves were owned by the Oba (king) and by ordinary citizens. In pre-colonial Benin, they were acquired in

6417-530: The scale it occurred." The entire Bubi ethnic group descends from escaped intertribal slaves owned by various ancient West-central African ethnic groups. Like most other regions of the world, slavery and forced labour existed in many kingdoms and societies of Africa for hundreds of years. Ugo Kwokeji has called early European reports of slavery throughout Africa in the 1600s unreliable, saying they conflated various forms of servitude with chattel slavery. The best evidence of slave practices in Africa come from

6510-453: The scope of slave trading before the start of the trans-Saharan slave trade, Indian Ocean slave trade and the Atlantic slave trade. Slavery in northern Africa dates back to ancient Egypt . The New Kingdom (1558–1080 BC) brought large numbers of slaves as prisoners of war up the Nile valley and used them for domestic and supervised labour. Ptolemaic Egypt (305 BC–30 BC) used both land and sea routes to bring in slaves. Chattel slavery

6603-513: The second half of the 18th century the region became a major source of slaves for the Atlantic slave trade , when high slave prices on the coast made long-distance slave trading profitable. When the Atlantic trade came to an end, the price of slaves dropped dramatically, and the regional slave trade grew, dominated by Bobangi traders. The Bobangi also purchased many slaves with profits from selling ivory, whom they used to populate their villages. Slaves who had been sold by their kin group, typically as

6696-556: The slave is treated as the property of the owner. As such, the owner is free to sell, trade, or treat the slave as he would other pieces of property, and the children of the slave often are retained as the property of the master. There is evidence of long histories of chattel slavery in the Nile River valley, much of the Sahel and North Africa . Evidence is incomplete about the extent and practices of chattel slavery throughout much of

6789-409: The slave trade helped to create a robust regional trade network for the foodstuffs and crafted goods of small producers along the river. As only a few slaves in a canoe were sufficient to cover the cost of a trip and still make a profit, traders could fill any unused space on their canoes with other goods and transport them long distances without a significant markup on price. While the large profits from

6882-521: The slave trade in the 1800s, mainly in the Atlantic slave trade. Senegal was a catalyst for the slave trade, and from the Homann Heirs map figure shown, shows a starting point for migration and a firm port of trade. The culture of the Gold Coast was based largely on the power that individuals held, rather than the land cultivated by a family. Western Africa , developed slavery by analysing

6975-428: The slave trade up into the end of the seventeenth century, and did not use slave labour within their own communities until the nineteenth century. The Kru and Baga also fought against the slave trade. The Mossi Kingdoms tried to take over key sites in the trans-Saharan trade and, when these efforts failed, became defenders against slave raiding by the powerful states of the western Sahel. The Mossi eventually entered

7068-603: The state. The General Assembly also let the company have an additional 10 years to buy back the stock. After the Emancipation Proclamation and after the end of Reconstruction Era on April 2, 1877,the Virginia General Assembly approved the Virginia governor providing twenty to twenty five prisoners under convict lease to the Upper Appomattox canal company. Convict Lease was described by

7161-512: The status of their owners. Slaves were not all used for the same purpose. European colonizing countries participated in the trade to suit the economic needs of their individual countries. The parallel of "Moorish" traders in the desert compared to Portuguese traders who were not as established pointed out the differences in uses of slaves at this point, and where they were headed in the trade. Historian Walter Rodney identified no slavery or significant domestic servitude in early European accounts on

7254-665: The time of the Emancipation Proclamation . In 1829 the Virginia General Assembly hired a public engineer to determine the possibility and cost of connecting the upper Appomattox River to the Roanoke River at the Mouth of the Staunton from the Appomattox past Farmville by canal or rail. However, that canal connection was never built. The Upper Appomattox Canal, in Petersburg, was rebuilt by John Couty as

7347-502: The town of Ciutadella , destroyed it, slaughtered the inhabitants, and carried off 3,000 survivors to Istanbul as slaves. In 1563 Turgut Reis landed at the shores of the province of Granada , Spain, and captured the coastal settlements in the area like Almuñécar , along with 4,000 prisoners. Barbary pirates frequently attacked the Balearic islands , resulting in many coastal watchtowers and fortified churches being erected. The threat

7440-658: The turning basin is at Dunlop Street, High Street, South Street and Commerce. The water used to flow down Canal street back to the Appomattox River. Eppington is still in Chesterfield and is open to the public a few days a year. Israel Hill has a historical marker in Farmville, Virginia . Enslaved Africans Slavery has historically been widespread in Africa . Systems of servitude and slavery were once commonplace in parts of Africa, as they were in much of

