HISTORY OF SLAVERY AND TRANS ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE

SUBMITTED BY

SAHARSH DUBEY

(SM0117044)

FACULTY IN CHARGE

MRS. NAMRATA GOGOI

(Assistant Professor of History)

NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY AND JUDICIAL ACADEMY, ASSAM

1
 1. TABLE OF CONTENTS

1.1 Introduction……………………………………………………………..3

1.2 Research Problem…………………………………………………….....3

1.3 Literature Review……………………………………………………….4

1.4 Research Methodology………………………………………………….5

1.5 Scope and Objectives…………………………………………………....5

2.1 Origin of colonial slavery……………………………………………….6-10

2.2 Growth of colonial slavery……………………………………………...11

2.3 Factors behind the colonial slavery……………………………………..12-14

3.1 The Atlantic slave trade…………………………………………………15-16

3.2 The “middle passage”…………………………………………………...16

4.1 Africans in America……………………………………………………..17

4.2 From African to African American……………………………………...18

4.3 Southern Society…………………………………………………………19

4.4 The Economies of Slavery……………………………………………….20-21

5.0The Ending of the Slave Trade……………………………………………22

6.0 Conclusion………………………………………………………………..23

7.0 Bibliography……………………………………………………………...24

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 1.1 INTRODUCTION

As seventeenth century unfolded, the crude encampments of the first colonists slowly gave
way to permanent settlements. Durable and distinctive ways of life emerged as Europeans
and Africans adapted to the New World and as Native Americans adapted to the newcomers.
Even the rigid doctrines of Puritanism softened somewhat in response to the circumstances of
life in America. And though all the colonies remained tied to England, and all were stitched
tightly into the fabric of an Atlantic economy, regional differences continued to crystallize,
notably the increasing importance of slave labor to the southern way of life. The Atlantic
slave trade, also known as the transatlantic slave trade, was the trade of African people
supplied to the colonies of the New World that occurred in and around the Atlantic Ocean. It
lasted from the 16th century to the 19th century. Most slaves were shipped from West Africa
and Central Africa and taken to the New World (primarily Brazil). Generally slaves were
obtained through coastal trading with Africans, though some were captured by European
slave traders through raids and kidnapping. Most contemporary historians estimate that
between 9.4 and 12 million Africans arrived in the New World, although the number of
people taken from their homestead is considerably higher. The slave-trade is sometimes
called the Maafa by African and African-American scholars, meaning “holocaust” or “great
disaster” in Swahili. The slaves were 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. Slavery was practiced in Africa before the beginning of the
Atlantic slave trade. The African slave trade provided a large number of slaves to Europeans
and their African agents.

1.2 Research Questions

1. What did the slavery system grow in the region?

2. What was the situation of the slaves in the Atlantic region?

3. How did the system of slavery come to an end?

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1.3 Literature Review

1. The Atlantic Slave Trade. University of California. Jeremy Ball.

The Atlantic Slave Trade is divided into five lessons: Lesson One explores the origins of the
Atlantic slave trade, Lessons Two and Three focus on the process of enslavement in West
Africa and the Middle Passage, The fourth lesson deals with the arrival in the Americas, and
Lesson Five delves into early attempts to end the slave trade. Students, using primary source
materials, examine the differences and similarities between slavery as practiced in the
Americas and Africa. The purposes of this unit are to explore the complexity and geographic
breadth of the institution of slavery, to examine the experiences of actual participants in the
Atlantic slave trade, to evaluate the role of Europe and Africa traders, and to appraise
arguments for and against the abolition of the trade.

2. The Archaeology of Slavery in North America. Thomas A. Singleton

. Archaeologists began to study slavery more than two decades ago, and since that time this
interest has rapidly grown to become one of the most popular research specialties in the
archaeology of the post-Columbian period. This essay reviews the interpretation of the
archaeological record of slavery directed toward the analysis of four themes: living
conditions under slavery, status differences within the plantation community, relationships of
planter dominance and slave resistance, and formation of African-American cultural identity.
It also discusses the socio-political context within which this study has operated and strongly
recommends that greater efforts be taken to include African-American perspectives to inform
this research.

3. The American Pageant: A history of the Republic. Thomas A. Bailey.

The American pageant presents a concise and vivid chronological narrative, focusing on the
central themes and great public debates that have dominated American history. This edition
draws attention basically towards the colonial American history. This edition draws attention
basically towards the colonial slavery in North America and various other aspects of the
existing slavery at that time to how theslavery system came to an end.

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1.4 Research methodology

1. Approach to research:

The methodology used in this project is doctrinal research. Doctrinal research is basically
library based research where the resources available in the library are used.

2. Sources of data collection:

Data has been collected from secondary sources like: books, web sources etc. No primary
sources like survey data or field data were collected by the researcher.

