Slavery in Africa and the Middle East

• Focuses on slavery in Africa and the Middle East from the 16th to 19th centuries.
• Examines the East African and Atlantic slave trades during this period.
• Examines the decline and impact of movements to abolish the slave trade.

Expansion of the Atlantic Slave Trade (16th Century)

• Technological factors and the growth of maritime commerce contributed to the expansion.
• Plantation agriculture significantly impacted the slave trade.
• Existing practices of slavery in African societies, rivalries, and warfare between African states played a role.

Expansion of the East African Slave Trade (Late 18th Century)

• An existing slave trade between Arabia and the Swahili coast was a factor.
• The Sultanate of Oman expanded into East Africa.
• International demand rose due to the ban on the Atlantic trade.

Nature of the Slave Trade

• It had significant social and economic impact in Africa and the Middle East.
• Individuals played a role and had significance in the trade.

Decline of the Atlantic Slave Trade

• Industrialization and economic changes contributed to the decline.
• The abolitionist movement played a role.
• The rise of legitimate commerce was a factor.

Decline of the East African Slave Trade

• Humanitarian factors and the influence of missionaries were involved.
• Colonial expansion and the closing of markets led to the decline.
• The decline of slavery in the Ottoman Empire also contributed.

Impact and Significance of Anti-Slavery Acts (19th Century)

• Includes the 1807 Slave Trade Act and the 1833 and 1885 Berlin Act.

Aims of Portuguese

• Their voyage of exploration along the West African coast wasn't aimed at reaching India
• Immediate concern was to bypass Muslim North Africa and gain direct access to gold-producing regions of West Africa.
• They sought to provide Portugal with natural wealth.

Early Portuguese Trade

• Portuguese ships first reached the W. African coast south of Akan gold fields in the 1470s.
• They built a fort called Elmina to protect their trading post from rival European shipping.
• Copper, brass, and European cloth were traded in exchange for gold.
• Portuguese bought slaves from forest kingdoms of Benin near the Niger Delta.
• Cowrie shells and luxury cloth from India were added to their trade goods.

Origins of European Controlled Plantation Slavery

• In the 1480s, the Portuguese discovered uninhabited equatorial islands of Principe and Sao Tome.
• They developed thriving sugar plantations in the rich volcanic soils of these islands.
• These plantations were manned by slave labor drawn from the African mainland.
• The plantation system of growing sugar cane had been developed in various Mediterranean islands in southern Spain and Portugal in the 14th and 15th centuries.
• Slave labor came from North Africa and Slavs from southern Russia.
• Sao Tome became the largest single sugar producer of sugar for the European market in the 16th century

Development of Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade

• The Sao Tome plantation system, owned and run by European settlers and manned by African slave labor, became a model for plantation slavery in the Americas and the Caribbean.
• With Portuguese presence along the coast of tropical West Africa, captives were brought from local chiefs for sale.
• Slaves in the 15th and 16th centuries came from Senegal and Gambia and were transported to farms and plantations in southern Spain and Portugal.
• Enslaved people from the Niger Delta and Zaire River region were taken to Sao Tome.
• The Portuguese traded with West Africans while seeking an eastern route to India, while the Spaniards were opening a trans-Atlantic route to the Americas and the Caribbean.
• European colonization and exploitation of the tropical New World followed Columbus' voyage of discovery in 1492.

Rise in Demand for Slaves

• The need for slaves to work on gold, silver mines, and tobacco plantations increased
• The local Amerindian population succumbed to harsh treatment by colonizers and unfamiliar European diseases.
• The Caribbean population decreased by 90% a century following European contact due to violence and diseases
• Criminals and outcasts from Europe transported to America didn't survive long because of diseases.
• Africa became the source for slave trade for several reasons
• Africans had developed a certain level of immunity to tropical diseases.
• Africans had experience and skills in metalworking, mining, and tropical agriculture.
• African rulers were prepared to sell war captives and criminals.
• The Sao Tome experience showed the possibilities of using African labor on plantations.
• Sugar plantations in Brazil and the Caribbean rapidly expanded in 1630s with Dutch, French, and English involvement
• The rising demand for sugar increased the scale of the trade in captives.
• For the next 200 years it was the largest forced labor transportation of captive people ever devised in human history.

Nature of Slave Trade

• There are disputes among historians about the numbers involved in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, although recorded statistics indicate 10 million Africans were sold into America and the Caribbean in 300 years following 1532.
• About 2 million died on the trans-Atlantic voyage.
• The total number of Africans taken captive out of Africa was about 12 million.
• Historians argue that a significant portion of the slave trade went unrecorded, so the number could be double what's recorded.
• Numbers taken in Africa varied from region to region.
• Senegal was an important early source in the 16th century.
• The Angolan coastline remained a major exporting region from the 16th-19th century.
• The rise in Caribbean sugar plantations from the mid-17th century led to Dutch, French, English, Danes, and other Europeans becoming actively involved in the slave trade.
• Slave Coast (Western coast of Nigeria) became a major source of slaves.
• The greatest concentration of European trading forts was along the Gold Coast (modern-day Ghana).
• Slaves were continuously taken from the Slave Coast and Angola well into the 19th century, when many regions had ceased trade in slaves.
• Europeans were not active in capturing slaves, yet they stirred up warfare in regions like Angola between Kongo and Dongo.
• War captives could be ransomed back, integrated, or forced to work.
• With European slavery, war captives were removed from African society and slaves had a short life expectancy in harsh conditions with no hope to return.
• Wars in the interior were mainly due to expansion of states with losers becoming slaves.
• Benin sold captives to the Portuguese in the late 15th century, refused in the 16th, and renewed in the 18th during decline.
• Wars were not waged to capture but the presence of Europeans offering prices for captives stimulated warfare
• Powerful African rulers provided slaves when it suited them, rarely from their society except criminals/outcasts.

