Reproduction of a handbill advertising a slave auction in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1769.

The Atlantic slave trade or trans-atlantic slave trade took place across the Atlantic ocean from the 16th through to the 19th centuries. The vast majority of slaves transported to the New World were Africans from the central and western parts of the continent, sold by Africans to European slave traders who then transported them to the colonies in North and South America. The numbers were so great that Africans who came by way of the slave trade became the most numerous Old-World immigrants in both North and South America before the late eighteenth century.^[1] The South Atlantic economic system centered on making goods and clothing to sell in Europe and increasing the numbers of African slaves brought to the New World. This was crucial to those European countries who, in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, were vying in creating overseas empires.^[2]

The first Negroes imported to the English colonies were also called “indentured servants” or “apprentices for life”. By the middle of the seventeenth century, they and their offspring were legally the property of their owners. As property, they were merchandise or units of labor, and were sold at markets with other goods and services.

The Portuguese were the first to engage in the New World slave trade, and others soon followed. Slaves were considered cargo by the ship owners, to be transported to the Americas as quickly and cheaply as possible^[3], there to be sold to labor in coffee, tobacco, cocoa, cotton and sugar plantations, gold and silver mines, rice fields, construction industry, cutting timber for ships, and as house servants.

The Atlantic slave traders, ordered by trade volume, were: the Portuguese, the British, the French, the Spanish, the Dutch, and the Americans. They had established outposts on the African coast where they purchased slaves from local African tribal leaders.^[4] Current estimates are that about 12 million were shipped across the Atlantic,^[5] although the actual number purchased by the traders is considerably higher.^[6][7][8]

The slave trade is sometimes called the Maafa by African and African-American scholars, meaning "holocaust" or "great disaster" in Swahili. Some scholars, such as Marimba Ani and Maulana Karenga use the terms African Holocaust or Holocaust of Enslavement. Slavery was one element of a three-part economic cycle—the triangular trade and its Middle Passage—which ultimately involved four continents, four centuries and millions of people.^[9]

Background[link]

Atlantic travel[link]

The Atlantic slave trade arose after trade contacts were first made between the continents of the "Old World" (Europe, Africa, and Asia) and those of the "New World" (North America and South America). For centuries, tidal currents had made ocean travel particularly difficult and risky for the boats that were then available, and as such there had been very little, if any, naval contact between the peoples living in these continents.^[10] In the 15th century however, new European developments in sea-faring technologies meant that ships were better equipped to deal with the problem of tidal currents, and could begin traversing the Atlantic ocean. Between 1600 and 1800, approximately 300,000 sailors engaged in the slave trade visited West Africa.^[11] In doing so, they came into contact with societies living along the west African coast and in the Americas which they had never previously encountered.^[12] Historian Pierre Chaunu termed the consequences of European navigation "disenclavement", with it marking an end of isolation for some societies and an increase in inter-societal contact for most others.^[13]

As historian John Thornton noted, "A number of technical and geographical factors combined to make Europeans the most likely people to explore the Atlantic and develop its commerce."^[14] He identified these as being the drive to find new and profitable commercial opportunities outside of Europe as well as the desire to create an alternative trade network to that controlled by the Muslim Empire of the Middle East, which was viewed as a commercial, political and religious threat to European Christendom. In particular, European traders wanted to trade for gold, which could be found in western Africa, and also to find a naval route to "the Indies" (India), where they could trade for luxury goods such as spices without having to obtain these items from Middle Eastern Islamic traders.^[15]

Although the initial Atlantic naval explorations were performed purely by Europeans, members of many European nationalities were involved, including sailors from the Iberian kingdoms, the Italian kingdoms, England, France and Poland. This diversity led Thornton to describe the initial "exploration of the Atlantic" as "a truly international exercise, even if many of the dramatic discoveries [such as those of Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand Magellan] were made under the sponsorship of the Iberian monarchs", something that would give rise to the later myth that "the Iberians were the sole leaders of the exploration".^[16]

African slavery[link]

Slavery was practiced in some parts of Africa,^[17] Europe,^[17] Asia^[17] and the Americas before the beginning of the Atlantic slave trade. There is evidence that enslaved people from some African states were exported to other states in Africa, Europe and Asia prior to the European colonization of the Americas.^[18] The African slave trade provided a large number of slaves to Europeans.^[19][20]

The Atlantic slave trade was not the only slave trade from Africa, although it was the largest in volume and intensity. As Elikia M’bokolo wrote in Le Monde diplomatique: "The African continent was bled of its human resources via all possible routes. Across the Sahara, through the Red Sea, from the Indian Ocean ports and across the Atlantic. At least ten centuries of slavery for the benefit of the Muslim countries (from the ninth to the nineteenth). ... Four million enslaved people exported via the Red Sea, another four million^[21] through the Swahili ports of the Indian Ocean, perhaps as many as nine million along the trans-Saharan caravan route, and eleven to twenty million (depending on the author) across the Atlantic Ocean."^[22]

According to John K. Thornton, Europeans usually bought enslaved people who were captured in endemic warfare between African states.^[23] There were also Africans who had made a business out of capturing Africans from neighboring ethnic groups or war captives and selling them.^[24] People living around the Niger River were transported from these markets to the coast and sold at European trading ports in exchange for muskets (matchlock between 1540–1606 but flintlock from then on) and manufactured goods such as cloth or alcohol.^[25] However, the European demand for slaves provided a large new market for the already existing trade.^[26] Further, while those held in slavery in his own region of Africa might hope to escape, those shipped away had little chance of returning to Africa.

European colonization and slavery in West Africa[link]

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The Portuguese presenting themselves before the Manikongo. The Portuguese initially fostered a good relationship with the Kingdom of Kongo. Civil War within Kongo would lead to many of its subjects ending up as enslaved people in Portuguese and other European vessels.