1.5 Scope and Objective

The current study is basically historical study about the evolution of Atlantic slave trade and
its economy. Secondary sources like books and articles are used for analysing the research
problem and its interpretation.

Objective:

• To understand the complexity and geographical breadth of the institution of slavery

• To identify the major geographical sources and destinations of slaves traded across the
Atlantic between Africa and the Americas.

• To analyse the slave economy in the Atlantic Slave Trade in order to understand the process
of enslavement.

• To explore early attempts to end the slave trade.

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 2.1 ORIGIN OF COLONIAL SLAVERY

Evidence of slavery predates written records, and has existed in

many cultures.1 However, slavery is rare among hunter-gatherer populations. Mass
slavery requires economic surpluses and a high population density to be viable. Due to
these factors, the practice of slavery would have only proliferated after the invention of
agriculture during the Neolithic Revolution, about 11,000 years ago.2

Slavery was known in civilizations as old as Sumer, as well as in almost every other ancient
civilization, including Ancient Egypt, Ancient China, the Akkadian,
Empire, Assyria, Babylonia, Ancient Iran, Ancient Greece, India, the Roman Empire,
the Arab Islamic Caliphate and Sultanate, Nubia and the pre-Columbian civilizations of the
AmeriCredit as. Such institutions were a mixture of debt-slavery, punishment for crime, the
enslavement of prisoners of war, child abandonment, and the birth of slave children to
slaves.3

Africa

French historian Fernand Braudel noted that slavery was endemic in Africa and part of the
structure of everyday life. "Slavery came in different guises in different societies: there were
court slaves, slaves incorporated into princely armies, domestic and household slaves, slaves
working on the land, in industry, as couriers and intermediaries, even as traders". 4During the
16th century, Europe began to outpace the Arab world in the export traffic, with its slave
traffic from Africa to the Americas. The Dutch imported slaves from Asia into their colony in
South Africa. In 1807 Britain, which held extensive, although mainly coastal, colonial
territories on the African continent (including southern Africa), made the international slave
trade illegal, as did the United States in 1808.

In Senegambia, between 1300 and 1900, close to one-third of the population was enslaved. In
early Islamic states of the Western Sudan, including Ghana (750–1076), Mali (1235–

1
Klein, Herbert S.; III, Ben Vinson, African Slavery in Latin America and the Caribbean (2nd ed.). New York
[etc.]: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195189421, 2007.
2
Wanzola, Hamba, Rediscovering the Hidden World: The Changing Human Geography of Kongo. Xlibris
Corporation. p. 72. ISBN 9781479751914, 2012.
3
David P. Forsythe, "Encyclopedia of Human Rights, Volume 1". Oxford University Press. p.
399. ISBN 0195334027, 2009.
4
Braudel, Fernand, Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century: The perspective of the world. 3. Harper &
Row. p. 435. ISBN 978-0-06-015317-5, 1984.

6
1645), Segou (1712–1861), and Songhai (1275–1591), about a third of the population was
enslaved. In Sierra Leone in the 19th century about half of the population consisted of slaves.
In the 19th century at least half the population was enslaved among the Duala of
the Cameroon, the Igbo and other peoples of the lower Niger, the Kongo, and the Kasanje
kingdom and Chokwe of Angola. Among the Ashanti and Yoruba a third of the population
consisted of slaves. The population of the Kanem was about a third slave. It was perhaps 40%
in Bornu (1396–1893). Between 1750 and 1900 from one- to two-thirds of the entire
population of the Fulani jihad states consisted of slaves. The population of
the Sokoto caliphate formed by Hausas in northern Nigeria and Cameroon was half-slave in
the 19th century. It is estimated that up to 90% of the population of Arab-
Swahili Zanzibar was enslaved. Roughly half the population of Madagascar was enslaved.

The Anti-Slavery Society estimated that there were 2,000,000 slaves in the early
1930s Ethiopia, out of an estimated population of between 8 and 16 million. Slavery
continued in Ethiopia until the brief Second Italo-Abyssinian War in October 1935, when it
was abolished by order of the Italian occupying forces. In response to pressure by
Western Allies of World War II Ethiopia officially abolished slavery and serfdom after
regaining its independence in 1942. On 26 August 1942 Haile Selassie issued a proclamation
outlawing slavery.5

The Americans:

In Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica the most common forms of slavery were those of prisoners

of war and debtors. People unable to pay back debts could be sentenced to work as slaves to
the persons owed until the debts were worked off. Warfare was important to Maya society,
because raids on surrounding areas provided the victims required for human sacrifice, as well
as slaves for the construction of temples. Most victims of human sacrifice were prisoners of
war or slaves. According to Aztec writings, as many as 84,000 people were sacrificed at a
temple inauguration in 1487. Slavery was not usually hereditary; children of slaves were born
free. In the Inca Empire, workers were subject to a mita in lieu of taxes which they paid by
working for the government. Each ayllu, or extended family, would decide which family
member to send to do the work. It is unclear if this labor draft or corvée counts as slavery.
The Spanish adopted this system, particularly for their silver mines in Bolivia.6
5
 "A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774–1875
Statutes at Large, 9th Congress, 2nd Session", The Library of Congress, https://xsieve.com/search/Slave_trade,
Retrieved 26 October 2018.
6
Eric Foner, A short history of Reconstruction, 1863–1877, (1990),

7
Other slave-owning societies and tribes of the New World were, for example,
the Tehuelche of Patagonia, the Comanche of Texas, the Caribs of Dominica,
the Tupinambá of Brazil, the, fishing societies, such as the Yurok that lived along the coast
from what is now Alaska to California, the Pawnee and Klamath. Many of the indigenous
peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, such as the Haida and Tlingit, were traditionally
known as fierce warriors and slave-traders, raiding as far as California. Slavery was
hereditary, the slaves being prisoners of war. Among some Pacific Northwest tribes about a
quarter of the population were slaves.

British and French Caribbean:

Slavery was commonly used in the parts of the Caribbean controlled by France and

the British Empire. The Lesser Antilles islands of Barbados, St.
Kitts, Antigua, Martinique and Guadeloupe, which were the first important slave societies of
the Caribbean, began the widespread use of African slaves by the end of the 17th century, as
their economies converted from sugar production.

England had multiple sugar islands in the Caribbean, especially Jamaica, Barbados, Nevis,
and Antigua, which provided a steady flow of sugar sales; slave labour produced the
sugar. By the 1700s, there were more slaves in Barbados than all the colonies combined.
Since Barbados did not have many mountains, the British were able to clear land for sugar
cane. Indentured servants were initially sent to Barbados to work in the sugar fields. These
indentured servants were treated so poorly that future indentured servants stopped going to
Barbados, and there was not enough people to work the fields. This is when the British
started bringing in African slaves. It was important for the slaves to be in Barbados because
sugar had become a necessity for most people and the demand for it was high.7

An important result of Britain's victory in the War of the Spanish Succession (1702–1714)

was enlarging its role in the slave trade. Of special importance was the successful secret
negotiation with France to obtain thirty-year monopoly on the Spanish slave trade, called
the Asiento. Queen Anne of Great Britain also allowed her North American colonies like
Virginia to make laws that promoted black slavery. Anne had secretly negotiated with France
to get its approval regarding the Asiento8. She boasted to Parliament of her success in taking
the Asiento away from France and London celebrated her economic coup. Most of the slave
7
 Hopkins, Keith (31 January 1981 "Africans in America" – PBS Series – Part 4 (2007). Conquerors and Slaves,
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/title.html, Retrieved on 27 Oct. 2018.
8
Peter Wood, "Africans in America" – PBS Series – Part 4 (2007), The Terrible Transformation,
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/title.html, Retrieved on 27 Oct. 2018.

8
trade involved sales to Spanish colonies in the Caribbean, and to Mexico, as well as sales to
British colonies in the Caribbean and in North America.

Europe

GREECE

Records of slavery in Ancient Greece go as far back as Mycenaean Greece. The origins are
not known, but it appears that slavery became an important part of the economy and society
only after the establishment of cities. Slavery was common practice and an integral
component of ancient Greece, as it was in other societies of the time, including ancient
Israel. It is estimated that in Athens, the majority of citizens owned at least one slave. Most
ancient writers considered slavery not only natural but necessary, but some isolated debate
began to appear, notably in Socratic dialogues. The Stoics produced the first condemnation of
slavery recorded in history.

During the 8th and the 7th centuries BC, in the course of the two Messenian Wars,
the Spartans reduced an entire population to a pseudo-slavery called helotry9

ROME

Romans inherited the institution of slavery from the Greeks and the Phoenicians. As

the Roman Republic expanded outward, it enslaved entire populations, thus ensuring an
ample supply of labourers to work in Rome's farms, quarries and households. The people
subjected to Roman slavery came from all over Europe and the Mediterranean. Such
oppression by an elite minority eventually led to slave revolts; the Third Servile War led
by Spartacus was the most famous and severe.
Greeks, Berbers, Germans, Britons, Slavs, Thracians, Gauls (or Celts), Jews, Arabs and many
more ethnic groups were enslaved to be used for labour, and also for amusement
(e.g. gladiators and sex slaves). If a slave ran away, they were liable to be crucified.

PORTGUAL

The 15th-century Portuguese exploration of the African coast is commonly regarded as the

harbinger of European colonialism. In 1452, Pope Nicholas V issued the papal bullDum
Diversas, granting Afonso V of Portugal the right to reduce any "Saracens, pagans and any
other unbelievers" to hereditary slavery which legitimized slave trade under Catholic beliefs
of that time. This approval of slavery was reaffirmed and extended in his Romanus
9
"Vermont and the abolition of slavery", Anti-slaverysociety.addr.com, Retrieved on 25 Oct. 2018.

