173-556: The Atlantic slave trade or transatlantic slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people to the Americas . European slave ships regularly used the triangular trade route and its Middle Passage . Europeans established a coastal slave trade in the 15th century and trade to the Americas began in the 16th century, lasting through the 19th century. The vast majority of those who were transported in
346-470: A "society with slaves" to a "slave society" with the predominance of "saltwater slavery" -- enslavement through the Atlantic slave trade . With the expansion of the slave trade in the mid-eighteenth century, the nature of slavery changed. Operating on a larger scale, slave traders transported enslaved Africans to various European colonies throughout the Americas (both before and after the decolonization of
519-438: 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
692-466: A cursed people, Africa and slavery, which laid the ideological groundwork for justifying the transatlantic slave trade. The term "race" was used by the English beginning in the 16th century and referred to family, lineage, and breed. The idea of race continued to develop further through the centuries and was used as a justification for the continuation of the slave trade and racial discrimination. Slavery
865-503: A developed factor for enslaving people; nonetheless, by the 15th century, Europeans used both race and religion as a justification to enslave sub-Saharan Africans. An increase of enslaved African people from Senegal occurred in the Iberian Peninsula in the 15th century. As the number of Senegalese slaves grew larger Europeans developed new terminologies that associated slavery with skin color. The Spanish city of Seville had
1038-633: A family clan. In contrast, European slaves were chattel, or property, who were stripped of their rights. The cycle of slavery was perpetual; children of slaves would, by default, also be slaves." Millions of enslaved people from some parts of Africa were exported to states in Africa, Europe, and Asia prior to the European colonization of the Americas . The Trans-Saharan slave trade across the Sahara had functioned since antiquity, and continued to do so up until
1211-677: A fort for the slave trade at the Bay of Arguin . In the Middle Ages , religion and not race was a determining factor for who was considered to be a legitimate target of slavery. While Christians did not enslave Christians and Muslims did not enslave Muslims, both allowed the enslavement of people they regarded to be heretics or insufficiently correct in their religion, which allowed Catholic Christians to enslave Orthodox Christians, and Sunni Muslims to enslave Shia Muslims; similarly both Christians and Muslims approved of enslaving Pagans , who came to be
1384-444: A glorious and advantageous trade this is ... It is the hinge on which all the trade of this globe moves." Meanwhile, it became a business for privately owned enterprises , reducing international complications. After 1790, by contrast, captains typically checked out slave prices in at least two of the major markets of Kingston, Havana, and Charleston, South Carolina (where prices by then were similar) before deciding where to sell. For
1557-583: A justification to Christianize them. In 1452, Pope Nicholas V issued papal bull Dum Diversas which gave the King of Portugal the right to enslave non-Christians to perpetual slavery. The clause included Muslims in West Africa and legitimized the slave trade under the Catholic church. In 1454, Pope Nicholas issued Romanus Pontifex . "Written as a logical sequel to Dum Diversas, Romanus Pontifex allowed
1730-499: A more profitable source of labour and encouraging their use. Historian David Eltis argues that Africans were enslaved because of cultural beliefs in Europe that prohibited the enslavement of cultural insiders, even if there was a source of labour that could be enslaved (such as convicts, prisoners of war and vagrants). Eltis argues that traditional beliefs existed in Europe against enslaving Christians (few Europeans not being Christian at
1903-517: A new and larger market for the already existing trade. While those held as slaves in their own region of Africa could hope to escape, those shipped away had little chance of returning to their homeland. The Atlantic slave trading of Africans began in 1441 with two Portuguese explorers, Nuno Tristão and António Gonçalves. Tristão and Gonçalves sailed to Mauritania in West Africa and kidnapped twelve Africans and returned to Portugal and presented
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#17327688896832076-464: 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
2249-568: 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
2422-903: A preferred and comparatively profitable target of the slave trade in the Middle Ages: Spain and Portugal were provided with non-Catholic slaves from Eastern Europe via the Balkan slave trade and the Black Sea slave trade . In the 15th century, when the Balkan slave trade was taken over by the Ottoman Empire and the Black Sea slave trade was supplanted by the Crimean slave trade and closed off from Europe, Spain and Portugal replaced this source of slaves by importing slaves first from
2595-490: 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
2768-465: A proto-racial law. It prevented people with Jewish and Muslim ancestry from settling in the New World. Limpieza de sangre did not guarantee rights for Jews or Muslims who converted to Catholicism . Jews and Muslims who converted to Catholicism were respectively called conversos and moriscos . Some Jews and Muslims converted to Christianity hoping it would grant them rights under Spanish laws. After
2941-427: 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,
3114-457: A warm climate, no man will labour for himself who can make another labour for him. This is so true, that of the proprietors of slaves a very small proportion indeed are ever seen to labour." In a 2015 paper, economist Elena Esposito argued that the enslavement of Africans in colonial America was attributable to the fact that the American south was sufficiently warm and humid for malaria to thrive;
3287-695: Is documented in the Slave Trade Debates of England in the early 19th century: "All the old writers ... concur in stating not only that wars are entered into for the sole purpose of making slaves, but that they are fomented by Europeans, with a view to that object." People living around the Niger River would be transported from these markets to the coast and sold in European trading ports, in exchange for muskets and manufactured goods such as cloth or alcohol. The European demand for slaves provided