Upon discovering new lands through their naval explorations, European colonisers soon began to migrate to and settle in lands outside of their native continent. Off of the coast of Africa, European migrants, under the directions of the Kingdom of Castile, invaded and colonised the Canary Islands during the 15th century, where they converted much of the land to the production of wine and sugar. Along with this, they also captured native Canary Islanders, the guanches, to use as slaves both on the Islands and across the Christian Mediterranean.^[27]

As historian John Thornton remarked, "the actual motivation for European expansion and for navigational breakthroughs was little more than to exploit the opportunity for immediate profits made by raiding and the seizure or purchase of trade commodities."^[28] Using the Canary Islands as a naval base, European, and at the time primarily Portuguese traders then began to move their activities down the western coast of Africa, performing raids in which slaves would be captured to be later sold in the Mediterranean.^[29] Although initially successful in this venture, "it was not long before African naval forces were alerted to the new dangers, and the Portuguese [raiding] ships began to meet strong and effective resistance", with the crews of several of them being killed by African sailors, whose boats were better equipped at traversing the west African coasts and river systems.^[30]

By 1494, the Portuguese king had entered agreements with the rulers of several West African states that would allow trade between their respective peoples, enabling the Portuguese to "tap into" the "well-developed commercial economy in Africa... without engaging in hostilities."^[31] "[P]eaceful trade became the rule all along the African coast", although there were some rare exceptions when acts of aggression led to violence; for instance Portuguese traders attempted to conquer the Bissagos Islands in 1535,^[32] which was followed in 1571 when Portugal, supported by the Kingdom of Kongo, was able to capture the south-western region of Angola in order to secure its threatened economic interest in the area. Although Kongo later joined a coalition to force the Portuguese out in 1591, Portugal had secured a foothold on the continent that it would continue to occupy until the 20th century.^[33] Despite these incidences of occasional violence between African and European forces however, many African states were able to ensure that any trade went on in their own terms, imposing custom duties on foreign ships, and in one case that occurred in 1525, the Kongolese king, Afonso I, seized a French vessel and its crew for illegally trading on his coast.^[32]

Historians have widely debated the nature of the relationship between these African kingdoms and the European traders. Walter Rodney (1972) has argued that it was an unequal relationship, with Africans being forced into a "colonial" trade with the more economically developed Europeans, exchanging raw materials and human resources (i.e. slaves) for manufactured goods. He argued that it was this economic trade agreement dating back to the 16th century that led to Africa being underdeveloped in his own time.^[34] These ideas were supported by other historians, including Ralph Austen (1987).^[35] This idea of an unequal relationship was however contested by John Thornton (1998), who argued that "the Atlantic slave trade was not nearly as critical to the African economy as these scholars believed" and that "African manufacturing [at this period] was more than capable of handling competition from preindustrial Europe."^[36]

European colonization and slavery in the Americas[link]

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However, it was not just along the west African coast, but also in the Americas that Europeans began searching for commercial viability. European Christendom first became aware of the existence of the Americas after they were discovered by an expedition led by Christopher Columbus in 1492.^[37] As in Africa however, the indigenous peoples widely resisted European incursions into their territory during the first few centuries of contact, being somewhat effective in doing so. In the Caribbean, Spanish settlers were only able to secure control over the larger islands by allying themselves with certain Native American tribal groups in their conflicts with neighbouring societies. Groups such as the Kulinago of the Lesser Antilles and the Carib and Arawak people of (what is now) Venezuela launched effective counter attacks against Spanish bases in the Caribbean, with native-built boats, which were smaller and better suited to the seas around the islands, achieving success on a number of cases at defeating the Spanish ships.^[38]

In the 15th and 16th centuries, colonists from Europe also settled on the otherwise uninhabited islands of the Atlantic such as Madeira and the Azores, where with no slaves to sell, exporting products for export became the main industry.^[39]

16th, 17th and 18th centuries[link]

The Atlantic slave trade is customarily divided into two eras, known as the First and Second Atlantic Systems.

The First Atlantic system was the trade of enslaved Africans to, primarily, South American colonies of the Portuguese and Spanish empires; it accounted for only slightly more than 3% of all Atlantic slave trade. It started (on a significant scale) in about 1502^[40] and lasted until 1580 when Portugal was temporarily united with Spain. While the Portuguese traded enslaved people themselves, the Spanish empire relied on the asiento system, awarding merchants (mostly from other countries) the license to trade enslaved people to their colonies. During the first Atlantic system most of these traders were Portuguese, giving them a near-monopoly during the era, although some Dutch, English, and French traders also participated in the slave trade.^[41] After the union, Portugal came under Spanish legislation that prohibited it from directly engaging in the slave trade as a carrier, and become a target for the traditional enemies of Spain, losing a large share to the Dutch, British and French.

The Second Atlantic system was the trade of enslaved Africans by mostly British, Portuguese, French and Dutch traders. The main destinations of this phase were the Caribbean colonies and Brazil, as European nations built up economically slave-dependent colonies in the New World.^[42] Only slightly more than 3% of the enslaved people exported were traded between 1450 and 1600, 16% in the 17th century.

It is estimated that more than half of the slave trade took place during the 18th century, with the British, Portuguese and French being the main carriers of nine out of ten slaves abducted from Africa.^[43] The British were the biggest transporters of slaves across the Atlantic during the 18th century.^[44]

The 19th century saw a reduction of the slave trade, that accounted to 28.5% of the total Atlantic slave trade.^[45]

Triangular trade[link]

European colonists initially practiced systems of both bonded labour and "Indian" slavery, enslaving many of the natives of the New World. For a variety of reasons, Africans replaced Native Americans as the main population of enslaved people in the Americas. In some cases, such as on some of the Caribbean Islands, warfare and diseases such as smallpox eliminated the natives completely. In other cases, such as in South Carolina, Virginia, and New England, the need for alliances with native tribes coupled with the availability of enslaved Africans at affordable prices (beginning in the early 18th century for these colonies) resulted in a shift away from Native American slavery.^{[citation needed]}

"The Slave Trade" by Auguste François Biard, 1840

A burial ground in Campeche, Mexico, suggests slaves had been brought there not long after Hernán Cortés completed the subjugation of Aztec and Mayan Mexico. The graveyard had been in use from approximately 1550 to the late 17th century.^[46]

The first side of the triangle was the export of goods from Europe to Africa. A number of African kings and merchants took part in the trading of enslaved people from 1440 to about 1833. For each captive, the African rulers would receive a variety of goods from Europe. These included guns, ammunition and other factory made goods. The second leg of the triangle exported enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas and the Caribbean Islands. The third and final part of the triangle was the return of goods to Europe from the Americas. The goods were the products of slave-labour plantations and included cotton, sugar, tobacco, molasses and rum.^{[citation needed]}

However, Brazil (the main importer of slaves) manufactured these goods in South America and directly traded with African ports, thus not taking part in a triangular trade.^{[citation needed]}

Labor and slavery[link]

An antislavery medallion of the early 19th century.