9
Pontifex bull of 1455. These papal bulls came to serve as a justification for the subsequent
era of slave trade and European colonialism. 

Among many other European slave markets, Genoa, and Venice were some well-known

markets, their importance and demand growing after the great plague of the 14th century
which decimated much of the European work force. The maritime town of Lagos, Portugal,
was the first slave market created in Portugal for the sale of imported African slaves,
the Mercado de Escravos, which opened in 1444. In 1441, the first slaves were brought to
Portugal from northern Mauritania.10

SPAIN

The Spaniards were the first Europeans to use African slaves in the New World on islands
such as Cuba and Hispaniola, due to a shortage of labor caused by the spread of diseases, and
so the Spanish colonists gradually became involved in the Atlantic slave trade. The first
African slaves arrived in Hispaniola in 1501; by 1517, the natives had been "virtually
annihilated" mostly to diseases. The problem of the justness of Native American's slavery
was a key issue for the Spanish Crown. It was Charles V who gave a definite answer to this
complicated and delicate matter. To that end, on 25 November 1542, the Emperor abolished
slavery by decree in his Leyes Nuevas New Laws. This bill was based on the arguments
given by the best Spanish theologists and jurists who were unanimous in the condemnation of
such slavery as unjust; they declared it illegitimate and outlawed it from America—not just
the slavery of Spaniards over Natives—but also the type of slavery practiced among the
Natives themselves. Thus, Spain became the first country to officially abolish slavery.11

2.2: GROWTH OF COLONIAL SLAVERY

 C. Vann Woodward, Origins of the New South, 1877–1913 (1951).
10

Rawlins, Gregory J. E. "Rebooting Reality – Chapter 2, Labor". roxie.org. Archived from the original on 23

11

December 2008. Retrieved 24 October 2018.

10
 More than 7 million Africans were carried in chains to the New World in the three centuries
or so following Columbus’s landing. Only about 400,000 of them ended up in North
America, the great majority arriving after 1700. Most of the early human cargoes were hauled
to Spanish and Portuguese South America or to the sugar-rich West Indies. Africans were the
immigrants to the British New World that had no choice in their destinations or destinies. The
first African Americans that arrived in Jamestown in 1619 on a Dutch trading ship were not
slaves, nor were they free. They served time as indentured servants until their obligations
were complete. Although these lucky individuals lived out the remainder of their lives as free
men, the passing decades would make this a rarity. Despite the complete lack of a slave
tradition in mother England, slavery gradually replaced indentured servitude as the chief
means for plantation labor in the Old South. Virginia would become the first British colony to
legally establish slavery in 1661. Maryland and the Carolinas were soon to follow.12

The only Southern colony to resist the onset of slavery was Georgia, created as an
enlightened experiment. Seventeen years after its formation, Georgia too succumbed to the
pressures of its own citizens and repealed the ban on African slavery. Laws soon passed in
these areas that condemned all children of African slaves to lifetimes in chains. No northern
or middle colony was without its slaves. From Puritan Massachusetts to Quaker
Pennsylvania, Africans lived in bondage. Economics and geography did not promote the need
for slave importation like the plantation South. Consequently, the slave population remained
small compared to their southern neighbours. While laws throughout the region recognized
the existence of slavery, it was far less systematized. Slaves were more frequently granted
their freedom, and opposition to the institution was more common, especially in
Pennsylvania.

As British colonists became convinced that Africans best served their demand for labor,
importation increased. By the turn of the eighteenth century African slaves numbered in the
tens of thousands in the British colonies. Before the first shots are fired at Lexington and
Concord, they totaled in the hundreds of thousands. The cries for liberty by the colonial
leaders that were to follow turned out to be merely white cries.

2.3 FACTORS THAT LED TO SLAVERY

12
Thinking Globally: The Atlantic Slave Trade, 1500 –1860,” pp. 64 – 65.

11
Changing leaders in the Atlantic Slave Trade

In the first century of the Atlantic slave trade, 1500 to 1600, Spain and Portugal were the
stronger military powers. They controlled the Atlantic slave trade completely.

During the 17th century, northern European powers steadily challenged this dominance.

In the 18th century the principal traders were Britain, Portugal and France. More than seven
out of every ten slaves went to regions owned by Portugal and Britain. Military strength and
control of the trade were intertwined.

At this time governments restricted which ships could trade with their colonies. Each
European power restricted trade within their colony to benefit their own merchants. Conquest
of colonies in the Americas led to an increased share of slave trading.13

Conflict in the Caribbean

There were frequent European wars in 17th and 18th Centuries. These were mainly fought on
European soil. But there were also battles for control of colonies which were extensions of
these rivalries. Naval supremacy became increasingly important.