3460-715: Is now Sierra Leone and took 300 people to sell in the Caribbean. In 1564, he repeated the process, this time using Queen Elizabeth's own ship, Jesus of Lübeck , and numerous English voyages ensued. Around 1560, the Portuguese began a regular slave trade to Brazil. From 1580 until 1640, Portugal was temporarily united with Spain in the Iberian Union . Most Portuguese contractors who obtained the asiento between 1580 and 1640 were conversos . For Portuguese merchants, many of whom were " New Christians " or their descendants,
3633-535: 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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#17327688896833806-547: The Americas and enslave Native Americans and Africans. Inter Caetera also settled a dispute between Portugal and Spain over those lands. The declaration included a north–south divide 100 leagues West of the Cape Verde Islands and gave the Spanish Crown exclusive rights to travel and trade west of that line. In Portugal and Spain people had been enslaved because of their religious identity, race had not been
3979-405: The Americas . While modern scholarship has occasionally applied this term to the brief period of acclimatization undergone by European immigrants to the Americas, it most frequently and formally referred to the process undergone by enslaved people. Slave traders used the term "seasoning" to refer to the process of adjusting the enslaved Africans to the new climate, diet, geography, and ecology of
4152-978: 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
4325-623: 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
4498-795: The Compagnie du Sénégal , used Gorée to house the slaves . The Spanish proposed to get the slaves from Cape Verde , located closer to the demarcation line between the Spanish and Portuguese empire, but this was against the WIC-charter". The Royal African Company usually refused to deliver slaves to Spanish colonies, though they did sell them to all comers from their factories in Kingston, Jamaica and Bridgetown, Barbados . In 1682, Spain allowed governors from Havana, Porto Bello, Panama , and Cartagena, Colombia to procure slaves from Jamaica. By
4671-752: 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
4844-649: The Guinea Coast and left with a few slaves. In 1564, Hawkin's son John Hawkins , sailed to the Guinea Coast and his voyage was supported by Queen Elizabeth I . John later turned to piracy and stole 300 Africans from a Spanish slave ship after failures in Guinea trying to capture Africans as most of his men died after fights with the local Africans. As historian John Thornton remarked, "the actual motivation for European expansion and for navigational breakthroughs
5017-574: 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
5190-474: The Middle Passage . Underfed and exposed to a new ecology, enslaved people then had to battle the new climate and forced hard labor. Weakened by the voyage and immediate brutality of slavery, many enslaved people died of smallpox , measles , influenza , and unidentified diseases at high rates in the first several years after arrival. Though it took many different forms, seasoning universally involved
5363-640: 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
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5536-522: 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
5709-484: The National Museums Liverpool explains: "European traders captured some Africans in raids along the coast, but bought most of them from local African or African-European dealers." Many European slave traders generally did not participate in slave raids because life expectancy for Europeans in sub-Saharan Africa was less than one year during the period of the slave trade because of malaria that
5882-522: 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
6055-454: The Saracens ", claimed that due to the curse imposed upon Black people , they would inevitably remain permanently subjugated by Arabs and other Muslims . He wrote that the fact that so many Africans had been enslaved even by the heretical Muslims was supposed proof of their inferiority. Through these and other writings, European writers established a hitherto unheard of connection between
6228-523: 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
6401-578: The Thirteen Colonies , death rates during seasoning were at an estimated 25 to 50 percent. In Cuba , deaths in a single year were between 7 and 12 percent while the mortality rate reached as high as 33 percent in Jamaica . In Brazil, an estimated 25 percent of enslaved people died during the seasoning process, where the law also required that slaves be baptized during their first year in the country. A contemporary observer noted that seasoning
6574-693: The Tuareg peoples and many still hold slaves today. When British rule was first imposed on the Sokoto Caliphate and the surrounding areas in northern Nigeria at the turn of the 20th century, approximately 2 million to 2.5 million people there were enslaved. Slavery in northern Nigeria was finally outlawed in 1936. Seasoning (slavery) Seasoning , or the Seasoning , was the period of adjustment that slave traders and slaveholders subjected African slaves to following their arrival in
6747-648: 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
6920-609: The first wave of European colonization , although many of the initial Atlantic naval explorations were led by the Iberian conquistadors , members of many European nationalities were involved, including sailors from Spain , Portugal , France , England , the Italian states , and the Netherlands . This diversity led Thornton to describe the initial "exploration of the Atlantic" as "a truly international exercise, even if many of
7093-512: The sugar plantations on the Azores , Madeira , Canary, and Cape Verde islands . Europeans participated in African enslavement because of their need for labor, profit, and religious motives. Upon discovering new lands through their naval explorations, European colonisers soon began to migrate to and settle in lands outside their native continent. Off the coast of Africa, European migrants, under
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7266-499: The " New World " (the Americas). For centuries, tidal currents had made ocean travel particularly difficult and risky for the ships that were then available. Thus, there had been very little, if any, maritime contact between the peoples living in these continents. In the 15th century, however, new European developments in seafaring technologies, such as the invention of the caravel , resulted in ships being better equipped to deal with
