Africa c' 1690

1
Africa c. 1690
2
Spices, Gold, Horses and Slaves

• Both West African, European and East Africans
  supplied gold to the Muslims in return for
  goods-- horses/spices. Without gold, they sold
  slaves to the Muslims.
• Italians sold Slavs from the Black Sea to the
  Muslim world as all of North Africa was
  controlled by Muslims. Slav becomes slave.

3
The Fist Day of the Yam Custom
Thomas E. Bowdich, Mission from Cape Coast Castle
to Ashantee (London, 1819), between pp. 274 and
275 (reprinted Frank Cass, 1966).
4
Portuguese Exploration

• 1400s. Portuguese had no access to the gold or
  the slave trade and so set up a maritime end-run
  around Africa-- Muslim world. Canary Islands,
  Maedera.
• Backdoor into the Trans Saharan Trading Ports.
  Cape Verde-- just south of the desert. Access to
  Gold-- cuts in on the gold trade of Mali.

5
Sailing the Atlantic

• In the Mediterranean, it was easy- short
  distance, easy to navigate, not a great deal of
  supplies needed. In Atlantic, different story.
• Wind off the coast of Africa constantly blow
  offshore-- impossible with technology of the time
  to sail up-wind. Had to sail out into the
  Atlantic thats where they discovered the
  islands-- and sail back in.
• Trying to figure out how to deal with-- large
  number of people, with large number of supplies,
  for long period of time. Scurvy.

6
Lateen vs Square Rigged Sails
7
Arrival of Europeans in Africa
Musée national des Arts d'Afrique et d'Oceanie
8
Triangular Trade
9
The Development of the Slave Trade

• 1. Africans had to be willing to sell people.
• 2. Europeans had to have a need to buy people.
• 3. Europeans had to have means of carrying people.

10
A Meeting of Slavers and Africans
11
King of Benin
Pieter van der Aa, La Galerie Agréable du Monde
(Leide, 1729) taken from D. O. Dapper,
Description de lAfrique . . . Traduite du
Flamand (Amsterdam,1686), p. 311
12
Fullani Slave Coffle,West Africa 1793
National Maritime Museum, London (neg. no.D7596)
13
Slave Trade Roots
14
Goree Warehouses, Liverpool
Liverpool Record Office, Liverpool Libraries and
Information Services
15
Coasts of Africa c. 1730
16
Slavers Revenging their Losses
David Livingstone, The Last Journals of David
Livingstone, in Central Africa (New York, 1875),
facing p. 58
17
Slave Coffle, Dahomey c. 1850
Frederick E. Forbes, Dahomey and the Dahomans
being the journals of two missions to the king of
Dahomey, and residence in his capital, in . . .
1849 and 1850 (London, 1851), vol. 1, facing p.
100.
18
African Economies

• African economies did not operate on the gold
  standard-- they sold gold. They would accept
  what the Europeans saw as commodities. What they
  bought is as important as what they sold.
• Most accounts regard what Africans bought as
  useless or as mislead-- in Africa it was the
  copper standard. They were imported money.

19
Trade Routes
20
Monetized Commodities
21
Trade Beads
Photo taken by Dylan Kibler( Mel Fisher Maritime
Heritage Society) slide, courtesy of David
Moore, North Carolina Maritime Museum
22
Percentages of Trade

• 50 textiles.
• 20 booze-- Portuguese Wine, French Brandy,
  Dutch Gin, English Gin, Cashasha-- Sugar Cane
  Brandy (Rum).
• 10 firearms powder-- (cheap guns-- often
  discharged in face.) Muzzle loading, flintlock.
• 20 metal ware-- copper wire, bronze bracelets,
  mirrors, copper bowls and tools, nails, hoes and
  knives

