TOPIC 4 : THE

TRANSATLANTIC
SLAVE TRADE
Grade 7
Term 2
UNIT 1: WEST AFRICA
BEFORE THE 16 TH
CENTURY
Grade 7 Term 2
Key concepts
• Confederation- a union of groups or countries.
• Indentured servitude- a method of getting cheap labour by contracting workers to work for a fixed
period of time, usually three to seven years, in exchange for transport, food, clothing, lodging and other
necessities.
• Participatory democracy- participation by citizens in political decisions and policies that affect their
lives.
• Oral tradition- When a community’s culture is passed Down by word of mouth, or by example, from one
generation to another without using writing.
• Tribute- payment made from one state or ruler to another , showing independence.
• Multi ethnic- made up of different cultures.
• Auction- a public sale in which goods or property are sold to the highest bidder.
• Slave market- a market where slaves are exhibited and sold.
• Plantations- an estate on which crops such as Coffee, sugar and tobacco are grown.
• Transatlantic slave trade- is about the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people, mainly
from Africa to the Americas and then their sales there.
• Negotiation- discussion aimed at reaching an agreement
• Akan wars- the Ghana empire military conflict
• Raid- a rapid surprise attack on an enemy by troops, aircraft or other armed forces.
West Africa before slave trade
•Before the Europeans slave trade, West Africans
had established their own political and
economic systems, and their own cultures,
technologies and philosophies that made them
a great civilisations.
 Facts that made a great civilization of West
Africa
• Political systems- they had many forms of government characterised by
participatory democracy. They were powerful and their kings ruled
thousands of people. Small scale societies pay tribute to larger empires.
• Economic systems- the had well developed economic system based on
agriculture, mining, manufacturing and trade. They also had tax collection
systems. They traded with many countries, Portuguese, Dutch, British, French,
Scandinavian, Arab Muslim traders and Europe.
• Education, art and technology- they were skilled in medicine, mathematics,
and astronomy which they studied in university, like those in Timbuktu. They
also collected a great amount of scientific and other knowledge which they
stored in libraries and passed on through oral tradition. Artistic people make
great materials from wood and stones. Technology was used in
manufacturing gods like bronze, ivory, gold and terracotta.
• Society- West Africa had a wide variety of languages, cultures and religions.
They treated each other and visitors with respect. West Africa was a multi-
ethnic population practicing traditional African religions and Islam.
Class activity: Facts that made a
great civilization of West Africa
•Make a spider diagram
explaining:
1. Political systems
2. Economic systems
3. Education, art and
technology
4. Society
West Africa before slave trade
Interesting facts about west Africa:
• Ghana empire-
• Mali empire- Mansa Musa
• Songhai empire - Sunni Ali Ber
• The three empires were the greatest in West
Africa.
Slavery in West Africa before the
Europeans
 Slavery in West Africa before the
Europeans
• Slavery in west Africa started in
about 900CE due to wars.
• When a kingdom won a war, it
captured its opponents and
enslaved them.
• People were also enslaved as
punishment for a crime or as
payment for a debt.
 Types of slavery
Slavery of Africans by Africans
• This type of slavery is like a indentured
servitude.
Characteristics of slavery:
1. Slavery was not a lifetime status.
2. Slaves were not owned.
3. A person can be a slave for an
agreed period of time and be free
after the contracted years.
4. Slaves had rights.
5. Slaves could marry, own property,
inherit goods from their owner and
own slaves themselves.
Islam and African slavery
• When a decline of salt and gold trade
declined there was a demand of slave
trade by Arab traders.
Characteristics of slavery:
1. Captured slaves from Africa became
commodities to be traded with Arab
traders.
2. Men and women were abducted from
their villages by slave raiders. ( meaning
they were forcefully taken from their
homes and be sold to strangers and
work for them)
Class activity: Types of Slavery
Instructions: Explain each phrase and give characteristics of each
types of slavery