7439-520: The "discovery" of new lands across the Atlantic, Spain did not want Jews and Muslims immigrating to the Americas because the Spanish Crown worried Muslims and non-Christians might introduce Islam and other religions to Native Americans. The law also led to the enslavement of Jews and Muslims, prevented Jews from entering the country and from joining the military, universities and other civil services. Although Jewish conversos and Muslims experienced religious and racial discrimination, some also participated in
7612-462: The "saltwater" slaves and extract their labor. Enslavers regularly beat slaves, maimed them, and placed them in stocks or solitary confinement. In one particularly cruel practice, the slaveholder would whip a naked woman, often pregnant, and pour salt, pepper, or wax into her open wounds. In addition to violence, enslaved people had to adjust to hard labor over the seasoning period. In the Caribbean, newly arrived slaves were given baskets for fertilizing
7785-415: The 1620s. The Portuguese encroached onto Mbundu lands to expand their mission of trading slaves and establishing a settlement. Nzinga allowed sanctuary to runaway slaves in her nation and organized a military called kilombo against the Portuguese. Nzinga formed alliances with other rival African nations and led an army against the Portuguese slave traders in a thirty-year war. Historians have widely debated
7958-839: The 1690s, the English were shipping the most slaves from West Africa. By the 18th century, Portuguese Angola had become again one of the principal sources of the Atlantic slave trade. After the end of the War of the Spanish Succession , as part of the provisions of the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) , the Asiento was granted to the South Sea Company . Despite the South Sea Bubble , the British maintained this position during
8131-580: The 16th century that led to Africa being underdeveloped in his own time. These ideas were supported by other historians, including Ralph Austen (1987). This idea of an unequal relationship was contested by John Thornton (1998), who argued that "the Atlantic slave trade was not nearly as critical to the African economy as these scholars believed" and that "African manufacturing [at this period] was more than capable of handling competition from preindustrial Europe". However, Anne Bailey, commenting on Thornton's suggestion that Africans and Europeans were equal partners in
8304-435: 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 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
8477-413: The 16th century, were the first to transport slaves across the Atlantic. In 1526, they completed the first transatlantic slave voyage to Brazil , and other Europeans soon followed. Shipowners regarded the slaves as cargo to be transported to the Americas as quickly and cheaply as possible, there to be sold to work on coffee, tobacco, cocoa, sugar, and cotton plantations , gold and silver mines, rice fields,
8650-552: The 16th to 18th centuries and led to direct European involvement in the Chinese porcelain trade . It involved the transfer of goods unique to one hemisphere to another. Europeans brought cattle, horses, and sheep to the New World, and from the New World Europeans received tobacco, potatoes, tomatoes, and maize. Other items and commodities becoming important in global trade were the tobacco, sugarcane, and cotton crops of
8823-403: The 1820s. The first side of the triangle was the export of goods from Europe to Africa. A number of African kings and merchants took part in the trading of enslaved people from 1440 to about 1833. For each captive, the African rulers would receive a variety of goods from Europe. These included guns, ammunition, alcohol, indigo dyed Indian textiles, and other factory-made goods. The second leg of
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#17327688896838996-534: The 1830s, and the earliest written evidence was found in an 1836 published book by F. H. Rankin. Portuguese coastal raiders found that slave raiding was too costly and often ineffective and opted for established commercial relations. The colonial South Atlantic and Caribbean economies were particularly dependent on slave labour for the production of sugarcane and other commodities. This was viewed as crucial by those Western European states which were vying with one another to create overseas empires . The Portuguese, in
9169-412: The 18th century, becoming the biggest shippers of slaves across the Atlantic. It is estimated that more than half of the entire slave trade took place during the 18th century, with the Portuguese, British, and French being the main carriers of nine out of ten slaves abducted in Africa. At the time, slave trading was regarded as crucial to Europe's maritime economy, as noted by one English slave trader: "What
9342-399: 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 the Roman institution of slavery (and
9515-741: 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
9688-441: 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
9861-412: The 20th-century; in 652, the Rashidun Caliphate in Egypt enforced an annual tribute of 400 slaves from the Christian Kingdom of Makuria by the Baqt treaty, which was to be in effect for centuries. It supplied Africans for slavery in the Rashidun Caliphate (632–661), the Umayyad Caliphate (661–750), the Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258) and the Mamluk Sultanate (1258–1517). The Atlantic slave trade
10034-429: The African coast, where they purchased slaves from local African leaders. These slaves were managed by a factor , who was established on or near the coast to expedite the shipping of slaves to the New World. Slaves were imprisoned in a factory while awaiting shipment. Current estimates are that about 12 million to 12.8 million Africans were shipped across the Atlantic over a span of 400 years. The number purchased by
10207-448: 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
10380-406: The Americas ), systematizing both the voyage and the process of seasoning, though it varied locationally and temporally. While slave traders and owners practiced seasoning in both North and South America, it was not practiced consistently in the Southern Colonies where planters often forced "new" slaves to work immediately upon their arrival to the colonies. Slave traders and slaveowners adopted
10553-493: The Americas, along with the gold and silver brought from the American continent not only to Europe but elsewhere in the Old World. By the 15th century, slavery had existed in the Iberian Peninsula (Portugal and Spain) of Western Europe throughout recorded history. The Roman Empire had established its system of slavery in ancient times. Historian Benjamin Isaac suggests proto-racism existed in ancient times among Greco-Roman people . Racial prejudices were based on dehumanizing
