Warm Up: GRAB A BOOK

Turn to Page 976 Read “King Affonso I: Letter

to King John of Portugal” Complete “Analyzing Primary

Resource” questions TURN IN ON YOUR OWN PAPER WHEN FINISHED

The Impact of Europeans and Slave Trade on Africa

Chapter 16 Section 4

JOIN ME ON PAGE 398

EQ: What circumstances led to the trading of Africans as slaves? How did slave trade affect

people?

Enter the Portuguese

The Portuguese, thanks to the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494, had the “blessing” to control Africa

The Portuguese 1)only set up small outposts on the West African coast 2) used their naval might to oust the Arab traders who dominated East African ports

Other Europeans About 150 years after the Portuguese set

up shop in Africa, the French, British and Dutch arrive

They do the same thing as Portugal, only build ports along the immediate coastline

European trade with Africans FIRST started out with the exchange of simple goods early on…only OCCASIONALLY would Africans traders offer people as goods to Europeans…this would change, however…

Slavery Slavery has existed as a part of human

society since its humble beginnings People in every empire from Egypt to

Greece to Rome and beyond have been enslaved…the word slave comes from the large number of Slavs captured from Russia by the Romans

Arabs (Muslims) also took slaves from Africa for farming/irrigation projects, but eventually they were able to rise to prominence in Islamic society…also, many African women found their way into harems

Slavery was ALREADY a normal part of African society…kings measured their wealth and power by the number of people they were able to enslave

Why did African slave trade start/take off? Slaves from Africa became a valuable

resource for Europeans because of their economic activities in the New World Major Reason: Natives were not plentiful

enough to enslave…they were all dying off!

Roots of Slave Trade Both the Portuguese and Spanish begin

trade to fill demands for labor in the Americas

They willingly trade goods with African empires and in exchange, they started to request mainly slaves for their products Europeans rarely hunted down slaves on their

own, rather they were sold to them by the ruling classes of African coastal empires

All other European empires follow suit with this pattern and the demand on African coastal kingdoms to provide slaves increased

Triangular Trade (pg. 401)

The Middle Passage This was the nickname

applied to journey across the Atlantic to the Americas

This journey was not a pleasant one for all slaves The ships were

overcrowded Many died from disease

or malnourishment Those who resisted were

killed, those who escaped died (in both cases, they were drowned, weighted down by their chains)

The overwhelming majority of African slaves went to Brazil

African Leaders Resist Not all African Leaders willingly traded

slaves

King Affonso Ruler of the Kongo (Congo) Christianized ruler who was alarmed by slave

trade Only made verbal appeals to European powers to

stop trade The almamy (king Abdul Kader Kane) of Futa

Toro (Senegal) Wrote law forbidding transport of slaves in his

kingdom Traders plainly stopped going through his

kingdom, in some instances, even stopped trading with his people

Kingdoms Rise Thanks to Slave Trade

Empires emerged in the immediate territories along the African coastline

The Asante (Ashanti), one such empire, dominated slave trade in the 1600s

Another was Dahomey…the kings of Abomey based their entire economy of trading slaves (slavery had always been central to their economy)

Rulers of these kingdoms learned to manipulate the slave trade by playing off European rivalries

Slave Trade Ends Islamic empires emerge in the 1700s

and 1800s that were resistant to slave trade The rulers of these kingdoms used Islamic jihad to put an end to the raiding of central African tribes…many people were converted

By the end of the 1700s, some Europeans began to protest slave trade as inhumane, many of them former slave traders themselves England became the first European nation

to ban slave trade in 1807

For the remainder of time…

Chapter 16 section 4 Puzzle/Biography (more time tomorrow after film, DUE tomorrow at end of class)

TOMORROW Two Film Clips on Slave Trade Accra (shows a slave trade outpost) Abomey (shows how/why African

kings sold their own people)