Impact on Warfare

• Guns made warfare more profitable and it became total destruction to weaker societies.
• Slave trade increased warfare in W. African interior, leading to a serious loss of productive potential of the region.
• In the past, wars provided tribute for the vanquished, and increased warfare produced surplus captives not used in African society.
• Captives were not ransomed but sold out of Africa.
• Slaves were sold for goods worth a fraction of what they might have produced.
• Captives were young, 14-35 years old.

Trans-Atlantic Trade Impact

• The greatest evil of the trans-Atlantic trade was the extent of human suffering and callous disregard for human life and dignity.
• Captives were no longer treated as humans but as property, to be herded together, examined, and battered.
• Captives were chained together, marched to the coast, and locked in wooden cages.
• Once a deal was struck, the voyage began after men and women were examined if fit, strong, and healthy..
• Slaves were packed on decks, forced to lie in excreta and urine for weeks with barely enough food and water.
• The dead were thrown overboard.
• 15-30% were expected to die crossing the Atlantic
• Africa's fittest, young men and women were removed from the continent yearly for profit by Europeans.

Impact on Plantations

• Plantations grew sugar and coffee in Brazil
• The Caribbean Islands grew sugar
• Southern America grew tobacco and cotton
• Most enslaved were taken to the Caribbean Islands
• Plantation life was hard
• Trauma of leaving Africa caused some to never survive
• 1/3 died in 1st 3 years & little survived beyond a decade
• Main cause of death was underfeeding and overwork
• It was cheaper to replace slaves than to rear the new generations
• Until the late 18th century, it was cheaper to obtain slaves in Africa than to rear their own children.
• Pregnant women could not work so having/raising a slave was a net loss
• The new world rested on the backs of slaves

Profit from Slave Trade & Resulting Racism

• The slave trade was a triangular route: Europe to Africa to America
• Europe sold manufactured goods and got sugar
• With Americas getting enslaved, wealth began to grow in major European cities which facilitated trade with America

Slavery & Origins of Racism

• Racism began from the exploitation of Africans, facilitating in Trans-Altlantic slavery
• For 300yrs enslaved were viewed as African & was acceptable in the new world
• Some Europeans argued that taking in Africans was rescuing them
• Europe sought to colonize Africa in the 19th century due to the argument that civilizing Africans was spreading Christianity

Ending of Slave Trade

• In the 18th century Britain overtook all other European nations as single largest exporter of enslaved from Africa
• Half of those transported from W. Africa transported by British ships
• 1807 Britain abolished trade in Slaves and prohibited transport of slaves among the British
• USA banned transport of enslaved in 1808
• Holland & France banned transport of enslaved in 1814 and 1817

Abolition of Slave Trade

• The ending was mainly due to economics due to notorious Scramble for Africa 1880 & 1890s, this can be argued due to the Americans winning independence as well as French winning independence
• It became uneconomic due to Brazil expanding sugar plantations, leading to overproduction.

New System

• Brits saw free-wage labor as cheaper than plantation owners, as slavery began to make plantation owners lose influence in Europe
• Europeans began to pivot to other industries creating the idea that Europe can use Africa for raw materials, not for enslaved people
• Olaudah Equiano & Ottobah Cugoano were African slave freedom fighters who wrote books to further the cause

Efforts against Enslavement

• Enslaved tried to get freedom many times, with groups revolting or attempting to escape in places like Brazil
• Palmores, Brazil was lead by a group that ran for over 100 yrs before being taken down by the Portuguese
• Jamaica's revolution consisted of Maroons who escaped to the central highlands and created farming communities
• St. Domigue slave revolt killed and set the stage for future insurrections and independence
• Brits, if they couldn't profit from enslaving would profit from ending it

Benefits

• Slave trade allowed trade between Africa/Europe for new crops maize and cassava
• Europe/ Africans established trade for golds from Africa, especially for machinery lubricant oils
• The shift in economy and commerce didn't allow the growth of African economies as they failed to modernize

Africa & Dependence

• Europe would export material to Africa while taking materials
• However most African personal freedom declined because they had to increase the transport of trading goods
• Europeans would exploit African and backed them by selling guns
• Two new African countries developed in early 19th century Liberia and Sierra Leone, from slave trade abolition
• Europeans pushed for abolition of Slavery in Liberia, as it was colonized for freed US enslaved
• Sierra Leone was a settlement of free blacks from England who were given help