The Atlantic Slave Trade was the result of, among other things, labor shortage, itself in turn created by the desire of European colonists to exploit New World land and resources for capital profits. Native peoples were at first utilized as slave labor by Europeans, until a large number died from overwork and Old World diseases.^[47] Alternative sources of labor, such as indentured servitude, failed to provide a sufficient workforce.

Many crops could not be sold for profit, or even grown, in Europe. Exporting crops and goods from the New World to Europe often proved to be more profitable than producing them on the European mainland. A vast amount of labor was needed to create and sustain plantations that required intensive labor to grow, harvest, and process prized tropical crops. Western Africa (part of which became known as 'the Slave Coast'), and later Central Africa, became the source for enslaved people to meet the demand for labor.

The basic reason for the constant shortage of labor was that, with large amounts of cheap land available and lots of landowners searching for workers, free European immigrants were able to become landowners themselves after a relatively short time, thus increasing the need for workers.^[48]

Thomas Jefferson attributed the use of slave labor in part to the climate, and the consequent idle leisure afforded by slave labor: "For in a warm climate, no man will labour for himself who can make another labour for him. This is so true, that of the proprietors of slaves a very small proportion indeed are ever seen to labour."^[49]

African participation in the slave trade[link]

Major Slave Trading Regions of Africa, 15th–19th centuries

Africans themselves played a role in the slave trade, by selling their captive or prisoners of war to European buyers.^[21] Selling captives or prisoners was common practice among Africans and Arabs [during that era]. Indeed throughout the ancient world, even in Europe, making slaves of captives was a common practice. The prisoners and captives who were sold were usually from neighboring or enemy ethnic groups.^[9] These captive slaves were not considered part of the ethnic group or 'tribe', African kings held no particular loyalty to them. Sometimes the criminals would be sold so that they could no longer commit crimes in that area. Most other slaves were obtained from kidnappings, or through raids that occurred at gunpoint through joint ventures with the Europeans.^[21] But some African kings refused to sell any of their captives or criminals. King Jaja of Opobo refused to do business with the slavers completely. However, Kimani Nehusi notes that with the rise of a large commercial slave trade, driven by European needs, enslaving enemies became less a consequence of war, and more and more a reason to go to war.^[9]

European participation in the slave trade[link]

Although Europeans were the market for slaves, Europeans rarely entered the interior of Africa, due to fear of disease and fierce African resistance.^[50] The enslaved people would be brought to coastal outposts where they would be traded for goods. Enslavement became a major by-product of internal war in Africa as nation states expanded through military conflicts in many cases through deliberate sponsorship of benefiting Western European nations.^{[citation needed]} During such periods of rapid state formation or expansion (Asante and Dahomey being good examples), slavery formed an important element of political life which the Europeans exploited: As Queen Sara's plea to the Portuguese courts revealed, the system became "sell to the Europeans or be sold to the Europeans".^{[citation needed]} In Africa, convicted criminals could be punished by enslavement, a punishment which became more prevalent as slavery became more lucrative. Since most of these nations did not have a prison system, convicts were often sold or used in the scattered local domestic slave market.^[51]

The Atlantic slave trade peaked in the last two decades of the 18th century,^[52] during and following the Kongo Civil War.^[53] Wars amongst tiny states along the Niger River's Igbo-inhabited region and the accompanying banditry also spiked in this period.^[24] Another reason for surplus supply of enslaved people was major warfare conducted by expanding states such as the kingdom of Dahomey,^[54] the Oyo Empire and Asante Empire.^[55]

The majority of European conquests, raids and enslavements occurred toward the end or after the transatlantic slave trade. One exception to this is the conquest of Ndongo in present day Angola where Ndongo's slaves, warriors, free citizens and even nobility were taken into slavery by the Portuguese conquerors after the fall of the state.^{[citation needed]}

Slavery in Africa and the New World contrasted[link]

Forms of slavery varied both in Africa and in the New World. In general, slavery in Africa was not heritable – that is, the children of slaves were free – while in the Americas slaves' children were legally enslaved at birth. This was connected to another distinction: slavery in West Africa was not reserved for racial or religious minorities, as it was in European colonies, although the case was otherwise in places such as Somalia, where Bantus were taken as slaves for the ethnic Somalis.^[56][57]

The treatment of slaves in Africa was more variable than in the Americas. At one extreme, the kings of Dahomey routinely slaughtered slaves in hundreds or thousands in sacrificial rituals, and the use of slaves as human sacrifices was also known in Cameroon.^[58] On the other hand, slaves in other places were often treated as part of the family, "adopted children," with significant rights including the right to marry without their masters' permission.^[59] Scottish explorer Mungo Park wrote: "The slaves in Africa, I suppose, are nearly in the proportion of three to one to the freemen. They claim no reward for their services except food and clothing, and are treated with kindness or severity, according to the good or bad disposition of their masters."^[60] In the Americas, slaves were denied the right to marry freely and even humane masters did not accept them as equal members of the family; however, while grisly executions of slaves convicted of revolt or other offenses were commonplace in the Americas, New World slaves were not subject to arbitrary ritual sacrifice.^[61] New World slaves were treated in a way that was similar to livestock; they were very useful and expensive enough to maintain and care for, but still the property of their owners.