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#173276888968310726-459: The Americas. The second Atlantic system was the trade of enslaved Africans by mostly English, French, and Dutch traders and investors. The main destinations of this phase were the Caribbean islands Curaçao , Jamaica and Martinique , as European nations built up economically slave-dependent colonies in the New World. In 1672, the Royal Africa Company was founded. In 1674, the New West India Company became deeper involved in slave trade. From 1677,
10899-457: The Americas. The term applied to both the physical acclimatization of the enslaved person to the environment, as well as that person's adjustment to a new social environment , labor regimen, and language. Slave traders and owners believed that if slaves survived this critical period of environmental seasoning, they were less likely to die and the psychological element would make them more easily controlled. This process took place immediately after
11072-567: The Atlantic slave trade and refused to sell African people and attacked the European forts built along the slave coast in West Africa. Donna Beatriz Kimpa Vita in Kongo and Senegalese leader Abd al-Qadir, advocated resistance against the forced exportation of Africans. In the 1770s, leader Abdul Kader Khan opposed the Atlantic slave trade through Futa Toro , present-day Senegal . Abdul Kader Khan and Futa Toro nation resisted French slave traders and colonizers who wanted to enslave Africans and Muslims from Futa Toro. Other forms of resistance against
11245-404: The Atlantic slave trade by African nations was migrating to different areas in West Africa such as swamps and lake regions to escape slave raids. In West Africa, Efik slave dealers participated in slave dealing as a form of protection against enslavement. African resistance movements were carried out in every phase of the slave trade to resisting marches to the slave holding stations, resistance at
11418-462: The Atlantic slave trade, many African nations resisted such as the Djola and Balanta . Some African nations organized into military resistance movements and fought African slave raiders and European slave traders entering their villages. For example, the Akan , Etsi, Fetu, Eguafo, Agona , and Asebu people organized into the Fante coalition and fought African and European slave raiders and protected themselves from capture and enslavement. Chief Tomba
11591-439: The Atlantic slave trade, wrote: [T]o see Africans as partners implies equal terms and equal influence on the global and intercontinental processes of the trade. Africans had great influence on the continent itself, but they had no direct influence on the engines behind the trade in the capital firms, the shipping and insurance companies of Europe and America, or the plantation systems in Americas. They did not wield any influence on
11764-454: The Atlantic. From 1525, slaves were transported directly from the Portuguese colony of Sao Tomé across the Atlantic to Hispaniola . A burial ground in Campeche , Mexico, suggests enslaved Africans had been brought there not long after Hernán Cortés completed the subjugation of Aztec and Mayan Mexico in 1519. The graveyard had been in use from approximately 1550 to the late 17th century. In 1562, John Hawkins captured Africans in what
11937-490: 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
12110-416: The European Catholic nations to expand their dominion over 'discovered' land. Possession of non-Christian lands would be justified along with the enslavement of native, non-Christian 'pagans' in Africa and the 'New World.'" Dum Diversas and Romanus Pontifex may have had an influence with the creation of doctrines supportive of empire building. In 1493, the Doctrine of Discovery issued by Pope Alexander VI ,
12283-422: The European mainland. A vast amount of labour was needed to create and sustain plantations that required intensive labour to grow, harvest, and process prized tropical crops. Western Africa (part of which became known as "the Slave Coast "), Angola and nearby Kingdoms and later Central Africa , became the source for enslaved people to meet the demand for labour. The basic reason for the constant shortage of labour
12456-490: 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
12629-540: The Kongolese King Afonso I seized a French vessel and its crew for illegally trading on his coast. In addition, Afonso complained to the king of Portugal that Portuguese slave traders continued to kidnap his people, which was causing depopulation in his kingdom. Queen Nzinga (Nzinga Mbande) fought against the expansion of the Portuguese slave trade into Mbundu people's lands in Central Africa in
12802-503: The Muslim world are 11.5 million and 14 million, while other estimates indicate a number between 12 and 15 million African slaves prior to the 20th century. According to John K. Thornton , Europeans usually bought enslaved people who had been captured in endemic warfare between African states. Some Africans had made a business out of capturing war captives or members of neighboring ethnic groups and selling them. A reminder of this practice
12975-537: The Portuguese to "tap into" the "well-developed commercial economy in Africa ... without engaging in hostilities". "Peaceful trade became the rule all along the African coast", although there were some rare exceptions when acts of aggression led to violence. For instance, Portuguese traders attempted to conquer the Bissagos Islands in 1535. In 1571, Portugal, supported by the Kingdom of Kongo , took control of
13148-597: The Red Sea to Arabia and Aden , with sick slaves being thrown overboard, or they were marched across the Sahara desert via the Trans-Saharan slave trade route to the Nile , many of them dying from exposure or swollen feet along the way. However, estimates are imprecise, which can affect comparison between different slave trades. Two rough estimates by scholars of the numbers African slaves held over twelve centuries in
13321-659: The Red Sea , another four million through the Swahili ports of the Indian Ocean , perhaps as many as nine million along the trans-Saharan caravan route, and eleven to twenty million (depending on the author) across the Atlantic Ocean. Slaves were marched in shackles to the coasts of Sudan, Ethiopia and Somali, placed upon dhows and trafficked across the Indian Ocean to the Gulf of Aden . Others were carried across
13494-609: 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
13667-413: The Spanish king gave permission for ships to go directly from Africa to the Caribbean colonies, and they started taking 200–300 per trip. During the first Atlantic system, most of these slavers were Portuguese, giving them a near-monopoly. Decisive was the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas which did not allow Spanish ships in African ports. Spain had to rely on Portuguese ships and sailors to bring slaves across
