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The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade

The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. Barbara Anderson African Studies Center, UNC-Chapel Hill November 2008 b_anderson@unc.edu www.global.unc.edu/africa. How did the trans-Atlantic slave trade begin? Why did Europeans choose Africans?. Origins of the trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.

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The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade

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  1. TheTrans-Atlantic Slave Trade Barbara Anderson African Studies Center, UNC-Chapel Hill November 2008 b_anderson@unc.edu www.global.unc.edu/africa

  2. How did the trans-Atlantic slave trade begin?Why did Europeans choose Africans?

  3. Origins of the trans-Atlantic Slave Trade • Begin with the Age of Exploration—the Portuguese, not Columbus! • African and Middle Eastern science and technology were central • Portuguese explore west coast of Africa, looking for Asia

  4. Long-distance trading throughout this area, including slaves

  5. European Invasion and Occupation of the Americas • 1441 Portuguese in West Africa • 1492 Columbus • 1498 Vasco de Gama • 1500 Cabral to Brazil • 1517 Spain gives Portugal 1st Asiento • 1542 only African slaves in Spanish colonies

  6. WHY DID EUROPEANS NEED SLAVES? SUGAR AND GOLD MINING AND MONOCULTURE CASH CROPS

  7. http://www.mariner.org/exploration/mm_images/F2131E26_vol2_p248_MoulinASucre_large.jpghttp://www.mariner.org/exploration/mm_images/F2131E26_vol2_p248_MoulinASucre_large.jpg

  8. Slave exports from Africa 1450-1600 376,000 3.1% 1601-1700 1,868,000 16.0 1701-1800 6,133,000 52.4** 1801-1900 3,330,000 28.5 Total 11,698,000 **This is also the century that most Americans can trace their African ancestors to.

  9. Destination of Slaves Europe 2% U.S. (Mainland North Am.) 5% Caribbean 42% Brazil 38% Spanish Am. 13%

  10. Why did Africans sell slaves to Europeans?Were they “selling their own people?”

  11. Africans did NOT “sell their own”: • Slavery in most of Africa • (and rest of the world!) • Long-distance trading • No racial or national identity • Local and/or lineage loyalty • Prisoners of War or other outsiders • African resistance occurred, but infrequent

  12. How do we depict the trade?

  13. What do we need the trade to be?

  14. http://www.nps.gov/history/ethnography/aah/aaheritage/histContextsA.htmhttp://www.nps.gov/history/ethnography/aah/aaheritage/histContextsA.htm

  15. http://hitchcock.itc.virginia.edu/SlaveTrade/collection/large/D001.JPGhttp://hitchcock.itc.virginia.edu/SlaveTrade/collection/large/D001.JPG

  16. http://hitchcock.itc.virginia.edu/SlaveTrade/collection/large/barbotcrevecoeur.JPGhttp://hitchcock.itc.virginia.edu/SlaveTrade/collection/large/barbotcrevecoeur.JPG

  17. http://exploringafrica.matrix.msu.edu/images/slave_routes.jpghttp://exploringafrica.matrix.msu.edu/images/slave_routes.jpg

  18. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/england/1718422.stm

  19. Places in the slave trade • Liverpool • Senegambia • Dahomey • Kongo • Rio de Janeiro • Jamaica • Cuba • Charleston • Boston

  20. Goree Warehouses, Liverpool

  21. Where the ships were headed Goree Island, Senegal

  22. Omar Ibn Sayyid, 1770-1864

  23. Charleston, South Carolina 1807

  24. Venture Smith, 1729-1805 • Born in West Africa • Enslaved at age 6 • Marched to the coast • Sold to Rhode Island ship • Lived in colonial New England • Purchased self and family Africans in America DVD

  25. Chicago and the slave trade??? • Many Black Chicagoans whose families moved here in the late 19th or early 20th century came from Mississippi • These Americans may have had ancestors who experienced the INTERNAL SLAVE TRADE, 1820-1860, having been marched or shipped from the Upper South • AND/OR they may have been brought directly in to the Lower Mississippi by the French during the colonial period, probably from Senegambia.

  26. Resources for teaching: • Africans in America 4-part video/DVD and web site http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/ • http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/ for narratives of Africans • http://hitchcock.itc.virginia.edu/Slavery/index.php for images of slave trade (also AIA above) • http://exploringafrica.matrix.msu.edu/teachers/curriculum/m7b/activity1.php lesson plans and overview of slave trade

  27. Book Resources for Teachers • Lindsay, Lisa (2008) Captives as Commodities: The Transatlantic Slave Trade • Thomas, Hugh (1997) The slave trade : the story of the Atlantic slave trade, 1440-1870 • Klein, Herbert (1999) The Atlantic Slave Trade • Diouf, Sylvaine A. (1998) Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas • Wright, Donald (2000) African Americans in the Colonial Era, 2nd Ed. • Hine et al. (2006) The African American Odyssey (Textbook)

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