Slave market regions and participation[link]

Slave traders in Gorée, Senegal, 18th century

There were eight principal areas used by Europeans to buy and ship slaves to the Western Hemisphere. The number of enslaved people sold to the New World varied throughout the slave trade. As for the distribution of slaves from regions of activity, certain areas produced far more enslaved people than others. Between 1650 and 1900, 10.24 million enslaved Africans arrived in the Americas from the following regions in the following proportions:^[62]

• Senegambia (Senegal and The Gambia): 4.8%
• Upper Guinea (Guinea-Bissau, Guinea and Sierra Leone): 4.1%
• Windward Coast (Liberia and Côte d'Ivoire): 1.8%
• Gold Coast (Ghana and east of Côte d'Ivoire): 10.4%
• Bight of Benin (Togo, Benin and Nigeria west of the Niger Delta): 20.2%
• Bight of Biafra (Nigeria east of the Niger Delta, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon): 14.6%
• West Central Africa (Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola): 39.4%
• Southeastern Africa (Mozambique and Madagascar): 4.7%

African kingdoms of the era[link]

There were over 173 city-states and kingdoms in the African regions affected by the slave trade between 1502 and 1853, when Brazil became the last Atlantic import nation to outlaw the slave trade. Of those 173, no fewer than 68 could be deemed nation states with political and military infrastructures that enabled them to dominate their neighbors. Nearly every present-day nation had a pre-colonial predecessor, sometimes an African Empire with which European traders had to barter and eventually battle.

Ethnic groups[link]

The different ethnic groups brought to the Americas closely corresponds to the regions of heaviest activity in the slave trade. Over 45 distinct ethnic groups were taken to the Americas during the trade. Of the 45, the ten most prominent according to slave documentation of the era are listed below.^[63]

1. The BaKongo of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola
2. The Mandé of Upper Guinea
3. The Gbe speakers of Togo, Ghana and Benin (Adja, Mina, Ewe, Fon)
4. The Akan of Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire
5. The Wolof of Senegal and The Gambia
6. The Igbo of southeastern Nigeria
7. The Mbundu of Angola (includes Ovimbundu)
8. The Yoruba of southwestern Nigeria
9. The Chamba of Cameroon
10. The Makua of Mozambique

Human toll[link]

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The transatlantic slave trade resulted in a vast and as yet still unknown loss of life for African captives both in and outside of America. Approximately 1.2 – 2.4 million Africans died during their transport to the New World^[64] More died soon upon their arrival. The amount of life lost in the actual procurement of slaves remains a mystery but may equal or exceed the amount actually enslaved.^[65]

The savage nature of the trade led to the destruction of individuals and cultures. The following figures do not include deaths of enslaved Africans as a result of their actual labor, slave revolts or diseases they caught while living among New World populations.

A database compiled in the late 1990s put the figure for the transatlantic slave trade at more than 11 million people. For a long time an accepted figure was 15 million, although this has in recent years been revised down. Most historians now agree that at least 12 million slaves left the continent between the 15th and 19th century, but 10 to 20% died on board ships. Thus a figure of 11 million enslaved people transported to the Americas is the nearest demonstrable figure historians can produce.^[64] Besides the slaves who died on the Middle Passage itself, even more slaves probably died in the slave raids in Africa. The death toll from four centuries of the Atlantic slave trade is estimated at 10 million. According to William Rubinstein, "... of these 10 million estimated dead blacks, possibly 6 million were killed by other blacks in African tribal wars and raiding parties aimed at securing slaves for transport to America."^[66]

African conflicts[link]

Diagram of a slave ship from the Atlantic slave trade. From an Abstract of Evidence delivered before a select committee of the House of Commons in 1790 and 1791.

According to Dr. Kimani Nehusi, the presence of European slavers affected the way in which the legal code in African societies responded to offenders. Crimes traditionally punishable by some other form of punishment became punishable by enslavement and sale to slave traders.^[67] According to David Stannard's American Holocaust, 50% of African deaths occurred in Africa as a result of wars between native kingdoms, which produced the majority of slaves.^[65] This includes not only those who died in battles, but also those who died as a result of forced marches from inland areas to slave ports on the various coasts.^[68] The practice of enslaving enemy combatants and their villages was widespread throughout Western and West Central Africa, although wars were rarely started to procure slaves. The slave trade was largely a by-product of tribal and state warfare as a way of removing potential dissidents after victory or financing future wars.^[69] However, some African groups proved particularly adept and brutal at the practice of enslaving such as Oyo, Benin, Igala, Kaabu, Asanteman, Dahomey, the Aro Confederacy and the Imbangala war bands.^[70]

In letters written by the Manikongo, Nzinga Mbemba Afonso, to the King João III of Portugal, he writes that Portuguese merchandise flowing in is what is fueling the trade in Africans. He requests the King of Portugal to stop sending merchandise but should only send missionaries. In one of his letter he writes:

"Each day the traders are kidnapping our people—children of this country, sons of our nobles and vassals, even people of our own family. This corruption and depravity are so widespread that our land is entirely depopulated. We need in this kingdom only priests and schoolteachers, and no merchandise, unless it is wine and flour for Mass. It is our wish that this Kingdom not be a place for the trade or transport of slaves."

Many of our subjects eagerly lust after Portuguese merchandise that your subjects have brought into our domains. To satisfy this inordinate appetite, they seize many of our black free subjects.... They sell them. After having taken these prisoners [to the coast] secretly or at night..... As soon as the captives are in the hands of white men they are branded with a red-hot iron.^[71]

Before the arrival of the Portuguese, slavery had already existed in Kongo. Despite its establishment within his kingdom, Afonso believed that the slave trade should be subject to Kongo law. When he suspected the Portuguese of receiving illegally enslaved persons to sell, he wrote in to King João III in 1526 imploring him to put a stop to the practice.^[72]

The kings of Dahomey sold their war captives into transatlantic slavery, who otherwise would have been killed in a ceremony known as the Annual Customs. As one of West Africa's principal slave states, Dahomey became extremely unpopular with neighbouring peoples.^[73][74][75] Like the Bambara Empire to the east, the Khasso kingdoms depended heavily on the slave trade for their economy. A family's status was indicated by the number of slaves it owned, leading to wars for the sole purpose of taking more captives. This trade led the Khasso into increasing contact with the European settlements of Africa's west coast, particularly the French.^[76] Benin grew increasingly rich during the 16th and 17th centuries on the slave trade with Europe; slaves from enemy states of the interior were sold, and carried to the Americas in Dutch and Portuguese ships. The Bight of Benin's shore soon came to be known as the "Slave Coast".^[77]

