TRANSATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE The Door of No Return
Feb 18, 2016
TRANSATLANTIC SLAVE TRADEThe Door of No Return
Transatlantic Slave Trade• Why?
• European colonization of Americas• Spain• Portugal • England
• Europeans thirst for New World (Americas) items fuels growth of plantations• Sugar • Tobacco• Cotton• Molasses• Rum
• Disease, overwork kills millions of Native Americans; new labor force needed
Why Africans?• No written language• Some disease resistance; already exposed to Europeans
through trade activities, attempts “civilize”• No muskets, gunpowder • Slave trade already existed on the continent
• Prisoners of war• Some sold themselves into slavery during famines• Treated as servants rather than property• “A slaves who knows how to serve inherits his master’s property”
• Between 1450 and 1800 historians estimate 10-20 MILLION Africans were kidnapped and sold into slavery
• 5% brought to North America
How?• Africans became enslaved mainly through four ways:
• criminals sold by the chiefs as punishment; • free Africans conducted raids for African and European gangs • domestic slaves resold • prisoners of war.
Source: Adu Boahen (University of Ghana)
“The Door of No Return” – Goree Island, Senegal
Cape Coast Castle, West Africa
What was Triangular Trade?• Three leg route
• Europe• Africa • America
• Europe to Africa• Cloth, firearms, beads, • spirits, tobacco
• Africa to Americas• “Middle Passage” • Slaves
• Americas to Europe• Raw materials: cotton, • Sugar, rum, tobacco
Triangular Trade
Middle Passage• Slaves loaded on ships • Horrific conditions
• Diseases including small pox, dysentery• Those too sick to continue journey thrown overboard
• Literally stripped of humanity • No clothes • No dignity• Treated as cargo• Hands/feet chained together• Fed only once daily, sometimes not at all
• Clip from the movie “Amistad”• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vo-JejTp7O4
Middle Passage: Tight Pack
Tight pack meant as many as 400 slaves: high deaths but high profits
Middle Passage: Loose Pack
A loose pack meant fewer slaves: lower deaths and lower profits
Coping with Captivity• Occasionally, revolts took place on ships
• Often quickly put down as slaveholder had advanced weapons• La Amistad revolt (1839)
• Ship’s captain and much of crew killed• Remaining crew trick Africans – end up in America• President John Quincy Adams championed their cause
• US Supreme Court rules in favor of Africans; allowed to return home
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2W9N44PixDk
Coping with Captivity• Life in the Colonies
• Caribbean • Spain• Sugar plantations
• Brazil• Portugal• Mining
• North America (West Indies & colonies)• England: dominated slave trade by 1600’s• Cotton, craft workers, domestic servants
• Long hours, brutal conditions, no freedoms• To cope kept cultural traditions alive, turned to religion, slowed
work pace, occasionally rebelled
African Diaspora• Diaspora: from the Greek, means “spreading out”• Movement of Africans and their descendants to places
throughout the world• the America• Europe • Middle East
• Caused the spread of African culture to Americas, Western Europe