13840-569: 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
14013-754: 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
14186-486: 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
14359-434: The arrival of enslaved people during which their mortality rates were particularly high. These "new" or "saltwater" slaves were described as "outlandish" on arrival. Those who survived this process became "seasoned", and typically commanded a higher price in the market. For example, in eighteenth century Brazil, the price differential between "new" and "seasoned" slaves was about fifteen percent. Atlantic Creoles made up
14532-456: The building manufacturing centres of the West. Sometimes trading between Europeans and African leaders was not equal. For example, Europeans influenced Africans to provide more slaves by forming military alliances with warring African societies to instigate more fighting which would provide more war captives to the African rulers to trade as slaves for European consumer goods. Also, Europeans shifted
14705-469: The captain and the rest of the crew. The captain and crew made a deal with the Africans and promised them their freedom. The Africans took control of the ship and sailed back to Africa's shore. The captain and his crew tried to re-enslave the Africans but were unsuccessful. The Atlantic slave trade is customarily divided into two eras, known as the first and second Atlantic systems. Slightly more than 3% of
14878-581: The captive Africans as gifts to Prince Henry the Navigator . By 1460, seven hundred to eight hundred African people were taken annually and imported into Portugal. In Portugal, the Africans taken were used as domestic servants. From 1460 to 1500, the removal of Africans increased as Portugal and Spain built forts along the coast of West Africa. By 1500, Portugal and Spain had taken about 50,000 thousand West Africans. The Africans worked as domestic servants, artisans, and farmers. Other Africans were taken to work
15051-417: 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,
15224-578: The conquered Canary Islands and then from mainland Africa, initially from Arab slave traders via the Trans-Saharan slave trade from Libya , and then directly from the African West coast through Portuguese outposts, which developed into the Atlantic slave trade and expanded significantly after the establishment of the colonies in the Americas in 1492. In the 15th century, Spain enacted a racially discriminatory law named limpieza de sangre , which translates as "blood purity" or "cleanliness of blood",
15397-482: The consequences of European navigation "disenclavement", with it marking an end of isolation for some societies and an increase in inter-societal contact for most others. Historian John Thornton noted, "A number of technical and geographical factors combined to make Europeans the most likely people to explore the Atlantic and develop its commerce". He identified these as being the drive to find new and profitable commercial opportunities outside Europe. Additionally, there
15570-492: The construction industry, cutting timber for ships, as skilled labour, and as domestic servants. The first enslaved Africans sent to the English colonies were classified as indentured servants , with legal standing similar to that of contract-based workers coming from Britain and Ireland. However, by the middle of the 17th century, slavery had hardened as a racial caste, with African slaves and their future offspring being legally
15743-756: The directions of the Kingdom of Castile , invaded and colonised the Canary Islands during the 15th century, where they converted much of the land to the production of wine and sugar. Along with this, they also captured native Canary Islanders, the Guanches , to use as slaves both on the Islands and across the Christian Mediterranean. After the success of Portugal and Spain in the slave trade other European nations followed. In 1530, an English merchant from Plymouth, William Hawkins , visited
15916-411: The disease had debilitating effects on the European settlers. Conversely, many enslaved Africans were taken from regions of Africa which hosted particularly potent strains of the disease, so the Africans had already developed natural resistance to malaria. This, Esposito argued, resulted in higher malaria survival rates in the American south among enslaved Africans than among European labourers, making them
16089-673: The dramatic discoveries were made under the sponsorship of the Iberian monarchs". That leadership later gave rise to the myth that "the Iberians were the sole leaders of the exploration". European overseas expansion led to the contact between the Old and New Worlds producing the Columbian exchange , named after the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus . It started the global silver trade from
16262-554: 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
16435-471: 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
16608-549: The enslaved people exported from Africa were traded between 1525 and 1600, and 16% in the 17th century. The first Atlantic system was the trade of enslaved Africans to, primarily, American colonies of the Portuguese and Spanish empires. Before the 1520s, slavers took Africans to Seville or the Canary Islands and then exported some of them from Spain to its colonies in Hispaniola and Puerto Rico, with 1 to 40 slaves per ship. These supplemented enslaved Native Americans. In 1518,
16781-470: The entire European continent, rendering it unthinkable to enslave a European since this would require enslaving an insider. Conversely, Africans were viewed as outsiders and thus qualified for enslavement. While Europeans may have treated some types of labour, such as convict labour, with conditions similar to that of slaves, these labourers would not be regarded as chattel and their progeny could not inherit their subordinate status, thus not making them slaves in
16954-589: The eyes of Europeans. The status of chattel slavery was thus confined to non-Europeans, such as Africans. Slavery in Africa 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 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
17127-718: 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
17300-409: The first generations of enslaved people. Atlantic creoles were often mixed-race, integrated into and familiar with European society and gained freedom at higher rates prior to the eighteenth century. The first half of the 18th century saw a shift in Atlantic slavery. While tobacco, sugar, and rice took root in the Caribbean and North American colonies, the enslaved population of the New World shifted from