King Gezo of Dahomey said in the 1840s:

The slave trade is the ruling principle of my people. It is the source and the glory of their wealth…the mother lulls the child to sleep with notes of triumph over an enemy reduced to slavery…^[78]

In 1807, the UK Parliament passed the Bill that abolished the trading of slaves. The King of Bonny (now in Nigeria) was horrified at the conclusion of the practice:

We think this trade must go on. That is the verdict of our oracle and the priests. They say that your country, however great, can never stop a trade ordained by God himself.^[79]

Port factories[link]

After being marched to the coast for sale, enslaved people waited in large forts called factories. The amount of time in factories varied, but Milton Meltzer's Slavery: A World History states this process resulted in or around 4.5% of deaths during the transatlantic slave trade.^[80] In other words, over 820,000 people would have died in African ports such as Benguela, Elmina and Bonny reducing the number of those shipped to 17.5 million.^[80]

Atlantic shipment[link]

After being captured and held in the factories, slaves entered the infamous Middle Passage. Meltzer's research puts this phase of the slave trade's overall mortality at 12.5%.^[80] Around 2.2 million Africans died during these voyages where they were packed into tight, unsanitary spaces on ships for months at a time. Measures were taken to stem the onboard mortality rate such as enforced "dancing" (as exercise) above deck and the practice of force-feeding enslaved people who tried to starve themselves.^[68] The conditions on board also resulted in the spread of fatal diseases. Other fatalities were the result of suicides by jumping over board by slaves who could no longer endure the conditions.^[68] The slave traders would try to fit anywhere from 350 to 600 slaves on one ship. Before the shipping of enslaved people was completely outlawed in 1853, 15.3 million enslaved people had arrived in the Americas.

Raymond L. Cohn, an economics professor whose research has focused on economic history and international migration,^[81] has researched the mortality rates among Africans during the voyages of the Atlantic slave trade. He found that mortality rates decreased over the history of the slave trade, primarily because the length of time necessary for the voyage was declining. "In the eighteenth century many slave voyages took at least 2½ months. In the nineteenth century, 2 months appears to have been the maximum length of the voyage, and many voyages were far shorter. Fewer slaves died in the Middle Passage over time mainly because the passage was shorter."^[82]

Seasoning camps[link]

Meltzer also states that 33% of Africans would have died in the first year at seasoning camps found throughout the Caribbean.^[80] Many slaves shipped directly to North America bypassed this process; however most slaves (destined for island or South American plantations) were likely to be put through this ordeal. The enslaved people were tortured for the purpose of "breaking" them (like the practice of breaking horses) and conditioning them to their new lot in life. Jamaica held one of the most notorious of these camps. Dysentery was the leading cause of death.^[83] All in all, 5 million Africans died in these camps reducing the final number of Africans to about 10 million.^[80]

European competition[link]

The trade of enslaved Africans in the Atlantic has its origins in the explorations of Portuguese mariners down the coast of West Africa in the 15th century. Before that, contact with African slave markets was made to ransom Portuguese that had been captured by the intense North African Barbary pirate attacks on Portuguese ships and coastal villages, frequently leaving them depopulated.^[84] The first Europeans to use enslaved Africans in the New World were the Spaniards who sought auxiliaries for their conquest expeditions and laborers on islands such as Cuba and Hispaniola, where the alarming decline in the native population had spurred the first royal laws protecting the native population (Laws of Burgos, 1512–1513). The first enslaved Africans arrived in Hispaniola in 1501.^[85] After Portugal had succeeded in establishing sugar plantations (engenhos) in northern Brazil ca. 1545, Portuguese merchants on the West African coast began to supply enslaved Africans to the sugar planters there. While at first these planters relied almost exclusively on the native Tupani for slave labor, a titanic shift toward Africans took place after 1570 following a series of epidemics which decimated the already destabilized Tupani communities. By 1630, Africans had replaced the Tupani as the largest contingent of labor on Brazilian sugar plantations, heralding equally the final collapse of the European medieval household tradition of slavery, the rise of Brazil as the largest single destination for enslaved Africans and sugar as the reason that roughly 84% of these Africans were shipped to the New World.

Merchants from various European nations were later involved in the Atlantic Slave trade: Portugal, Spain, France, England, Scotland, Brandenburg-Prussia, Denmark-Norway, the Netherlands, and Sweden.^[86] As Britain rose in naval power and settled continental North America and some islands of the West Indies, they became the leading slave traders. At one stage the trade was the monopoly of the Royal Africa Company, operating out of London, but following the loss of the company's monopoly in 1689,^[87] Bristol and Liverpool merchants became increasingly involved in the trade.^[88] By the late 17th century, one out of every four ships that left Liverpool harbour was a slave trading ship.^[89] Other British cities also profited from the slave trade. Birmingham, the largest gun producing town in Britain at the time, supplied guns to be traded for slaves. 75% of all sugar produced in the plantations came to London to supply the highly lucrative coffee houses there.^[89]

New World destinations[link]

The first slaves to arrive as part of a labor force appeared in 1502 on the island of Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic). Cuba received its first four slaves in 1513. Slave exports to Honduras and Guatemala started in 1526. The first enslaved Africans to reach what would become the US arrived in January 1526 as part of a Spanish attempt at colonizing South Carolina near Jamestown. By November the 300 Spanish colonists were reduced to a mere 100 accompanied by 70 of their original 100 slaves. The enslaved people revolted and joined a nearby native population while the Spanish abandoned the colony altogether. Colombia received its first enslaved people in 1533. El Salvador, Costa Rica and Florida began their stint in the slave trade in 1541, 1563 and 1581 respectively.

The 17th century saw an increase in shipments with enslaved people arriving in the English colony of Jamestown, Virginia in 1619, although these first kidnapped Africans were classed as indentured servants and freed after seven years; chattel slavery entered Virginia law in 1656. Irish immigrants brought slaves to Montserrat in 1651, and in 1655, slaves arrived in Belize.