Slavery of Africans by Africans Islam and African slavery

Explanation: Explanation:
1. 1.
2. 2.
3.
4.
Class activity: Slavery in West Africa
before the Europeans.
• Instruction: fill in the missing words without referring to your textbook. Write the
sentence and the missing word.
1. West Africa had many forms of government, characterised by____.
2. There were empires that were made up of, ______ of states, such as the Mali Empire.
3. West Africa had well-developed economic systems and they also had ___, that were
used to develop societies.
4. West Africans traded with ____.
5. Many West Africans were skilled in medicine, mathematics and astronomy, which
they studied at universities, like those in ____.
6. Many West African societies had ____ who enjoyed religious freedom, which included
traditional African religions and Islam.
Homework: Slavery in West Africa
before the Europeans
Instruction: Write Question and answer.
1. What was Africa like before the 16th century?
2. Were communities profiting from slavery before the 16th century?
3. Why were slaves needed in the new world?
4. Are people ever transported in conditions like those described in the Via Afrika today?
5. Can profit ever outweigh the value of human life?
6. Are we all created equally? Support your answer.
7. Do we have slave markets today?
Grade 7
Term 2
 Akan wars- the akan were a warrior people from the west Africa, mainly Ghana, spiritual
powers were said to take part in their battles and help them win wars by magical means.
 American South- the confederacy states in the Southeastern part of South America that
had slave holding interests.
 Slave- a person who legally belongs to someone and forced to obey them.
 Slave auction- public sale were slaves were sold to the highest bidder.
 Slave market- a regular gathering of people for the sale and purchase of slaves.
 Transatlantic slave trade- the shipping of people captured in Africa to America where
they were sold as slaves.it took place between the 16th and 19th centuries and was also
known as a triangular slave trade.
 Notorious- well known or famous for something bad.
 Meagre- very little/ not enough.
 Putrid- smelling like rotten meat.
 Quarantined- kept away from other people until it was certain that they did not have a
contagious disease.
 Branded- had a mark burned into their skin with a red-hot iron.
 Ordeal- a painful and horrifying experience.
 Deprivations- not having enough water, food o rest to survive.
 Europeans came to South America in the
early 1600s, mainly from England and other
countries like: Spain, France, Germany,
Scotland and Ireland.
 They settled in the American South.
 Large plantations were established to grow
crops that were in demand in England and
other European countries.
 Plantations like: tobacco, rice, sugar and
cotton
 Tobacco was very popular in Europe at the time
 Plantation owners in Maryland and North Carolina wanted to cultivate
vast plantations
 These plantations needed a lot of manual labour
 Became an important crop in America during the 18th and 19th centuries
 To work on the rice plantations was very labour intensive
 A large work force was needed to cultivate it.
 In the beginning America imported sugar from the West Indies
 When the US purchased the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803
plantation owners began growing their own sugar cane.
 By 1830 New Orleans had the
largest refinery of sugar cane in
the world
 This crop was also labour
intensive and needed many
workers
 Many early settlers in America grew cotton.
 To grow, pick and bale cotton was very much labour intensive.
 The industry was given a boost by Eli Whitney’s invention of the Cotton
Gin in 1793
 Plantations needed a lot of labour to cultivate the
crops and become profitable
 They all lacked workers in the beginning
 At first the European used Native Americans but
soon discovered that they often escaped
 Many tried using Europeans as slaves but the
Europeans could not handle the tropical climate and
many died
 The Portuguese soon discovered that Africans were
more use to the tropical conditions and could work
in such a climate
 African people did not want to be slaves so they were
forced and captured into slavery
 As a result a very profitable business to developed
Activity 1: Describe plantations and the
need for slaves

 Complete activity 1, on page

103.
 Use the skills file on how to
write history in an organized
way.
 Answer the questions in
detail.
 The notorious transport
of slaves across the
Atlantic Ocean in known
as the transatlantic slave
trade.
 The system involved
three journeys on a
triangular route, so it is
also known as the
triangular slave trade.
 Complete activity 2.
 Use the next image and explain each
stage in your own words:
Three main ways that Africans in
West Africa were captured,
enslaved and shipped to
America:

 War
 Slave raiding
 Kidnapping
 When West African kingdoms fought
against each other the kingdom that won
took people from the defeated kingdom as
slaves
 Some West African rulers then traded these
slaves with slave merchants from Britain
 Rulers traded them for guns to further
expand their territories
 Two types:
 European slave raiding companies and
independent slave traders organised
raids on African villages. Africans were
captured and forced into slavery
 Most Africans captured during raids
by stronger African kingdoms were
sold to European slave traders
 European slave traders, who lacked knowledge of the African interior,
used African middlemen to kidnap Africans and force-march them to
coastal ports where they were sold and shipped off to the Americas.
 Many slaves were obtained very far inland where they were collected in a
coffle and marched to the coast. Two slaves were chained together around
the leg and groups of four were secured by a rope.
 At times, Y shaped stick was fastened with the fork round the neck of the
slave walking in front and the stem resting on the neck of the slave
waking behind. Free Africans employed by the slave catchers guarded the
coffle.
 The captured Africans were held in forts, sometimes called slave castles,
along the coast. They were tied together to prevent escape. When there
were enough slaves to fill a slaver(slave ship), they were forced on board
and shipped off to the Americas.
  The slave ships were large cargo
ships specially converted for
transporting slaves. Conditions
on these ships during the Middle
Passage were very bad. To
maximise profits, ship owners
divided the hulls into holds with
little headroom, so the could
transport as many slaves as
possible. The voyage took
between 6 and 8 weeks.
The test will be up to here.
15 May 2018
 Abolitionist:
A person who supported the movement to end the Transatlantic Slave Trade and slavery.
 Middle Passage :
The second stage in the Transatlantic Slave Trade, in which ships carried enslaved Africans from Africa to
either the Caribbean islands or the Americas
 Outward Passage :
This refers to the first stage in the transatlantic slave trade. Ships carrying goods were sent to the West
African coast to trade for captured Africans
 Homeward/Return Passage :
The last (3rd) stage in the transatlantic slave trade, where ships returned to Europe carrying items grown or
made in the Caribbean or the Americas, such as sugar or tobacco, to sell
 Transatlantic Slave Trade :
The selling of Africans as slaves across the Atlantic Ocean between Europe and the Americas
 Triangular trade :
The name often given to the transatlantic slave trade; describes the three sides to the route the slave ships
took from Europe to West Africa, then to the Caribbean and the Americas and finally back to Europe; the
routes are known as the Outward Passage, the Middle Passage, and the Return or Homeward Passage
Instruction: write question and answer:
Question 1
1. Write a paragraph to justify why landowners in the American South needed slaves to work for
them on their plantations. [4]
2. Provide 3 ways that slaves were captured and sold in West Africa. [3]
3. Explain what the journey was like between Africa and the Americas for the slaves. [3]
Question 2
State whether the following statement is true of false.
2.1. Slavery in West Africa probably started in about 900CE due to wars.
2.2. When a kingdom won these wars, they took the land with all the cattle.
2.3. Slavery of Africans by Africans wasn’t like the serfdom of medieval Europe at all.
2.4. Slaves were not “owned” and was like indentured servitude.
2.5. Razzias is where slave raiders raided villages and abducted young women and men who were
traded with Arab traders.
 Write down 5 bullets explaining
these voyage of transporting the
slaves.
 Complete activity 3
 Read the sources on page 109 and
answer the questions of activity 3.
 Slaves who had survived the middle passage and were still healthy
 These slaves were kept in slave pens where the were cleaned, disinfected and
quarantined (kept away from other people)
 If the slaves were healthy they were sold on the slave markets
 They often covered their skin with grease or tar to make them look healthier
 The merchants wanted to sell the slaves for as much money as possible
 They were branded with a hot iron to identify them as slaves
 Slaves were sold at an auction warehouse
 Many slave auctions were public
 Flyers and notices to newspapers were sent out to inform people of the slave
market and auctions
 Were ordeal (painful and horrible experience)
 The slaves did not understand what was happening because of
the language barrier
 The slaves were treated like animals
 They were forced to speak and do various things
 The experience was humiliating for the slaves
 Many family and friends were separated among slaves
 Auctioneers also sold groups of slaves to work on the
plantations
 The sex, age, health, skills and availability determined the
price of the slave
 Some instances, slaves were weighed and sold by the pound
 By the 17th century slaves could be bought in Africa for $25 and
sold in America for $150
 Work alone
 Revise the skill file and read through
the sources.
 The slave trade to the Americas lasted from the 15th to the 19th
century.
 No one is sure exactly how many Africans were enslaved and
shipped to the Americas during this time.
 Some estimates say as many as 15million people were transported as
slaves with unknown numbers dying on route.
 Other estimates put the figure in the region of 11 million.
 Generally speaking, historians agree that the figure is between 10
and 15 million, although some go as high as 28 million, with about
20% of the slaves dying from diseases on the Middle passage.
 Thousands more died before they left Africa.
Slave exports from Africa on the Transatlantic route