17473-515: The foreign peoples they conquered through warfare. Since the fall of the Western Roman Empire , various systems of slavery continued in the successor Islamic and Christian kingdoms of the peninsula through the early modern era of the Atlantic slave trade. In 1441–1444, Portuguese traders first captured Africans on the Atlantic coast of Africa (in what is today Mauritania ), taking their captives to slavery in Europe , and established
17646-454: The further commodification of human beings and their preparation by enslavers for the marketplace and labor. Enslavers accomplished this preparation by treating their slaves harshly, subjecting them to a brutal regimen of training and violence. Lasting between one and three years, this process of adjustment was physically and psychologically taxing, and marked by brutality and coercion. Slaveholders resorted to force and violence in order to subdue
17819-566: 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
17992-518: 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
18165-515: 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
18338-401: The labor and to become accustomed to the extreme workload. Training did not only take the form of labor. Enslaved people were also taught the language of the colony either by other slaves who had already undergone the seasoning process or by the white overseers of the plantation. Though constantly threatened with beatings and further ill-treatment, enslaved people resisted their enslavement in
18511-443: 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
18684-426: 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
18857-418: The largest African population . "The Treaty of Alcacuvas in 1479 provided traders the right to supply Spaniards with Africans." In addition, in the 15th century, Dominican friar Annius of Viterbo invoked the curse of Ham , from the biblical story of enslavement, to explain the differences between Europeans and Africans in his writings. Annius, who frequently wrote of the "superiority of Christians over
19030-488: The last sixteen years of the transatlantic slave trade, Spain was the only transatlantic slave-trading empire. Following the British Slave Trade Act 1807 and U.S. bans on the African slave trade that same year, it declined, but the period thereafter still accounted for 28.5% of the total volume of the Atlantic slave trade. Between 1810 and 1860, over 3.5 million slaves were transported, with 850,000 in
19203-640: 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
19376-463: 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 the local inhabitants vied with each other in
19549-477: The location of disembarkation points for trade along the African coast to follow military conflicts in West-Central Africa. In areas of Africa where slavery was not prevalent, European slave traders worked and negotiated with African rulers on their terms for trade, and African rulers refused to supply European demands. Africans and Europeans profited from the slave trade; however, African populations,
19722-467: 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
19895-591: The majority of slave arrivals, mainly from Angola . This division of the slave trade between Spain and Portugal upset the British and the Dutch who invested in the British West Indies and Dutch Brazil producing sugar. After the Iberian Union fell apart, Spain prohibited Portugal from directly engaging in the slave trade as a carrier. According the Treaty of Münster the slave trade was opened for
20068-644: 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
20241-649: 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
20414-652: The men to free themselves and fight the crew. According to historical research from the records of slave ship captains, between 1698 and 1807, there were 353 acts of insurrection aboard slave ships. The majority of the rebellions by the Africans were defeated. Igbo slaves on ships committed suicide by jumping overboard as an act of resistance to enslavement. To prevent further suicides, white crewmen placed nets around slave ships to catch enslaved persons that jumped overboard. White captains and crewmen invested in firearms, swivel guns , and ordered ship crews to watch slaves to prevent or prepare for possible slave revolts. John Newton
20587-529: The mid-16th century, the Spanish New Laws , prohibited slavery of the Indigenous people. A labour shortage resulted. Alternative sources of labour, such as indentured servitude , failed to provide a sufficient workforce. Many crops could not be sold for profit, or even grown, in Europe. Exporting crops and goods from the New World to Europe often proved to be more profitable than producing them on
20760-535: 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
20933-430: The nature of the relationship between these African kingdoms and the European traders. The Guyanese historian Walter Rodney (1972) has argued that it was an unequal relationship, with Africans being forced into a "colonial" trade with the more economically developed Europeans, exchanging raw materials and human resources (i.e. slaves) for manufactured goods. He argued that it was this economic trade agreement dating back to
21106-530: 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
21279-499: 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
21452-473: 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
21625-413: 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
21798-510: The property of their owners, as children born to slave mothers were also slaves ( partus sequitur ventrem ). As property, the people were considered merchandise or units of labour, and were sold at markets with other goods and services. The major Atlantic slave trading nations, in order of trade volume, were Portugal , Britain , Spain , France , the Netherlands , the United States, and Denmark . Several had established outposts on
21971-517: 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
22144-536: 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
22317-472: 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
22490-517: 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
22663-530: 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
22836-453: 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
23009-439: The seasoning in several visible ways. Scholars have considered widespread suicide among newly enslaved people an act of resistance. Indeed, enslavers feared suicide alongside disease, and contemporary manuals for the seasoning included recommendations for improving an enslaved person's "disposition" to best avoid suicide. Hunger plagued enslaved people during and after the seasoning and reports of food theft at any opportunity -- and
