The African Diaspora

By: Keirra PorterTHE AFRICAN DIASPORA

The slave trade was how Africa and the Americas linked.

Slave trade was the principal way African societies were drawn into the world economy.

Imported into Africa:• European firearms• Indian textiles

• Indonesian cowrie shells• American tobacco

Africa traded gold, ivory, and especially slaves in return

INTRODUCTION

What Slavery Meant To Slaves:• destruction of their villages or capture in war

• separation from family & friends• forced march to interior trading town or slave

pens at coastDeadly Conditions:

•1/3 of slaves died along the way or in slave pens • cargo sizes on ships could go as high as 700

slaves• unsanitary

Avg. mortality rate- 18% until 18th cent.

Losses were catastrophic such as Dutch ship in 1737 where 700 of 716

slaves died

SLAVE LIVES

The Middle Passage:• taken from homes

• branded• confined• shackled

The Africans faced dangers of poor hygiene, dysentery, disease, and bad treatment (beaten or worse)Middle Passage did not strip

them of their culture• arrived in Americas retaining their

languages, beliefs, artistic traditions, & memories

SLAVE LIVES (CONT.)

Slaves carried across Atlantic, then brought to plantations and mines• used large amnts. of labor – forced

•after failed attempts to use Native Americans as laborers, Africans brought in•West Africans were sought by Europeans for the specialized tasks of making

sugar• slaves did many other things, such as…

Mining Artisians

Street vendors Household work

• Most slaves, though, were agricultural laborers.

AFRICANS IN THE AMERICAS

Social Hierarchy• Europeans• Creoles

• Mulattos (African & European)• Mestizos (Native American & European)• African & Native American slaves

Among slaves, slaveholders also created a hierarchy based on origin and color.

• Creole and mulatto slaves given more opportunitiesSkilled jobs

House servants More likely to win their freedom by manumission

AMERICAN SLAVE SOCIETIES

The end of the Atlantic slave trade and the abolition of slavery in the Atlantic world resulted from economic,

political, and religious changes in Europe.African societies began exporting other commodities

•depended less on slave tradeJean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith both

wrote against slavery.Slave trade criticized

•The symbol of slavery’s inhumanity & cruelty

THE END OF THE SLAVE TRADE

England was the key to the end of the slave trade. •British slave trade abolished in 1807

•Britain tried to impose abolition of the slave trade on other countries throughout the Atlantic.

Spain & Portugal pressured to gradually suppress trade•British navy used to enforce agreements by capturing illegal

slave ships•Full end of slavery in Americas occurred in 1888, when it was

abolished in Brazil.

THE END OF THE SLAVE TRADE (CONT.)