Period Number of slaves Percentage %

1500-1600 328 000 2.9

1601-1700 1 348 000 12

1701-1800 6 090 000 54.2

1801-1900 3 466 000 30.9

Total 11 232 000 100

 Most of the slaves in the American South worked on
large tobacco, rice, sugar cane and cotton plantations.
 After harvesting, most of these raw materials produced
by the slaves were shipped to Britain where they were
processed into finished goods in the British factories.
 In this way, the raw materials that slaves in the
American South had produced provided people in
England with jobs and business owners with profits.
 So, the slave trade made a big contributions to the
industrial and commercial revolutions in Britain.
Grade 7
Topic 4
Unit 3
 Hard labour
 Slave owners often forced slaves to work
18 hours a day
 Slaves sometimes only got one day a
month off or some Sundays
 Slaves were given jobs according to age,
gender, strength, skills and how dark their
skin was
 Men worked in the skilled trades and
women in the field gangs
 Many women carried out the duties of
servants, child minders and seamstresses
 Children were made to work from the
ages of six or seven
 Children did jobs like cleaning, water
carrying, stone picking and collecting
livestock food
 A slaves diet mainly consisted of corn
and fatty meat
 Slaves sometimes grew vegetables in
small gardens
 Some slave owners allowed their
slaves to raise their own chickens
 The American south installed many
laws which the slaves had to follow
 Life expectancy on the plantations
were 7-9 years
 The transatlantic slave trade tried
to kill African culture
 All slaves had of their lives were
memories, songs , beliefs and
stories
 Once in the South, slaves drew on
their African heritage and used it
in music, songs and stories in
order to survive spiritually and
emotionally
 Slaves developed their own
culture
 Music and song was an important part of
the cultural heritage of Africans before
they were enslaved.
 In the American South they adapted the
music and songs from their own past
 They used the West African call-and-
response patterns to create new music and
songs
 These played an important role in their
religious and working lives
 This helped them to form a new cultural
identity
 Slaves were not allowed to learn to
read and write
 Many slaved did not manage to teach
themselves
 They grew a rich oral tradition from the
West and Central Africa
 They adapted folktales, parables,
proverbs, verbal games and legends to
suit their own lives
 Slaves who could read and write used
their own skills to fight for freedom
 They told stories of slavery and
themselves
 Slave masters demanded total
obedience from their slaves and
they punished many slaves brutally
for even slight disobedience.
 However, many slaves early on
began to resist slavery in a number
of ways
 These forms were indirect
 Praying in secret for freedom
 Learning to read and write
 Communicating through code
words and songs
 Telling the slave master what he
wanted to hear and telling other
slaves about how they had
deceived their masters
 Slaves stole food and wood when
they felt they were not being paid
enough or treated fairly
 Pretending to be sick
 Breaking tools or disabling
machinery
 Pretending not to understand the
master
 Arguing with the master
 Slowing down their work pace
 Destroying crops and stealing
livestock
 Getting drunk
 The punishment for violent forms of resistance was
severe beatings and lynching (tying a rope around their
necks)
 Many slaves died like this
 Many slaves used violent acts to try and free themselves
 Burning down forests and buildings
 Murdering their owners by using poison or weapons
 Committing suicide
 Mutilating themselves to lower their values
 Slaves were the property of slave owners
 If they ran away slave owners lost a piece of their
property
 If slaves were captured whilst running away they were
brutally punished
 Many slaves managed to escape by running away
 They then often went looking for their family members
 There were many slaves who thought that individual
resistance was not enough.
 They wanted to show their unhappiness more strongly
in an organized way.
 As a result, there were a number of slave rebellions
between the 17th and 19th centuries.
 Best known rebellion against slavery
 Nat Turner was born in South Hampton,
Virginia on 2 October 1800
 He was the property of Benjamin Turner, a
rich plantation owner
 His mother and grandmother had been
brought to America from West Africa. They
had a deep hatred for slavery.
 Turner was very intelligent and learnt how to
read and write
 He was very religious
 After he turned 21 he said he had a vision
from God telling him to free the slaves
 In February 1831
 After Turner was sold to Joseph Travis
 An eclipse of the sun convinced Turner that this was his sign from
God to free the slaves
 He and four other men started planning the revolt
 On the 21st of August he and six men launched the rebellion
 They first killed the Travis family
 They travelled from house to house killing all the slave owners
 He hoped that his actions would cause a massive slave uprising
