History of Slavery

1
History of Slavery

• Take Cornell Notes

2
Early Slavery

• In most of the world, slavery, or involuntary
  human servitude, was practiced across Africa from
  prehistoric times to the modern era.
• Think-Pair-Share (write 5 examples in Notes)
• What value does slavery have for the slave owner?

3
Early African Slavery

• In Africa, many societies recognized slaves
  merely as property, but others would eventually
  integrated slaves into their families.
• Most often, both slave owners and slaves were
  black Africans, although they were frequently of
  different ethnic groups (tribes). Traditionally,
  African slaves were bought to perform menial or
  domestic labor, to serve as wives or concubines,
  or to enhance the status of the slave owner.

4
Egyptian Slavery

• Slavery existed in some of Africa's earliest
  organized societies. More than 3,500 years ago,
  ancient Egyptians raided neighboring societies
  for slaves, and the buying and selling of slaves
  were regular activities in cities along the Nile
  River.

5
Roles of Slaves

• Women constituted the majority of early African
  slaves.
• Male Female slaves would do agricultural work.
• Female slaves also traded cotton spinning and
  dyeing. They also performed domestic chores, such
  as preparing food, washing clothes, and cleaning.

6
Slavery by Non-Africans

• After the 5th century BCE, the Greeks and Romans
  came to dominate the Mediterranean Sea.
• Both of these slave-owning powers raided North
  Africa extensively for slaves.
• This practice of using Africa as a source of
  slaves would be adopted and expanded first by
  Arab Muslims and later by Europeans.

7
Islamic Expansion and Slavery

• Traditional African practices of slavery were
  altered beginning in the 7th century by Arab
  Muslims.
• From the 7th to the 20th century, Arab Muslims
  raided and traded for black African slaves in
  West, Central, and East Africa, sending thousands
  of slaves each year to North Africa and parts of
  Asia.

8
(No Transcript)
9
Islam and Slavery

• The Qur'an (Koran) and Islamic religious law
  served to codify and justify the existence of
  slavery.
• The Berbers (North Africans) were enslaved by
  Arab Muslims and eventually converted to Islam.
• Muslim Arabs expanded the slave trade, buying or
  seizing increasing numbers of black Africans in
  West Africa, leading them across the Sahara
  Desert, and selling them in North Africa.
• From there, most of these slaves were exported to
  far-off Asian destinations such as Anatolia (in
  present-day Turkey), Arabia, Persia (present-day
  Iran), and India.

10
Effects of Slave Trade

• The slave trades contributed to the development
  of powerful African states.
• The economies of these states were dependent on
  slave trading. Neighboring states competed with
  one another for trade, leading to wars, which in
  turn led to the capture of more slaves.
• When European explorers and traders arrived in
  West Africa beginning in the 15th century, they
  found and began using well-established
  slave-trade networks.

11
European Slave Trade

• The Atlantic slave trade developed after
  Europeans began exploring and establishing
  trading posts on the Atlantic (west) coast of
  Africa in the mid-15th century. The first major
  group of European traders in West Africa was the
  Portuguese, followed by the British and the
  French.

12
Need for Slavery in New World

• In the 16th and 17th centuries, European colonial
  powers began needed slavery for their plantation
  agriculture in the New World. (North, Central,
  and South America, and the Caribbean islands).
• Slaver labor was needed for labor intensive crops
  like sugar, tobacco, rice, indigo, and cotton.

13

• From the mid-15th to the late-19th century,
  European and American slave traders purchased
  approximately 12 million slaves from West and
  west central Africa.
• Reflection What impact has the massive human
  importation for slavery have on the U.S. today?

14
The Middle Passage

• The crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by slave
  trading ships was called the Middle Passage.
• Conditions on the ships were horrible with slaves
  been fed small amounts of food and there being a
  high spread of disease on the ships.
• It is estimated that between 1.5 and 2 million
  slaves died during the journey to the New World.

15
(No Transcript)
16
Ending of the Slave Trade

• In 1807 the slave trade was outlawed in Britain
  and the United States. Britain outlawed the
  practice of slavery in all British territory in
  1833 France did the same in its colonies in
  1848. In 1865, following the American Civil War,
  the U.S. government adopted the 13th Amendment to
  the Constitution, ending slavery in the United
  States. The Atlantic slave trade continued,
  however, until 1888, when Brazil abolished
  slavery.