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

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

Long-distance trading throughout this area, including slaves

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

How do we depict the trade?

What do we need the trade to be?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Goree Warehouses, Liverpool

Where the ships were headed Goree Island, Senegal

Omar Ibn Sayyid, 1770-1864

Charleston, South Carolina 1807

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

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.

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

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