 Only about 75 slaves had joined the rebellion
 The government sent over 3000 soldiers to stop the rebellion
 The slaves were defeated
 Turner was executed on the 11th of November
 Born in Sengbe Pieh
 Rice farmer from Sierra Leone and
the son of a local chief
 Married man with three young
children
 in 1839 he was captured by slave
traders an with 600 other West
African shipped to Cuba in the
cargo hold of a Portuguese slave
ship, Tecoro.
 In Cuba two Spaniards, Jose Ruiz and
Pedro Montes, bought 43 of the West
Africans from the Tecoro. Ruiz hired
Ramon Ferrer to take them to Puerto
Principe, about 500 kilometres away, on
his schooner (sailing ship), the
Amistad.
 The Amistad’s cook, Celestino, scared
the captured West Africans when he
cruelly joked that they would be eaten
at the end of the voyage.
 The West Africans began planning their
escape.
 Joseph Clinque was brought on deck to get
fresh air and he found a nail and hid it under
his arm. In the cargo hold he used this to
disconnect his neck chain from the wall. This
took him 3 nights.
 On 2 Jul 1839 he and another captive,
Grabeau, broke free. The mutiny had started.
 Clinque and Grabeau freed the other slaves
and searched for weapons. The found a crate
of machetes.
 Clinque led the slaves to upper deck and they
killed Ferrer the ship captain and wounded
Ruiz and Montes. He forced the remaining
crew to sail back to Africa.
 However without his knowledge they sailed in
northly direction towards New York.
 On 25 August the starving crew and mutineers anchored
the ship off Long Island near the coast of new York state to
look for food.
 The USS Washington spotted them and after a brief
struggle, the mutineers surrendered.
 They were imprisoned and taken to court. In court, the ship
owners argued that the captives had been slaves when they
were bought in Cuba, so they should be tried for piracy and
murder.
 However, anti-slavery lawyers tried to prove that they had
been unlawfully enslaved because of the treaty between
England and Spain, that did not Allow Africans to be
imported into Cuba for slavery.
 After a long court battle, the
court said that the mutineers
had been illegally
kidnapped and sold, and
had legally rebelled to win
their freedom.
 They were set free in March
1841. by November 1841 the
surviving 35 Africans left the
US for Sierra Leone under
British protection.
 Network of secret routes and safe houses
that slaves used in the USA, mainly
during the 19th century, to escape to
freedom.
 The safe houses were called stations or
depots.
 The owners of these safe houses were
called station masters.
 The people who travelled with the slaves
to help them escape were called
conductors.
 Reached its peak between 1850-1860.
 About 100 000 slaves used this system to
escape from America South
 Born into slavery in Dorchester Country in
Maryland in the America South around 1820.
 Parents were enslaved Ashanti Africans who
had 11 children
 Forced to work at the age of 5
 At 13 a supervisor hit her on her head when
she tried to defend a slave who had tried to
run away. This head injury gave her a lot of
problems.
 She got married to John Tubman, a freeman
in 1844.
 She told him about her dreams of gaining her
freedom but he told her she wont ever be
free and if she tried to escape, he will report
her.
 After her master had died she heard that she and two of her
brothers will be sold to a chain gang.
 She said to herself “you'll be free or die”
 1849: they ran away from the plantation in the middle of the
night. Her brothers became scared and returned. She
continued alone, traveling on foot at night only, following
the North star, until she knew she was out of America South.
 Won her freedom bravely but still believed that slavery was
wrong.
 She made a vow to help her family and friends to escape to
freedom as well.
 She went to Philadelphia and found work. She became
involved with the cities abolitionist organisations and
with organisers of the Underground Railroad. She
started saving money to finance rescue trips.
 Over the next 12 years she returned to the South 18 – 19
times, rescuing more than 300 slaves. 1850 her sister
1851 and 1854 her 4 brothers and in 1857 her parents.
 White man – born in Torrington on 9
May 1800
 Very religious man
 They were strongly against slavery and
was a voluntary agent for the
Underground Railroad.
 He wanted to become a preacher, but
changed his mind
 He moved around the country a lot and
had many different jobs, but he never
was financially successful.
 He married twice and had 20 children.
 In 1849 Brown and his family
settled in black community and
raised a black child as their own.
 He became convinced that militant
action was needed to stop slavery.
 They fought against slavery. In one
battle he was terribly injured and 2
of his sons were killed. He was
captured and convicted of treason.
 He was hanged on 2 Dec 1859
 Historians believe that he played a major role in the
start of the American Civil War because his raid
widened the already deep division between the anti-
slavery North and the pro-slavery South. The North won
this war after 750 000 soldiers died.