23
El Mina
Based on Jean Barbot, A Description of the Coasts
of North and South Guinea and D. O. Dapper,
Description de lAfrique . . . Traduite du
Flamand (Amsterdam,1686), in Thomas Astley (ed.),
A New General Collection of Voyages and Travels
(London, 1745-47), vol. 2, plate 61, facing p.
589.
24
Cape Coast Castle
25
Interior Cape Coast Castle
A. W. Lawrence, Trade Castles and Forts of West
Africa (Stanford Univ. Press, 1964), plate 37
from a drawing by Henry Greenhill, 1682
26
Gate of No Return
Michael Tuite photographed in Ghana (Aug. 1999).
27
March of the Slaves
Chambon, Le Commerce de lAmerique par Marseille
(Avignon,1764).
28
Canoes Battling Surf, Dahomey
Henri Morienval, La Guerre du Dahomey (Paris,
1898), p. 63
29
Embarkation Canoe
The Illustrated London News (April 14, 1849),
vol. 14, p. 237.
30
Slave Ships

• Small, very small by modern standards-- if you
  had too big a ship then you would be losing more
  slaves then selling. Size and speed
  relationship.
• 100 slaves was a viable cargo, 300 typical.
  (Later- 400-800).
• Trade off is between carrying people ad getting
  them across alive.

31
Decks of the French Slave Ship Aurore, 1784
Published in the exhibition catalog Les Anneaux
de la Memoire Nantes-Europe-Afriques-Ameriques,
Chateau des Ducs de Bretagne, Nantes, France,
Dec. 1992-Feb. 1994 original source not
identified.
32
Decks of French Slaver
Color lithograph by Pretexat Oursel, 19th cent.,
original in Musée dHistoire de la Ville et du
Pays Malouin, Saint Malo, France. Published in
the exhibition catalog Les Anneaux de la Memoire
Nantes-Europe-Afriques-Ameriques, Chateau des
Ducs de Bretagne, Nantes, France, Dec. 1992-Feb.
1994.
33
The Middle Passage

• Give people enough exercise-- small number of
  people on deck with armed crew (very dangerous).
  
• Sheer confinement-- likened to being buried
  alive. No sanitary facilities-- small pox and
  dysentery the major killers
• Fast voyage 30 days to South America, average 40
  days. Delayed beyond planned voyage-- astronomic
  increase in death rates.
• 90-120 days for North America-- often stopped in
  Caribbean.

34
Estimated Numbers/Death Rate

• Conservative Estimates place the number of
  Africans transported at 13-15 million.
• Conditions on the slave ships were terrible, but
  the estimated death rate of around 13 is lower
  than the mortality rate for seamen, officers and
  passengers on the same voyages.

35
Deck of the Wildfire
June 2, 1860 issue of Harper's Weekly, The Slave
Deck of the Bark "Wildfire"
36
Below Decks
Johann Moritz Rugendas, Voyage Pittoresque dans
le Bresil. Traduit de lAllemand (Paris, 1835)
reprinted, Viagem Pitoresca Altraves do Brasil
(Rio de Janeiro, 1972).
37
Iron Shackles
Published in Anthony Tibbles (ed.), Transatlantic
Slavery Against Human Dignity (London HMSO,
1994), p. 154, fig. 140.
38
Thrown Overboard
Library Company of Philadelphias copy (also in a
1969 reprint edition of another 1862 printing by
Negro Universities Press bottom of p. 193).
39
Revolt on Deck
William Fox, A Brief History of the Wesleyan
Missions on the West Coast of Africa (London,
1851), facing p. 116.
40
Slave Uprising
Isabelle Aguet, A Pictorial History of the Slave
Trade (Geneva, Editions Minerva, 1971), plate 64,
p.71 original source not identified.
41
Trans-Atlantic exports by region1650-1900

• Region Number of slaves
• accounted for
  
• Senegambia 479,900 4.7
• Upper Guinea 411,200 4.0
• Windward Coast 183,200 1.8
• Gold Coast 1,035,600
  10.1
• Blight of Benin 2,016,200 19.7
• Blight of Biafra 1,463,700 14.3
• West Central 4,179,500 40.8
• South East 470,900 4.6
• Total 10,240,200
  100.0

42
Trans-Atlantic Imports by Region1450-1900

• Region Number of slaves
• accounted
  for
• Brazil 4,000,000 35.4
• Spanish Empire 2,500,000 22.1
• British West Indies 2,000,000 17.7
• French West Indies 1,600,00 14.1
• North America 500,000 4.4
• Dutch West Indies 500,000 4.4
• Danish West Indies 28,000 0.2
• Europe (and Islands) 200,000 1.8
• Total 11,328,000 100.0