Chapter 20: Africa and the Africans in the Age of the Atlantic Slave Trade

1. Chapter 20: Africa and the Africans in the Age of the Atlantic Slave Trade

2. Establishing Control • The Portuguese established factories (forts and trading posts with resident merchants). • Most with the consent of local rulers. • El Mina- the most important factory • Trade was the basis of Portuguese relations with African peoples. • Impressed by power and magnificence of Africans • Missionary efforts to convert rulers in Africa. • NzingaMvemba of Kongo made the region Christian with Portuguese support.

3. Portuguese Expansion and Major African Kingdoms

4. Portuguese Exploration • Luanda- permanent Portuguese settlement, which would later be colony of Angola • Portuguese established outposts on Mozambique Island, Kilwa, Sofala and Mombasa. • In the 17th century, the Dutch, English and French competed with the Portuguese for trading stations. • The slave trade was a major interest to the Portuguese. • First slaves brought to Portugal from Africa in 1441. • Gain importance with sugar plantations on cash crop islands

5. Trend Toward Expansion • Portuguese originally raided for slaves along the coast but realized that trade was an easier way to get more slaves. • Slave trade was important when plantations (sugar) demanded constant labor. • Brazil imported 4 million • Caribbean imported 2.2 million • By 1600, the slave trade predominated over all other kinds of commerce on the African coast. • Red Sea and east African slave routes continued during this period

8. The Atlantic Slave Trade • 1450-1850: 12 million Africans shipped across the Atlantic • Mortality rate on slave ships was 10-20%. • The 17th century was the busiest for slave trade. • Mortality was high and fertility was low, so the only way to keep large numbers of slaves was to import more and more.

9. The Atlantic Slave Trade • Most slaves were taken from sub-Saharan Africa (Senegambia region) but later were taken from west central Africa primarily. • Over 3 million slaves were taken by Muslim traders from trans-Saharan area, Red Sea and east Africa. • Atlantic slave trade slaves were mostly men, while the trans-Saharan slave trade slaves were mostly women. • Trans-Saharan slaves were used as concubines and domestic servants • Atlantic slaves were used for plantation labor • Portugal controlled most of the African coastal trade until 1630. • Dutch seized El Mina in 1637  Portuguese no longer monopolize slave trade

10. Profitability of Trade • Royal African Company • English want their own source of slaves for growing plantations in Caribbean colonies • Establish trade forts in Africa to obtain slaves • Fewer than 10% of employees survived; tropical diseases • Variety of currencies involved in slave trade • Triangular trade: made emerging capitalism central to Atlantic world • Profitability of slave trade

11. African Societies and the Slave Trade • In Africa, slaves were already used as servants, concubines, soldiers, administrators, and field workers to Middle East and Northern Africa • Europeans used this to justify their enslavement of Africans • Slaves used for gold mining, salt production, and caravan work. • Europeans essentially tapped into existing routes and supplies of slaves. • African rulers generally did not enslave their own people, but enslaved neighboring peoples.

12. Slaving and African Politics • Europeans intensified African enslavement. • Endless wars promoted the importance of the military and made the sale of captives an extension of politics. • Shift of power within Africa as trade begins to be redirected towards coastal trade with Europeans • Firearms, iron, horses, cloth, tobacco • Gun and slave cycle • Increase firepower allowed states to expand over neighbors, producing more slaves, which they traded for guns • Result: unending warfare and disruption of societies through slave trade

13. Asante and Dahomey • Two major empires rose to prominence in the period of slave trade. • Asante: dominant state on Gold Coast • Comprised of 20 small states based on clans • Osei Tutu- supreme civil and religious leader, joinedmany of the clans • Controlled many gold-producing zones (1/3 trade) ; constant supply of slaves (2/3 of Asante’s trade) • Dominant state of Gold Coast until 1820s • Dahomey • Access to firearms in 1720s; creates autocratic and brutal political regime based on slave trade • Over 1.8 million slaves exported

14. Asante and Dahomey

15. East Africa • On east coast, Swahili trading cities continued commerce in Indian Ocean adjusting to military presence of Portuguese and Ottoman Turks • Trade brought ivory, gold, slaves for harems and households of Arabia • Interior of Eastern Africa is less well-known • Bantu pastoralists • Islamization • Process continues across Western Sudan • Some states continue with Muslim royal families and aristocrats, and animist peasants • Others see conversions across all levels of society

16. White Settlers and Africans in Southern Africa • 16th Century- Bantu-speaking peoples occupied eastern regions of southern Africa. • Agriculture, herding, work with iron and copper • 1652- Cape of Good Hope established as a Dutch colony for ships sailing to Asia • Depended on slave labor brought from Asia, Indonesia but then used African labor • Competition and warfare with indigenous Africans • By 1800: 17,000 settlers, 26,000 slaves

17. Mfecane and Zulu Rise to Power • 1795- Great Britain seized Cape Colony • 1815- Under formal British control • Nguni people: occupied lands in southern and eastern Africa • Shaka Zulu: Nguni leader and military tactician who began African unification process in 1818 • New military and political organization (organized by lineage and age) • Absorbed and destroyed neighbors • Mfecane- “wars of crushing and wandering,” whole southern continent thrown into turmoil • Zulu Wars of 1870’s: Zulu power crushed by Great Britain

18. African Diaspora • African Diaspora: dispersion of Africans across the globe; accomplished primarily by the slave trade and introduction of Africans into world economy • Slavery meant destruction of villages, capture in war, forced march to trading town, separation from family (1/3 died in this journey)

19. Slave Lives • Cargo sizes varied and were sometimes as high as 700 slaves in one ship • Middle Passage (slave voyage to America) was traumatic • Slaves were taken, branded by hot irons, confined and shackled, as well as being treated poorly • Slave ships were dirty, unsanitary and many suffered from poor hygiene, dysentery, disease • Extreme anxiety, suicide, resistance

20. Plantations • Slave labor was first used for sugar plantation labor and mining, but later for rice, cotton and tobacco • Plantation became the locus of African life • Slaves held urban occupations, street vendors, household servants; almost no occupation they did not perform, though most were agricultural laborers

21. American Slave Societies • Comprised of African-born saltwater slaves (black) and Creole slaves (American-born descendants, some of whom were mulattos as result of sexual exploitation of slave women and other racial mixings) • Hierarchy of slaves by slaveholders (Creoles and mulattos given more opportunities to acquire skilled jobs, such as house-hold servants) • Some African nobles and religious leaders still exercised authority within African community • Compositions of slave-based societies

22. The People and Gods in Exile • Family formation was difficult for slaves • Families may be separated at any time • Male to female ratio sometimes 3:1 • Religion - continuity and adaptation • Conversion to Catholicism by Spaniards and Portuguese • African religion did not die out and continued despite attempts by slave owners to suppress them • Often Christianity and African religions were fused • Resistance and rebellion • Palmares: runaway slave kingdom in 17th c. Brazil that resisted Portuguese and Dutch attempts to destroy it for 100 years • Suriname: large numbers of slaves ran off in this plantation colony in 18th c. and waged war against captors

23. The End of the Slave Trade and the Abolition of Slavery • End of Atlantic slave trade and abolition of slavery around 19th century • Economic, political and religious changes are occurring in Europe and the colonies • Opponents of slavery and brutality of trade appeared into the mid-18th century • Appearing in relation to Enlightenment thinkers • Now seen as backward and Immoral, symbol of inhumanity and cruelty • 1807- British slave trade was abolished with help of abolitionists like John Wesley and William Wilberforce • 1888- Brazilian slave trade was abolished