Origins of the Slave Trade out of AFRICA

Slave Trade• Ancient Slavery under the Roman empire, would

not discriminate: slaves were both white and black• In the middle ages, all European countries

outlawed slavery.• The African kingdoms continued in their trade.• Therefore, only colored people could be slaves,

and that is how the stereotype for African-American slavery was born!

• It was not based on an ancestral hatred of blacks by whites, but simply on the fact that blacks were the only ones selling slaves, and they were selling people of their own race.

• Christians were also selling Muslim slaves captured in war, and Muslims were selling Christian slaves captured in war.

• Muslim trade of African slaves came to a stop when Arab domination was reduced by the Crusades.

• 1.25 million European Christians were enslaved by the “barbary states” of Northern Africa. The USA bombed Morocco, Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli in 1801 precisely to stop the Arab slave trade of Christians.

Portugal and Slavery

• Portugal started exploiting sub-Saharan slaves in the 1440s to support the economy of the sugar plantations

• Plantations in Sao Tome and Madeira• ****1444 The first public sale of African slaves by

Europeans takes place at Lagos, Portugal *****• 1482 Portugal founds the first European trading post

in Africa (Elmira, Gold Coast)• 1500-1600 Portugal enjoys a virtual monopoly in

the slave trade to the Americas (monopoly is the exclusive control of a business or industry)

• Portugal

• Slavery has a long tradition in Portugal.• Muslims were taken prisoner and enslaved by

Christians in the wars in Portugal during the 12th and 13th centuries.

• A trade in African slaves was established in the 15th century following early expeditions to the continent.

• 800 Africans were transported to Portugal annually • By the mid 16th century there were over 32,000

African slaves in Portugal, with the majority owned by the aristocracy, officials and religious institutions.

• Demand for African slaves increased in the Portuguese colony of Brazil due to the discovery of gold and the rise in coffee production. Brazil had an import of 3.5 million slaves!

Prince Henry• Prince Henry the Navigator who led the

way in sponsoring exploration for Portugal finding an easier way to reach Asia which meant going around Africa.

• Bartholomeu Dias, a Portuguese navigator made it from Portugal to the Cape of Good Hope

• Vasco da Gama a Portuguese navigator made it from Portugal to India

• Prince Henry established a slave market and fort in 1445.

Prince Henry

Bartholomeu Dias

Vasco da Gama

• The Portuguese explored and claimed more of the West African coast and islands, with trade being established with Ghana, Benin, Gabon, and Mali.

• Establishment of trading weapons for slaves

• Trade one horse for 25-30 slaves

• King Alfonso I (pg453)tried to ban slavery because he lost half of his kingdom to slavery.

Portugal and East Africa

• East African Kingdoms ask for Portugal’s help in fighting off Ottoman Turks, therefore, Portugal began slave trading in Ethiopia, Mozambique, and Madagascar

• 1570s African forces attacked Portuguese colonies in Mozambique and Ghana, a war erupted in Angola and in 1585 there was a Swahili revolt on the East African coast. All of this caused a reduction in power by Portugal!

Colonies of Portugal• Portuguese-speaking African countries are

a group of five African countries where the Portuguese language is the official language:

1. Angola2. Cape Verde3. Guinea Bissau4. Mozambique 5. Sao Tome and Principe

These were colonies of Portugal until 1970!

Middle Passage• Forced transportation of African people from

Africa to the New World as part of the Atlantic Slave Trade. (definition)

• Middle portion of the Triangular Trade voyage• Ships left Europe for African markets, where

their goods were sold or traded for prisoners and kidnapped victims on the African coast.

• Traders then sailed to the Americas and Caribbean, where Africans were sold or traded for goods

• Voyage took around 6 months

• Each slave ship contained several hundred slaves• 30 crew members• Male captives were chained together• 1 meal a day with water• 9.4 to 12 million Africans arrived in the New World• Disease, starvation, depression led to many deaths• For 200 years 1440-1640 Portugal had an almost

monopoly on export of slaves from Africa• By 18th century Britain took over!

Loading Human CargoThe slaves were packed into a dark, stooped space called

the slave deck, about four feet high, built below the main deck, above the hold. In the testimony later given by the Amistad Africans about this nightmare voyage, the most vivid aspect of the experience was the cramped waiting, tossing in the waves, in suffocating darkness. Periodically they were brought up on deck and fed rice. If some of the captives tried to starve themselves they were whipped and forced to eat. Disease spread through the close-packed, unventilated slave deck.

This account was given by a slave to the abolitionists preparing the African’s defense in 1839

Olaudah Equiano(1745-1797)

• From the Kingdom of Benin• Expected to be a tribal leader like his father• At 11 he was kidnapped and sold into slavery.• Taken by British slavers on the coast, he went first

to Barbados and then to Virginia. • Equiano was bought by a British naval officer and

taken to England, where he was educated.• He was sold to a Quaker merchant from

Philadelphia who allowed him to buy his freedom in 1766

• Equiano became an abolitionist.

• In 1789 he wrote his autobiography. He described the “middle passage,”.

• 10 years after Equiano’s death in 1797, the British abolished the slave trade and worked to end it worldwide.

Why would Equiano’s story be remarkable?