23182-443: The seasoning process. During the Middle Passage , slave traders forced enslaved Africans to live in tight quarters without ventilation, sufficient food, or water, and with no opportunity for hygiene. In such conditions, enslaved people often contracted scurvy or amoebic dysentery ; of which amoebic dysentery, or the "bloody flux", claimed the most lives. Once ashore, enslaved people lived in appalling conditions similar to those of
23355-513: 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
23528-637: The slave coast, and resistance on slave ships. For example, aboard the slave ship Clare, the enslaved Africans revolted and drove the crew from the vessel and took control of the ship and liberated themselves and landed near Cape Coast Castle in present-day Ghana in 1729. On other slave ships enslaved Africans sunk ships, killed the crew, and set fire to ships with explosives. Slave traders and white crewmembers prepared and prevented possible rebellions by loading women, men, and children separately inside slave ships because enslaved children used loose pieces of wood, tools, and any objects they found and passed them to
23701-556: 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
23874-409: 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
24047-521: 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
24220-562: The slave trade of Africans. In Lisbon during the 16th and 17th centuries, Muslims financed by Jewish conversos traded Africans across the Sahara Desert and enslaved Africans before and during the Atlantic slave trade in Europe and Africa. In New Spain , Spaniards applied limpieza de sangre to Africans and Native Americans and created a racial caste system, believing them to be impure because they were not Christian. Europeans enslaved Muslims and people practicing other religions as
24393-428: 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
24566-525: The social, political, and military changes to African societies suffered greatly. For example, Mossi Kingdoms resisted the Atlantic slave trade and refused to participate in the selling of African people. However, as time progressed more European slave traders entered into West Africa and were having more influence in African nations and the Mossi became involved in slave trading in the 1800s. Although there were African nations that participated and profited from
24739-498: The south-western region of Angola in order to secure its threatened economic interest in the area. Although Kongo later joined a coalition in 1591 to force the Portuguese out, Portugal had secured a foothold on the continent that it continued to occupy until the 20th century. Despite these incidents of occasional violence between African and European forces, many African states ensured that any trade went on in their own terms, for instance, imposing custom duties on foreign ships. In 1525,
24912-512: 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
25085-418: The sugar fields the week they arrived. This was the first step in the essential process of training the new arrivals in the technologies of sugar cultivation . Elsewhere, too, enslaved people were taught how to cultivate and process crops, often including the ones meant to sustain the enslaved population during the seasoning. Over the seasoning period, slaveowners wanted their slaves to acquire both knowledge of
25258-441: The term "seasoning" during the transatlantic slave trade when newly arrived slaves died at high rates in the years following disembarkation. Death rates differed among regions in the Americas, though both the Middle Passage and the seasoning period were exceptionally deadly across the Americas. A "Dr. Collins" writing in 1803 attributed the high mortality rates to disease, change in climate, diet, labor, "severity", and suicide. In
25431-487: The tidal currents, and could begin traversing the Atlantic Ocean; the Portuguese set up a Navigator's School (although there is much debate about whether it existed and if it did, just what it was). Between 1600 and 1800, approximately 300,000 sailors engaged in the slave trade visited West Africa. In doing so, they came into contact with societies living along the west African coast and in the Americas which they had never previously encountered. Historian Pierre Chaunu termed
25604-422: The time) and those slaves that existed in Europe tended to be non-Christians and their immediate descendants (since a slave converting to Christianity did not guarantee emancipation) and thus by the 15th century Europeans as a whole came to be regarded as insiders. Eltis argues that while all slave societies have demarked insiders and outsiders, Europeans took this process further by extending the status of insider to
25777-502: 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
25950-401: The trade, although illegal smuggling still occurred. It was generally thought that the transatlantic slave trade ended in 1867, but evidence was later found of voyages until 1873. In the early 21st century, several governments issued apologies for the transatlantic slave trade. The Atlantic slave trade developed after trade contacts were established between the " Old World " ( Afro-Eurasia ) and
26123-431: The traders was considerably higher, as the passage had a high death rate, with between 1.2 and 2.4 million dying during the voyage, and millions more in seasoning camps in the Caribbean after arrival in the New World. Millions of people also died as a result of slave raids, wars, and during transport to the coast for sale to European slave traders. Near the beginning of the 19th century, various governments acted to ban
26296-438: The traditional enemies of Spain, losing a large share of the trade to the Dutch, French, and English. For 150 years, Spanish transatlantic traffic was operating at trivial levels. In many years, not a single Spanish slave voyage set sail from Africa. Unlike all of their imperial competitors, the Spanish almost never delivered slaves to foreign territories. By contrast, the British, and the Dutch before them, sold slaves everywhere in
26469-421: The transatlantic slave trade were from Central Africa and West Africa and had been sold by West African slave traders to European slave traders, while others had been captured directly by the slave traders in coastal raids. European slave traders gathered and imprisoned the enslaved at forts on the African coast and then brought them to the Americas. Some Portuguese and Europeans participated in slave raids. As