The development of the Atlantic slave trade was affected by the power struggles of these
nation states. The outcome of wars in Europe and of battles in the colonies determined who
had the greater share of the Atlantic slave trade and under whose jurisdiction the enslaved
Africans ended up.

The balance of power shifted from the defeated nations to the winners. The power of Spain
and Portugal declined. In the second stage of the slave trade (before British abolition), Britain
and France grew in strength and emerged as dominant nations. This was reflected in the
number of slaves they traded.

The Seven Years War

Although the Seven Years War (1756–63) began as a conflict about control of territory in
Europe, major battles were fought for control of valuable overseas colonies. Britain, France
and Spain all looked to maintain and build the size of their empires, including the Caribbean
and North America. Britain emerged from the war as the leading European imperial power,
13
Thinking Globally: The Atlantic Slave Trade, 1500 –1860,” pp. 64 – 65.

12
 having made large territorial gains in North America and the Caribbean. Slave labour was
seen as necessary to exploit these gains.14

Britain's commercial strength

The military and naval strengths of competing nations were important factors in slave trading
success, but it was not the only factor.

In the first half of the 18th century the British Atlantic community became more integrated,
allowing the trade in slaves to flourish.

This, in part, depended on Britain:

 Overtaking the Netherlands as Europe’s strongest trading nation

 Hugely growing its American merchant community around 1700

 Developing a stock market

 Establishing a national banking system

The Royal African Company’s monopoly over British slave trading was abolished in 1712
allowing merchants in the rival ports of Bristol and Liverpool to compete for business. This
added to the growth of trade. In the 1790s the slave trade developed to its fullest extent.

Growth of plantations

Plantations were a new economic and social institution. They were both farm and factory.

Large scale specialist plantations of at least 80 to 100 hectares (33 to 41 acres) were much
more efficient than small farms.

Many plantations were big businesses. Operations were directed by hired managers (often on
behalf of absentee owners back in Britain).

Plantations required a large labour force to sustain production. Planters turned to slave labour
as their main source of labour.

14
“Id. At 65”.

13
In the West Indies, Europeans created large plantations. Their success led owners to replicate
the plantation model on neighbouring islands. More and more planters sought to purchase
enslaved Africans in growing numbers15

The rush to produce sugar

Settlers in the tropical parts of America had found a crop that was in massive demand - sugar.

The sugar trade could be very profitable. Sugar could be made from sugar cane but the
process was very intensive. It took 50 tons of sugar cane to make one ton of sugar.

Production required a large labour force to plant, maintain, harvest and process the sugar
cane. All of this was in harsh and unpleasant conditions.

Cheap labour16

To keep profits high, plantation owners wanted a cheap labour force, and quickly, to cultivate
and process the sugar. The ready answer was African slaves. As a result the Atlantic slave
trade developed.

The most dramatic surge in sugar production took place on the largest islands - St
Dominique, Jamaica and Cuba. By 1775, Jamaica produced half of Britain’s sugar.

These three islands were the largest disembarkation points for slaves in the West Indies. The
numbers of slaves arriving on the islands grew to rival the Brazilian ports

3.1 THE ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE17

15
Margaret Humphreys, Marrow of Tragedy: The Health Crisis of the American Civil War (2013).
16
“Id.”.
17
Hopkins Keith, Conquerors and Slaves, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 101, ISBN 978-0-521-
28181-2, 1981.

14
For more than three centuries following Columbus’s discovery, slave merchants crammed
some 11 million African men, women, and children into the holds of ships and carried them
like common cargo to the New World.

Roughly 2 million souls perished mid- voyage before confronting the agonies and indignities
of slavery in the Americas. Some 400,000 enslaved Africans came ashore in North America,
while the overwhelming majority were destined for South America and the Caribbean.
European and American slave traders reaped enormous profits from this human trafficking,
as did the African warlords who sold their hapless captives into lifelong bondage. British,
French, Portuguese, Dutch, and New England slavers stuffed their ships to capacity with little
regard for the health or comfort of their suffering cargo. 18

One enslaved boy, Olaudah Equiano, later wrote of his constant fear during the voyage that
his tormenting captors would murder him, as they did several others before his young eyes.
Equiano survived, but the hideous conditions aboard those floating hells killed countless
Africans and deeply traumatized many others. Slave trading fed off the insatiable European
appetite for sugar, as well as for tobacco, cotton, and other New World products that both
Europeans and Americans craved. Marketing human beings on such a vast scale required the
complicity not only of warlords and sailors but also of bankers and stevedores, planters and
tailors, shopkeepers and bakers, and finally tea drinkers, smokers, and a host of middlemen
on four continents. Once purchased by their New World masters, slaves faced a life of
ceaseless, unpaid toil. Though conditions varied across the vast slave dominion that stretched
from Brazil to North America, most slaves had few if any legal rights.