 Read his whole story in Unit 3 number 3.5.1.

Grade 7
Unit 4
 capitalist production
 communalism
 ethnic boundaries
 industrial revolution
 internal trade
 productive workforce
 taxation
 technological development
 underdevelopment
 West Africa was an advanced country before the
slave trade
 The great demand of slaves had a negative impact
on the country
 It greatly disrupted traditional trade in West Africa
 The trade for slaves was more profitable than what
the people were originally trading, such as gold,
therefore the economy of West Africa suffered
 Technological development was disrupted, too
much focus was put on slave trade so they did not
focus on developing technology
 Taxation was reduced. Captured slaves were sold
to European slave traders, they could not provide
labour in West Africa
 It robbed West Africa of its workforce
 In general historians believe that the slave trade greatly
benefited America and Britain because it helped the
industrial revolution and capitalist production
 Some historians believe the money from the slave trade was
still not enough to benefit the industrial revolution
 The plantations were greatly benefited because of the mass
production being produced which was later sold as
manufactured goods. Meaning?
 The plantation owners grew very rich (slaves were not paid
 The government also became wealthy because the plantation
owners were taxed
 Many of the raw materials produced were exported to Britain
 Many of the raw materials were produced in Britain and then
exported to many other countries including Africa
 This earned Britain a lot of money
 This process helped Britain grow into industrial production
and move away from agricultural based economy
 The trans Atlantic slave trade helped America and Britain
important financial centers of the world
 West Africa was left under
developed
 Societies in West Africa began to
decline
 Traditional trade collapsed
 Technological development
stopped
 Agricultural production stopped
 Rulers and chiefs used time and
resources to capture slaves
 Gains in manufacturing: Thousands of ships were built
to transport slaves. Also got raw materials that was
manufactured into goods.
 Gains in standard of living: no wages caused slave
owners to make huge profits
 Gains in social mobility: a lot of people had jobs, large
working class.
 Gains in worker rights: factories grew and depended
on labor. Workers start organizing themselves into
trade unions to protect their rights.
 Gains in overall development: sale of commodities and
products meant the sellers were taxed. Used these
taxes to build infrastructure such as roads, railways and
piped water systems. Also used to provide better
services example: health and education.
 Analyse the impact of slavery
 Work in groups and then work alone
 Read and discuss sources 9 a and b