26642-470: The triangle exported enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas and the Caribbean Islands. The third and final part of the triangle was the return of goods to Europe from the Americas. The goods were the products of slave plantations and included cotton, sugar, tobacco, molasses and rum. Sir John Hawkins , considered the pioneer of the English slave trade, was the first to run
26815-408: The triangular trade, making a profit at every stop. The Atlantic slave trade was the result of, among other things, labour shortage , itself in turn created by the desire of European colonists to exploit New World land and resources for capital profits. Native peoples were at first utilized as slave labour by Europeans until a large number died from overwork and Old World diseases. Furthermore, in
26988-795: The union of crowns presented commercial opportunities in the slave trade to Spanish America. Until the middle of the 17th century, Mexico was the largest single market for slaves in Spanish America. While the Portuguese were directly involved in trading enslaved peoples to Brazil, the Spanish Empire relied on the Asiento de Negros system, awarding (Catholic) Genoese merchant bankers the license to trade enslaved people from Africa to their colonies in Spanish America . Cartagena , Veracruz , Buenos Aires , and Hispaniola received
27161-468: Was a "training not only to hard work, but to scanty diet." Slaveowners drastically limited the slaves' diets, both in breadth and depth, to the diet of the plantations, which was chiefly composed of maize, rice, or flour. Battered by this inadequate diet, enslaved people often suffered "dropsies" ( edema ) and "fluxes" ( diarrhea ), compounding their severe and widespread malnutrition . Newly arrived slaves experienced high rates of disease and death during
27334-413: Was a captain of slave ships and recorded in his personal journal how Africans mutinied on ships, and some were successful in overtaking the crew. For example, in 1730 the slave ship Little George departed from the Guinea Coast in route to Rhode Island with a cargo of ninety-six enslaved Africans. A few of the slaves slipped out of their iron chains and killed three of the watchmen on deck and imprisoned
27507-559: Was born in 1700 and his adopted father was a general from the Jalonke-speaking people who fought against the slave trade. Tomba became ruler of the Baga people in present-day Guinea Bissau in West Africa and made alliances with nearby African villages against African and European slave traders. His efforts were unsuccessful: Tomba was captured by African traders and sold into slavery. Dahomey King Agaja from 1718 to 1740, opposed
27680-469: Was endemic in the African continent. An article from PBS explains: "Malaria, dysentery, yellow fever, and other diseases reduced the few Europeans living and trading along the West African coast to a chronic state of ill health and earned Africa the name 'white man's grave.' In this environment, European merchants were rarely in a position to call the shots." The earliest known use of the phrase began in
27853-614: 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
28026-501: Was little more than to exploit the opportunity for immediate profits made by raiding and the seizure or purchase of trade commodities". Using the Canary Islands as a naval base, Europeans, at the time primarily Portuguese traders, began to move their activities down the western coast of Africa, performing raids in which slaves would be captured to be later sold in the Mediterranean. Although initially successful in this venture, "it
28199-578: 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
28372-490: Was not long before African naval forces were alerted to the new dangers, and the Portuguese [raiding] ships began to meet strong and effective resistance", with the crews of several of them being killed by African sailors, whose boats were better equipped at traversing the west-central African coasts and river systems. By 1494, the Portuguese king had entered agreements with the rulers of several West African states that would allow trade between their respective peoples, enabling
28545-482: Was not the only slave trade from Africa; as Elikia M'bokolo wrote in Le Monde diplomatique : The African continent was bled of its human resources via all possible routes. Across the Sahara, through the Red Sea, from the Indian Ocean ports and across the Atlantic. At least ten centuries of slavery for the benefit of the Muslim countries (from the ninth to the nineteenth) ... Four million enslaved people exported via
28718-612: 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
28891-445: 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 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
29064-521: Was prevalent in many parts of Africa for many centuries before the beginning of the Atlantic slave trade. An article from PBS explains the differences between African slavery and European slavery in the Americas . "It is important to distinguish between European slavery and African slavery. In most cases, slavery systems in Africa were more like indentured servitude in that the slaves retained some rights and children born to slaves were generally born free. The slaves could be released from servitude and join
29237-415: 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
29410-468: 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
29583-452: Was that, with much cheap land available and many landowners searching for workers, free European immigrants were able to become landowners themselves relatively quickly, thus increasing the need for workers. Labour shortages were mainly met by the English, French and Portuguese with African slave labour. Thomas Jefferson attributed the use of slave labour in part to the climate, and the consequent idle leisure afforded by slave labour: "For in
29756-503: Was the desire to create an alternative trade network to that controlled by the Muslim Ottoman Empire of the Middle East, which was viewed as a commercial, political and religious threat to European Christendom. In particular, European traders wanted to trade for gold, which could be found in western Africa, and to find a maritime route to "the Indies" (India), where they could trade for luxury goods such as spices without having to obtain these items from Middle Eastern Islamic traders. During
29929-466: Was used as a justification by Spain to take lands from non-Christians West of the Azores . The Doctrine of Discovery stated that non-Christian lands should be taken and ruled by Christian nations, and Indigenous people (Africans and Native Americans ) living on their lands should convert to Christianity. In 1493, Pope Alexander VI issued a papal bull called Inter Caetera which gave Spain and Portugal rights to claim and colonize all non-Christian lands in
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