By 1802 Russian colonists noted that "Boston" (U.S.-based) skippers were trading African slaves for otter pelts with the Tlingit people in Southeast Alaska.^[90]

The number of the Africans arrived in each area can be easily calculated taking into consideration that the total number of slaves was close to 10,000,000.^[92]

Economics of slavery[link]

The plantation economies of the New World were built on slave labor. Seventy percent of the enslaved people brought to the new world were used to produce sugar, the most labor-intensive crop. The rest were employed harvesting coffee, cotton, and tobacco, and in some cases in mining. The West Indian colonies of the European powers were some of their most important possessions, so they went to extremes to protect and retain them. For example, at the end of the Seven Years' War in 1763, France agreed to cede the vast territory of New France (now Eastern Canada) to the victors in exchange for keeping the minute Antillean island of Guadeloupe.^{[citation needed]}

In France in the 18th century, returns for investors in plantations averaged around 6%; as compared to 5% for most domestic alternatives, this represented a 20% profit advantage. Risks—maritime and commercial—were important for individual voyages. Investors mitigated it by buying small shares of many ships at the same time. In that way, they were able to diversify a large part of the risk away. Between voyages, ship shares could be freely sold and bought.^[93]

By far the most financially profitable West Indian colonies in 1800 belonged to the United Kingdom. After entering the sugar colony business late, British naval supremacy and control over key islands such as Jamaica, Trinidad, the Leeward Islands and Barbados and the territory of British Guiana gave it an important edge over all competitors; while many British did not make gains, a handful of individuals made small fortunes. This advantage was reinforced when France lost its most important colony, St. Dominigue (western Hispaniola, now Haiti), to a slave revolt in 1791^[94] and supported revolts against its rival Britain, after the 1793 French revolution in the name of liberty. Before 1791, British sugar had to be protected to compete against cheaper French sugar.

After 1791, the British islands produced the most sugar, and the British people quickly became the largest consumers. West Indian sugar became ubiquitous as an additive to Indian tea. It has been estimated that the profits of the slave trade and of West Indian plantations created up to one-in-twenty of every pound circulating in the British economy at the time of the Industrial Revolution in the latter half of the 18th century.^[95]

Effects[link]

Historian Walter Rodney has argued that at the start of the slave trade in the 16th century, even though there was a technological gap between Europe and Africa, it was not very substantial. Both continents were using Iron Age technology. The major advantage that Europe had was in ship building. During the period of slavery the populations of Europe and the Americas grew exponentially while the population of Africa remained stagnant. Rodney contended that the profits from slavery were used to fund economic growth and technological advancement in Europe and the Americas. Based on earlier theories by Eric Williams, he asserted that the industrial revolution was at least in part funded by agricultural profits from the Americas. He cited examples such as the invention of the steam engine by James Watt, which was funded by plantation owners from the Caribbean.^[97]

Other historians have attacked both Rodney's methodology and factual accuracy. Joseph C. Miller has argued that the social change and demographic stagnation (which he researched on the example of West Central Africa) was caused primarily by domestic factors. Joseph Inikori provided a new line of argument, estimating counterfactual demographic developments in case the Atlantic slave trade had not existed. Patrick Manning has shown that the slave trade did indeed have profound impact on African demographics and social institutions, but nevertheless criticized Inikori's approach for not taking other factors (such as famine and drought) into account and thus being highly speculative.^[98]

Effect on the economy of Africa[link]

Cowrie shells were used as money in the slave trade

No scholars dispute the harm done to the enslaved people themselves, but the effect of the trade on African societies is much debated due to the apparent influx of goods to Africans. Proponents of the slave trade, such as Archibald Dalzel, argued that African societies were robust and not much affected by the ongoing trade. In the 19th century, European abolitionists, most prominently Dr. David Livingstone, took the opposite view arguing that the fragile local economy and societies were being severely harmed by the ongoing trade. Historian Walter Rodney estimates that by c.1770, the King of Dahomey was earning an estimated £250,000 per year by selling captive African soldiers and enslaved people to the European slave-traders.

Effects on the economy of Europe[link]

Some have stressed the importance of natural or financial resources that Britain received from its many overseas colonies or that profits from the British slave trade between Africa and the Caribbean helped fuel industrial investment. West Indian writer Eric Williams asserts the contribution of Africans on the basis of profits from the slave trade and slavery, and the employment of those profits to finance England's industrialization process. He argues that the enslavement of Africans was an essential element to the Industrial Revolution, and that British wealth is, in part, a result of slavery. However, he says that by the time of its abolition it had lost its profitability and it was in Britain's economic interest to ban it.^[99] Other researchers and historians have strongly contested what has come to be referred to as the “Williams thesis” in academia: David Richardson has concluded that the profits from the slave trade amounted to less than 1% of domestic investment in Britain^[100], and economic historian Stanley Engerman finds that even without subtracting the associated costs of the slave trade (e.g., shipping costs, slave mortality, mortality of whites in Africa, defense costs) or reinvestment of profits back into the slave trade, the total profits from the slave trade and of West Indian plantations amounted to less than 5% of the British economy during any year of the Industrial Revolution.^[101] Engerman’s 5% figure gives as much as possible in terms of benefit of the doubt to the Williams argument, not solely because it does not take into account the associated costs of the slave trade to Britain, but also because it carries the full-employment assumption from economics and holds the gross value of slave trade profits as a direct contribution to Britain’s national income.^[101] Historian Richard Pares, in an article written before Williams’ book, dismisses the influence of wealth generated from the West Indian plantations upon the financing of the Industrial Revolution, stating that whatever substantial flow of investment from West Indian profits into industry there was occurred after emancipation, not before.^[102]

Seymour Drescher and Robert Anstey argue the slave trade remained profitable until the end, and that moralistic reform, not economic incentive, was primarily responsible for abolition. They say slavery remained profitable in the 1830s because of innovations in agriculture.^[103]

Karl Marx in his influential economic history of capitalism Das Kapital wrote that '...the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins, signaled the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production.' He argued that the slave trade was part of what he termed the 'primitive accumulation' of European capital, the 'non-capitalist' accumulation of wealth that preceded and created the financial conditions for Britain's industrialisation.^[104]

Demographics[link]

The demographic effects of the slave trade are some of the most controversial and debated issues. More than 12 million people were removed from Africa via the slave trade, and what effect this had on Africa is an important question.