The Caribbean and Deep South sugar plantations in particular demanded notoriously man-
killing, backbreaking labor. Slavery in the Americas continued to gain importance, and
human imports from Africa peaked in the late eighteenth century. Only in the nineteenth
century, beginning with Britain in 1807, did nations in Europe and the international slave 2.
After Congress banned further slave importations to the United States in 1808, a flourishing
internal market developed. 19Masters in the upper South bred slaves for sale on the rapidly
expanding cot- ton frontier in the Old Southwest. Europeans, as well as Americans in the
“free states,” lent indirect support to that domestic slave trade as they continued to consume

Thomas Hugh, The Slave Trade, Simon and Schuster, pp 357-435, 1999.
18

Ushistory.org, "The Middle Passage", U.S. History Online Textbook, http://www.ushistory.org/us/6b.asp,

19

Retrieved on 27 Oct.2018.

15
slave-produced goods. Slavery would not finally be abolished in the United States until
1863.20

3.2 THE MIDDLE PASSAGE

The “middle passage” referred to the transatlantic sea voyage that brought slaves to the New
World—the long and hazardous “middle” segment of a journey that began with a forced
march to the African coast and ended with a trek into the American interior. Most of the
slaves who reached North America came from the west coast of Africa, especially the area
stretching from present-day Senegal to Angola. They were originally captured by African
coastal tribes, who traded them in crude markets on the shimmering tropical beaches to
itinerant European—and American— flesh merchants. Usually branded and bound, the
captives were herded aboard sweltering ships for the gruesome middle passage, on which
death rates ran as high as 20 percent. Terrified survivors were eventually shoved onto auction
blocks in New World ports like Newport, Rhode Island, or Charleston, South Carolina, where
a giant slave market traded in human misery for more than a century.

A few of the earliest African immigrants gained their freedom, and some even became slave
owners themselves. But as the number of Africans in their midst increased dramatically
towards the end of the seventeenth century, white colonists reacted remorselessly to this
supposed racial threat. Earlier in the century, the legal difference between a slave and a
servant was unclear. But now the law began to make sharp distinctions between the two—
largely on the basis of race. Beginning in Virginia in 1662, statutes appeared that formally
decreed he iron conditions of slavery for blacks. These earliest “slave codes” made blacks
and their children the property (or “chattels”) for life of their white masters. 21

Some colonies made it a crime to teach a slave to read or write. Not even conversion to
Christianity could qualify a slave for freedom. Thus did the God-fearing whites put the fear
of God into their hapless black labourers. Slavery might have begun in America for economic
reasons, but by the end of the seventeenth century, it was clear that racial discrimination also
powerfully moulded the American slave system22

4.1: AFRICANS IN AMERICA

20
Michael Vorenberg, ed. The Emancipation Proclamation: A Brief History with Documents (2010),
21
 "Dahomey (historical kingdom, Africa)". Britannica.com. Retrieved on 24 October 2018.
22
 Milton, Giles (8 June 2005). White Gold: The Extraordinary Story of Thomas Pellow and Islam's One
Million White Slaves (1st American ed.). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 9780374289355.

16
In the deepest South, slave life was especially severe. The climate was hostile to health, and
the labor was life draining. The widely scattered South Carolina rice and indigo plantations
were lonely hells on earth where gangs of mostly male Africans toiled and perished. Only
fresh imports could sustain the slave population under these loathsome conditions. Blacks in
the tobacco-growing Chesapeake region had a somewhat easier lot. Tobacco was a less
physically demanding crop than those of the deeper South. Tobacco plantations were larger
and closer to one another than rice plantations. The size and proximity of these plantations
permitted the slaves more frequent contact with friends and relatives. By about 1720 the
proportion of females in the Chesapeake slave population had begun to rise, making family
life possible. The captive black population of the Chesapeake area soon began to grow not
only through new imports but also through its own fertility—making it one of the few slave
societies in history to perpetuate itself by its own natural reproduction.
Native-born African Americans contributed to the growth of a stable and distinctive slave
culture, a mixture of African and American elements of speech, religion, and folkways.23
Slaves also helped mightily to build the country with their labor. A few became skilled
artisans—carpenters, bricklayers, and tanners. But chiefly they performed the sweaty toil of
clearing swamps, grubbing out trees, and other menial tasks. Condemned to life under the
lash, slaves naturally pined for freedom. The New York slave revolt that erupted in 1712 cost
the lives of nine whites and caused the execution of twenty-one blacks, some of them burned
at the stake over a slow fire. A South Carolina slave revolt erupted in 1739 when more than
fifty resentful blacks along the Stono River tried to march to Spanish Florida, only to be
stopped by the local militia.