7533-488: The value of goods shipped. The City Point Railroad Company was also involved in other transportation businesses than rail. The company also operated small boats on the Lower Appomattox from City Point to Petersburg. But even with this horizontal integration the company could not cover the debt from the development of the railroad. City Point railroad was purchased by the city of Petersburg and reorganized as

7626-497: The writer Douglas A. Blackmon as "a system in which armies of free men, guilty of no crimes and entitled by law to freedom, were compelled to labor without compensation, were repeatedly bought and sold, and were forced to do the bidding of white masters through ... physical coercion." The Canal was used in part until the 1890s. In 1890, the Canal would have had competition with the Farmville and Powhatan Railroad which competed with

7719-408: Was available. The Appomattox River was cleared for bateau by 1745. These boats were the same dimensions as the James River bateau , sixty feet long, six feet wide and two feet deep. It was also designed to carry the largest load through the smallest parts of the river system. Unlike the James River bateau, the Appomattox trips went up and down river so they were not designed to be sold as lumber at

7812-784: Was connected to docks at City Point by the City Point Railroad rather than carriage. Petersburg was also connected to the north by rail on the Richmond and Petersburg Railroad and the South on the Petersburg Railroad in the 1830s. Epps Falls, at the Eppington Plantation, were deemed dangerous for passing boats by the Virginia General Assembly. The General Assembly gave Archibald Thweatt, owner of Eppington, compensation from any damages but allowed

7905-531: Was exported as far way as Brazil. During the Siege of Petersburg , in the American Civil War , there were not enough soldiers to block Union advancement in all places. The Confederate States Army dammed Rohoic Creek with a large dam that would be difficult to cross. The dam failed and washed away the 1826 navigable aqueduct and the Southside Railroad . In 1872, W.E. Hinton, Jr, as president of

7998-658: Was first mined at the Clover Hill Pits , in 1837, it was taken by mule, later by rail, to the docks at Epps Falls. A boat that could carry seven tons of coal, made a four-day round trip to Petersburg for two dollars and thirty eight cents. This would soon be replaced by transport on the Clover Hill Railroad . Water flowing below the Basin down into the Appomattox powered mills and factories. The mills produced cotton, wool, hemp flax and flour. The flour

8091-614: Was legal and widespread throughout North Africa , be it under Ancient Carthage (ca. 814 BC – 146 BC), or later when the region was controlled by the Roman Empire (145 BC – ca. 430 AD) and the Eastern Romans (533 to 695 AD). A slave trade bringing Saharans through the desert to North Africa, which existed in Roman times, continued and documentary evidence in the Nile Valley shows it to have been regulated there by treaty. As

8184-578: Was most significant in the Nile valley (primarily in Sudan and Uganda ), with slave military units organized by various Islamic authorities, and with the war chiefs of Western Africa. The military units in Sudan were formed in the 1800s through large-scale military raiding in the area which is currently the countries of Sudan and South Sudan . Human sacrifice was common in West African states up to and during

8277-612: Was perhaps 40% in Bornu (1580–1890). Between 1750 and 1900 from one- to two-thirds of the entire population of the Fulani jihad states consisted of enslaved people. The population of the largest Fulani state, Sokoto , was at least half-enslaved in the 19th century. Among the Adrar 15 per cent of people were enslaved, and 75 per cent of the Gurma were enslaved. Slavery was extremely common among

8370-560: Was related to, yet distinct from, slavery in most conceptualizations, because the arrangement could include limited, specific terms of service to be provided, and because kinship ties would protect the person from being sold into slavery. Pawnship was a common practice throughout West Africa prior to European contact, including among the Akan people , the Ewe people , the Ga people , the Yoruba people , and

8463-522: Was so severe that Formentera became uninhabited. Early modern sources are full of descriptions of the sufferings of Christian galley slaves of the Barbary corsairs : Those who have not seen a galley at sea, especially in chasing or being chased, cannot well conceive the shock such a spectacle must give to a heart capable of the least tincture of commiseration. To behold ranks and files of half-naked, half-starved, half-tanned meagre wretches, chained to

8556-427: Was transported from Farmville in bateau on the Appomattox River. Slaves on one plantation, including Sam White, inherited land from a repentant southerner, Richard Randolph, in 1810. He had freed them upon his death in 1796. They formed a town on the land and farmed, built buildings on the land and operated many of the boats on the Appomattox, transporting goods for a fee. They were still living there as freemen up to

8649-560: Was widespread throughout Africa. Plantation slavery also occurred, primarily on the eastern coast of Africa and in parts of West Africa. The importance of domestic plantation slavery increased during the 19th century, due to the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade. Many African states dependent on the international slave trade reoriented their economies towards legitimate commerce worked by slave labour. Multiple forms of slavery and servitude have existed throughout African history, and were shaped by indigenous practices of slavery as well as

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