Walter Rodney argued that the export of so many people had been a demographic disaster and had left Africa permanently disadvantaged when compared to other parts of the world, and largely explains the continent's continued poverty.^[105] He presented numbers showing that Africa's population stagnated during this period, while that of Europe and Asia grew dramatically. According to Rodney, all other areas of the economy were disrupted by the slave trade as the top merchants abandoned traditional industries to pursue slaving, and the lower levels of the population were disrupted by the slaving itself.

As Joseph E. Inikori argues, the history of the region shows that the effects were still quite deleterious. He argues that the African economic model of the period was very different from the European, and could not sustain such population losses. Population reductions in certain areas also led to widespread problems. Inikori also notes that after the suppression of the slave trade Africa's population almost immediately began to rapidly increase, even prior to the introduction of modern medicines.^[106] Owen Alik Shahadah also states that the trade was not only of demographic significance in aggregate population losses but also in the profound changes to settlement patterns, exposure to epidemics, and reproductive and social development potential.^[107]

Legacy of racism[link]

Professor Maulana Karenga states that the effects of slavery were that "the morally monstrous destruction of human possibility involved redefining African humanity to the world, poisoning past, present and future relations with others who only know us through this stereotyping and thus damaging the truly human relations among peoples." He states that it constituted the destruction of culture, language, religion and human possibility.^[108] Eric Williams argued that, "A racial twist [was] given to what is basically an economic phenomenon. Slavery was not born of racism: rather, racism was the consequence of slavery."^[109]

End of the Atlantic slave trade[link]

William Wilberforce (1759–1833), politician and philanthropist who was a leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade.

In Britain, America, Portugal and in parts of Europe, opposition developed against the slave trade. Davis says that abolitionists assumed "that an end to slave imports would lead automatically to the amelioration and gradual abolition of slavery.".^[110] Opposition to the trade was led by the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) and establishment Evangelicals such as William Wilberforce. The movement was joined by many and began to protest against the trade, but they were opposed by the owners of the colonial holdings.^[111] Following Lord Mansfield's decision in 1772, slaves became free upon entering the British isles.^[112] Under the leadership of Thomas Jefferson, the new state of Virginia in 1778 became the first state and one of the first jurisdictions anywhere to stop the importation of slaves for sale; it made it a crime for traders to bring in slaves from out of state or from overseas for sale; migrants from other states were allowed to bring their own slaves. The new law freed all slaves brought in illegally after its passage and imposed heavy fines on violators.^[113][114] Denmark, which had been active in the slave trade, was the first country to ban the trade through legislation in 1792, which took effect in 1803. Britain banned the slave trade in 1807, imposing stiff fines for any slave found aboard a British ship (see Slave Trade Act 1807). The Royal Navy, which then controlled the world's seas, moved to stop other nations from continuing the slave trade and declared that slaving was equal to piracy and was punishable by death. The United States Congress passed the Slave Trade Act of 1794, which prohibited the building or outfitting of ships in the U.S. for use in the slave trade. In 1807 Congress outlawed the importation of slaves beginning on January 1, 1808, the earliest date permitted by the United States Constitution for such a ban.

On Sunday 28 October 1787, William Wilberforce wrote in his diary: "God Almighty has set before me two great objects, the suppression of the slave trade and the Reformation of society." For the rest of his life, William Wilberforce dedicated his life as a Member of the British Parliament to opposing the slave trade and working for the abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire. On 22 February 1807, twenty years after he first began his crusade, and in the middle of Britain's war with France, Wilberforce and his team's labors were rewarded with victory. By an overwhelming 283 votes for to 16 against, the motion to abolish the Atlantic slave trade was carried in the House of Commons.^[115] The United States acted to abolish the slave trade the same year, but not its internal slave trade which became the dominant character in American slavery until the 1860s.^[116] In 1805 the British Order-in-Council had restricted the importation of slaves into colonies that had been captured from France and the Netherlands.^[112] Britain continued to press other nations to end its trade; in 1810 an Anglo-Portuguese treaty was signed whereby Portugal agreed to restrict its trade into its colonies; an 1813 Anglo-Swedish treaty whereby Sweden outlawed its slave trade; the Treaty of Paris 1814 where France agreed with Britain that the trade is "repugnant to the principles of natural justice" and agreed to abolish the slave trade in five years; the 1814 Anglo-Netherlands treaty where the Dutch outlawed its slave trade.^[112]

"Am I not a woman and a sister?"
An antislavery medallion from the late 18th century

With peace in Europe from 1815, and British supremacy at sea secured, the Royal Navy turned its attention back to the challenge and established the West Africa Squadron in 1808, known as the 'preventative squadron', which for the next 50 years operated against the slavers. By the 1850s, around 25 vessels and 2,000 officers and men were on the station, supported by some ships from the small United States Navy, and nearly 1,000 'Kroomen'—experienced fishermen recruited as sailors from what is now the coast of modern Liberia. Service on the West Africa Squadron was a thankless and overwhelming task, full of risk and posing a constant threat to the health of the crews involved. Contending with pestilential swamps and violent encounters, the mortality rate was 55 per 1,000 men, compared with 10 for fleets in the Mediterranean or in home waters.^[117] Between 1807 and 1860, the Royal Navy's Squadron seized approximately 1,600 ships involved in the slave trade and freed 150,000 Africans who were aboard these vessels.^[118] Several hundred slaves a year were transported by the navy to the British colony of Sierra Leone, where they were made to serve as 'apprentices' in the colonial economy until the Slavery Abolition Act 1833.^[119] Action was taken against African leaders who refused to agree to British treaties to outlaw the trade, for example against 'the usurping King of Lagos', deposed in 1851. Anti-slavery treaties were signed with over 50 African rulers.^[120]

The last recorded slave ship to land on American soil was the Clotilde, which in 1859 illegally smuggled a number of Africans into the town of Mobile, Alabama.^[121] The Africans on board were sold as slaves; however, slavery in the U.S. was abolished 5 years later following the end of the American Civil War in 1865. The last survivor of the voyage was Cudjoe Lewis who died in 1935.^[122] The last country to ban the Atlantic slave trade was Brazil in 1831. However, a vibrant illegal trade continued to ship large numbers of enslaved people to Brazil and also to Cuba until the 1860s, when British enforcement and further diplomacy finally ended the Atlantic trade.^[123][124]