4.2: FROM AFRICAN TO AFRICAN AMERICAN

23
“Id.”

17
Dragged in chains from West African shores, the first African-American struggled to
preserve their diverse heritages from the ravages of slavery. Their children, the first
generation of American-born slaves, melded these various African traditions— Guinean,
Igbo, Yoruba, Angolan—into a distinctive African American culture. Their achievement
sustained them during the cruelties of enslavement and has endured to enrich American life to
this day.
These first American slaves were mostly males. Upon arrival they were sent off to small
isolated farms, where social contact with other Africans, especially women, was an unheard-
of luxury. Yet their legal status was at first uncertain. A few slaves were able to buy their
freedom in the seventeenth century.24 One, Anthony Johnson of Northampton County,
Virginia, actually became a slaveholder himself.
But, by the beginning of the eighteenth century, a slave society was emerging in the Southern
colonies. Laws tightened; slave traders stepped up their deliveries of human cargo; large
plantations formed. Most significantly, a new generation of American born slaves joined their
forebears at labor in the fields. By 1740 large groups of slaves lived together on sprawling
plantations, the American-born outnumbered the African born, and the importation of African
slaves slowed. Plantation life was beastly, an endless cycle of miserable toil in the field or
foundry from sunup to sundown. Female slaves were forced to perform double duty. After a
day’s backbreaking work, women were expected to sit up for hours spinning, weaving, or
sewing to clothe themselves and their families. Enslaved women also lived in constant fear of
sexual exploitation by predatory masters.
Yet eventually a vibrant slave culture began to flower. And precisely because of the diversity
of African peoples represented in America, the culture that emerged was a uniquely New
World creation. It derived from no single African model and incorporated many Western
elements, though often with significant modifications.

4.3: SOUTHERN SOCIETY

24
Dr.Allan Rice, Africa, the arrival of Europeans and Transatlantic Slave Trade,
http://revealinghistories.org.uk/africa-the-arrival-of-europeans-and-the-transatlantic-slavetrade/articles/the-
economic-basis-of-the-slave-trade.html. Retrieved on 27 Oct, 2018.

18
As slavery spread, the gaps in the South’s social structure widened. The rough equality of
poverty and disease of the early days was giving way to a defined hierarchy of wealth and
status in the early eighteenth century. At the top of this southern social ladder perched a small
but powerful covey of great planters. Owning gangs of slaves and vast domains of land, the
planters ruled the region’s economy and virtually monopolized political power. Just before
the Revolutionary War, 70 percent of the leaders of the Virginia legislature came from
families established in Virginia before 1690—the famed “first families of Virginia,” or
“FFVs”. Yet, legend to the contrary, these great seventeenth century merchant planters were
not silk-swathed cavaliers gallantly imitating the ways of English country gentlemen. They
did eventually build stately riverfront manors, occasionally rode to the hounds, and some of
them even cultivated the arts and accumulated distinguished libraries.
But for the most part, they were a hard-working, business like lot, laboring long hours over
the problems of plantation management.25 Few problems were more vexatious than the
unruly, often surly, servants. One Virginia governor had such difficulty keeping his servants
sober that he struck a deal allowing them to get drunk the next day if they would only lay off
the liquor long enough to look after his guests at a celebration of the queen’s birthday in
1711. Beneath the planters—far beneath them in wealth, prestige, and political power—were
the small farmers, the largest social group. They tilled their modest plots and might own one
or two slaves, but they lived a ragged, hand-to-mouth existence. Still lower on the social scale
were the landless whites, most of them luckless former indentured servants. Beneath them
were those persons still serving out the term of their ienture. Their numbers gradually
diminished as black slaves increasingly replaced white indentured servants toward the end of
the seventeenth century. The oppressed black slaves, of course, remained enchained in
society’s basement. Few cities sprouted in the colonial South, and consequently an urban
professional class, including lawyers and financiers, was slow to emerge. Southern life
revolved around the great plantations, distantly isolated from one another. Waterways
provided the principal means of transportation9. Roads were so wretched that in bad weather
funeral parties could not reach church burial grounds—an obstacle that accounts for the
development of family burial plots in the South, a practice unlike anything in old England or
New England.

4.4 THE ECONOMIES OF SLAVERY

25
“Id.”

19
The plantation economies of the New World were built on slave labor. Seventy percent of the
slaves 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 to the
victors in exchange for keeping the minute Antillean island of Guadeloupe.

