Transatlantic slave trade

1. Transatlantic slave trade The Door of No Return

2. Transatlantic Slave Trade • Why? • European colonization of Americas • Spain • Portugal • England • Europeans thirst for New World (Americas) items fuels growth of plantations • Sugar • Tobacco • Cotton • Molasses • Rum • Disease, overwork kills millions of Native Americans; new labor force needed

3. Why Africans? • No written language • Some disease resistance; already exposed to Europeans through trade activities, attempts “civilize” • No muskets, gunpowder • Slave trade already existed on the continent • Prisoners of war • Some sold themselves into slavery during famines • Treated as servants rather than property • “A slaves who knows how to serve inherits his master’s property” • Between 1450 and 1800 historians estimate 10-20 MILLION Africans were kidnapped and sold into slavery • 5% brought to North America

4. How? • Africans became enslaved mainly through four ways: • criminals sold by the chiefs as punishment; • free Africans conducted raids for African and European gangs • domestic slaves resold • prisoners of war. Source: AduBoahen (University of Ghana)

5. “The Door of No Return” – Goree Island, Senegal

6. Cape Coast Castle, West Africa

7. What was Triangular Trade? • Three leg route • Europe • Africa • America • Europe to Africa • Cloth, firearms, beads, • spirits, tobacco • Africa to Americas • “Middle Passage” • Slaves • Americas to Europe • Raw materials: cotton, • Sugar, rum, tobacco

8. Triangular Trade

9. Middle Passage • Slaves loaded on ships • Horrific conditions • Diseases including small pox, dysentery • Those too sick to continue journey thrown overboard • Literally stripped of humanity • No clothes • No dignity • Treated as cargo • Hands/feet chained together • Fed only once daily, sometimes not at all • Clip from the movie “Amistad” • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vo-JejTp7O4

10. Middle Passage: Tight Pack Tight pack meant as many as 400 slaves: high deaths but high profits

11. Middle Passage: Loose Pack A loose pack meant fewer slaves: lower deaths and lower profits

12. Coping with Captivity • Occasionally, revolts took place on ships • Often quickly put down as slaveholder had advanced weapons • La Amistad revolt (1839) • Ship’s captain and much of crew killed • Remaining crew trick Africans – end up in America • President John Quincy Adams championed their cause • US Supreme Court rules in favor of Africans; allowed to return home • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2W9N44PixDk

13. Coping with Captivity • Life in the Colonies • Caribbean • Spain • Sugar plantations • Brazil • Portugal • Mining • North America (West Indies & colonies) • England: dominated slave trade by 1600’s • Cotton, craft workers, domestic servants • Long hours, brutal conditions, no freedoms • To cope kept cultural traditions alive, turned to religion, slowed work pace, occasionally rebelled

14. African Diaspora • Diaspora: from the Greek, means “spreading out” • Movement of Africans and their descendants to places throughout the world • the America • Europe • Middle East • Caused the spread of African culture to Americas, Western Europe