Abolition argument[link]

This article may be unbalanced towards certain viewpoints. Please improve the article by adding information on neglected viewpoints, or discuss the issue on the talk page. (March 2011)

The Abolitionists argued that the slave trade changed the face of Africa, pushing them into constant wars as a result of the Europeans' ever-growing demands for slaves. They argued that even in Africa, the Africans' lives revolved around the slave trade's needs through the constant wars and battles to secure enough slaves for the Europeans. Although people avoided mentioning the horrid living conditions of slave trade ships out of fear of the animosity it could cause, the abolitionists incorporated the high mortality rates in their argument against slavery. Even though the abolitionists incorporated the idea of European superiority in their platform, they argued the slave trade hindered the progress of African race. They, however, had to contend with those who invested in the slave trade, who argued that the slave trade was essential for the survival of the economy. Others argued that despite the cruel conditions on the ships, the overall conditions of Africa were worse. The debate over slavery went on for decades before abolition was finalized.^[125]

Legacy[link]

African Diaspora[link]

House slaves in Brazil c. 1820, by Jean-Baptiste Debret

The African Diaspora which was created via slavery has been a complex interwoven part of America history and culture.^[126] In the United States, the success of Alex Haley's book Roots: The Saga of an American Family, published in 1976, and the subsequent television miniseries based upon it Roots, broadcast on the ABC network in January 1977, led to an increased interest and appreciation of African heritage amongst the African-American community.^[127] The influence of these led many African-Americans to begin researching their family histories and making visits to West Africa. In turn, a tourist industry grew up to supply them. One notable example of this is through the Roots Homecoming Festival held annually in the Gambia, in which rituals are held through which African-Americans can symbolically 'come home' to Africa.^[128] Issues of dispute have however developed between African-Americans and African authorities over how to display historic sites that were involved in the Atlantic slave trade, with prominent voices in the former criticising the latter for not displaying such sites sensitively, but instead treating them as a commercial enterprise.^[129]

'Back to Africa'[link]

In 1816, a group of wealthy European-Americans, some of whom were abolitionists and others who were racial segregationists, founded the American Colonization Society with the express desire of returning African-Americans who were in the United States to West Africa. In 1820, they sent their first ship to Liberia, and within a decade around two thousand African-Americans had been settled in the west African country. Such re-settlement continued throughout the 19th century, increasing following the deterioration of race relations in the southern states of the US following Reconstruction in 1877.^[130]

Rastafari movement[link]

The Rastafari movement, which originated in Jamaica, where 98% of the population are descended from victims of the Atlantic slave trade, has made great efforts to publicize the slavery, and to ensure it is not forgotten, especially through reggae music.^[131]

Apologies[link]

In 1998, UNESCO designated August 23 as International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition. Since then there have been a number of events recognizing the effects of slavery.

On 9 December 1999 Liverpool City Council passed a formal motion apologising for the City's part in the slave trade. It was unanimously agreed that Liverpool acknowledges its responsibility for its involvement in three centuries of the slave trade. The City Council has made an unreserved apology for Liverpool's involvement and the continual effect of slavery on Liverpool's Black communities.^[132]

At the 2001 World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa, African nations demanded a clear apology for slavery from the former slave-trading countries. Some nations were ready to express an apology, but the opposition, mainly from the United Kingdom, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, and the United States blocked attempts to do so. A fear of monetary compensation might have been one of the reasons for the opposition. As of 2009, efforts are underway to create a UN Slavery Memorial as a permanent remembrance of the victims of the Atlantic slave trade.

On January 30, 2006, Jacques Chirac (the then French President) said that 10 May would henceforth be a national day of remembrance for the victims of slavery in France, marking the day in 2001 when France passed a law recognising slavery as a crime against humanity.^[133]

On November 27, 2006, then British Prime Minister Tony Blair made a partial apology for Britain's role in the African slavery trade. However African rights activists denounced it as "empty rhetoric" that failed to address the issue properly. They feel his apology stopped shy to prevent any legal retort.^[134] Mr Blair again apologized on March 14, 2007.^[135]

On February 24, 2007 the Virginia General Assembly passed House Joint Resolution Number 728^[136] acknowledging "with profound regret the involuntary servitude of Africans and the exploitation of Native Americans, and call for reconciliation among all Virginians." With the passing of that resolution, Virginia became the first of the 50 United States to acknowledge through the state's governing body their state's involvement in slavery. The passing of this resolution came on the heels of the 400th anniversary celebration of the city of Jamestown, Virginia, which was the first permanent English colony to survive in what would become the United States. Jamestown is also recognized as one of the first slave ports of the American colonies.

On May 31, 2007, the Governor of Alabama, Bob Riley, signed a resolution expressing "profound regret" for Alabama's role in slavery and apologizing for slavery's wrongs and lingering effects. Alabama is the fourth Southern state to pass a slavery apology, following votes by the legislatures in Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina.^[137]

On August 24, 2007, Ken Livingstone (then Mayor of London) apologized publicly for London's role in the slave trade. "You can look across there to see the institutions that still have the benefit of the wealth they created from slavery", he said pointing towards the financial district, before breaking down in tears. He claimed that London was still tainted by the horrors of slavery. Jesse Jackson praised Mayor Livingstone, and added that reparations should be made.^[138]

On July 30, 2008, the United States House of Representatives passed a resolution apologizing for American slavery and subsequent discriminatory laws. The language included a reference to the "fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality and inhumanity of slavery and Jim Crow" segregation.^[139]

On June 18, 2009, the United States Senate issued an apologetic statement decrying the "fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery". The news was welcomed by President Barack Obama, the nation's first President of African descent.^[140]

See also[link]

• History of slavery
  • Slave trade in the Middle Ages
• African slave trade
• Arab slave trade
• Jews and the slave trade
• Slavery in Portugal
• Danish slave trade
• Swedish slave trade

References[link]

Footnotes[link]