Slave trade profits have been the object of many fantasies. Returns for the investors were not
absurdly high (around 6% in France in the 18th century), but they were considerably higher
than domestic alternatives (in the same century, around 5%). Risks — maritime and
commercial — were important for individual voyages. Investors mitigated it by buying small
shares of many ships at the same time10. 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. All these
made the slave trade a very interesting investment. By far the most successful West Indian
colonies in 1800 belonged to the United Kingdom.26

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 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 and supported revolts
against its rival Britain, after the 1793 French revolution in the name of liberty (but in fact
opportunistic selectivity). 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. Nevertheless, the profits of the slave trade and of West Indian
plantations amounted to less than 5% of the British economy at the time of the Industrial
Revolution in the latter half of the 1700s. 27

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
26
“Supra n.22”.
27
A Sharma, Journal American Acad Religion,Vol 73, Issue 3, 843,852 (2005).

20
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 stagnant11.
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. 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 Inikori’s approach for not taking other factors (such as
famine and drought) into account and thus being highly speculative.28

5.0: END OF THE ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE29

In Britain, Portugal and in some other parts of Europe, opposition developed against the
slave trade. Led by the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) and establishment
28
Seymour Drescher, Abolition: A History of Slavery and Antislavery(Cambridge University Press, 2009).
29
Slave Trade Act, 1807.

21
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.
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 (but not
slavery itself) in 1807, imposing stiff fines for any slave found aboard a British ship.30

Action was also 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 rulers13. The British campaign against the
slave trade by other nations was an unprecedented foreign policy effort. Although the slave
trade had become illegal, slavery remained a reality in British colonies. Wilberforce himself
was privately convinced that the institution of slavery should be entirely abolished, but
understood that there was little political will for emancipation. In parliament, the
Emancipation Bill gathered support and received its final commons reading on 26 July 1833.
Slavery would be abolished, but the planters would be heavily compensated.31

6.0: CONCLUSION

Slavery, according to historical accounts, played an important role in Africa’s

underdevelopment. It fostered ethnic fractionalization and undermined effective states. The
largest numbers of slaves were taken from areas that were the most underdeveloped

Ball, Jeremy. The Atlantic Slave Trade. pp-63.

30

Lovejoy, Paul E., Transformations in slavery: a history of slavery in Africa (2nd ed.). New York: Cambridge
31

University Press. p. 290. ISBN 978-0521780124, 2000.

22
politically at the end of the 19th century and are the most ethnically fragmented today. Recent
research suggests that without the slave trades, 72% of Africa’s income gap with the rest of
the world would not exist today. Africa’s poor economic performance is one of the largest
puzzles in growth and development economics. A large literature has emerged trying to
explain the source of Africa’s growth tragedy. See for example Easterly and Levine (1997),
or Sachs and Warner (1997).

African historians have documented the detrimental effects that the slave trades had on the
institutions and structures of African societies. Historical evidence from case studies show
how the slave trade caused political instability, weakened states, promoted political and social
fragmentation, and resulted in a deterioration of domestic legal institutions. Although much
research remains to be done before we have a clear and deep understanding of exactly how
and why the slave trades have been so detrimental for economic development, the slave
trades impeded the formation of broader ethnic groups, leading to ethnic fractionalizations,
and that the slave trades resulted in a weakening and underdevelopment of political
structures.

The countries from which the largest numbers of slaves were taken are also the areas that had
the most underdeveloped political structures at the end of the 19th centur and they are also
the areas that are the most ethnically fragmented today.

7.0: BIBLIOGRAPHY

BOOKS AND ARTICLES:

• Ball, Jeremy. The Atlantic Slave Trade. University of California. (2000).

23
• Singleton , A., Thomas. Theresa. The Archaeology of Slavery in North America. Annual
Review of Anthropology, Vol. 24 (1995), pp. 119-140.

• Bailey, A., Thomas. The American Pageant: A history of the Republic. Vol.1, 9th Edition.
Lexington, Massachusetts: D.C. Heath and Company, 1971.

OTHER SOURCES:

• http://www.ushistory.org/us/6b.asp.

• http://www.understandingslavery.com/index.phpoption=com_content&view=article&
id=369&Itemid=145.html.

• http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/atlantic-slave-trade.

• http://revealinghistories.org.uk/africa-the-arrival-of-europeans-and-the-transatlanticslave-
trade/articles/the-economic-basis-of-the-slave-trade.html.

• http://study.com/academy/lesson/slavery-in-america-cotton-slave-trade-and-thesouthern-
response.html.

• https://visionaryfoundation.wordpress.com/2014/11/11/the-economics-of-transatlantic-
slave-trade/.

• http://www.myteacherpages.com/webpages/SWilliams10/files/chapter04.pdf.

https://www.saylor.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/HIST211-1.3.3-
TransAtlanticSlaveTrade.pdf

 The Forgotten Holocaust: The Eastern Slave Trade

 Teaching resources about Slavery and Abolition on blackhistory4schools.com
 "What really ended slavery?" Robin Blackburn, author of a two-volume history of the
slave trade, interviewed by International Socialism

24