AM214 AFRICA IN THE ATLANTIC WORLD

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• AM214 AFRICA IN THE ATLANTIC WORLD

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(No Transcript)
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Plan of lecture

• Walter Rodney overstated matters Africa not
  underdeveloped as result of slave trade
• West Africans and the Atlantic World
• The problem of slave resistance
• Hearing slave voices from Berbice, 1820s

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Western Africa, 1662
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West Africa during the Slave Trade, 1600-1800

• Europeans adopted Portuguese custom of conducting
  trade from ports
• Consolidation of power over slave trade by
  kingdoms of Dahomey and Asante
• African rulers exerted tight control over terms
  and conduct of trade

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Christiansburg castle, Gold Coast, 1750
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King of Dahomey, 1790s
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Cultural contacts

• Naimbana, chief Sierra Leone, 1790s
• Son, John Frederic, sent to London
• Ottabah Cuguano
• Oladuah Equaino
• John Africa

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• The natives here so carefully regulated the trade
  at the time the factory was established, that it
  is now impossible to move them to pay more for
  the merchandise. If I tell them that the
  merchandise now costs more in Europe, they
  answer me that it does not concern them, that
  they concluded the trade on those terms at the
  time, and that they will now continue to trade in
  the same manner. They say too that they would
  rather do no trade than be forced to abandon
  their old rights and customs.

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Slave voices

• What do slaves want?
• James C. Scott the private transcript
• Christopher Lasch and George Frederickson, 1971-
  conceptual difference between resistance and
  non-cooperation
• Records from Berbice, National Archives, 1824-25

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Executed Slaves, Demerara, 1823
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Timber Estate, 1834, British Guiana
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Plantation Slave Village, 1839, Surinam
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Berbice Cases

• Death of a mare and beating of Jackson
• (culprit probably Quamina)
• Edward and Diana v. J.H. DeQuay not allowing
  Diana to look after child
• Billy v. Richard Bell lack of respect for dead
  slave

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Explanations

• Michel de Certeau concept of opposition rather
  than resistance
• Ira Berlin negotiation between unequals
• Edward Thompson moral economy
• Emilia Da Costa an invisible text that defined
  rules and obligations

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• Coffy, Governor of the Negroes of Berbice and
  Captain Akkara send their greetings to your late
  Honourable. We dont want war we see clearly
  that you do want war. The Governor of Berbice
  Coffy asks Your Honour that Your Honour will
  come and speak with him dont be afraid! But if
  you wont come, we will fight as long as one
  Christian remains in Berbice. The Governor will
  give Your Honour half of Berbice, and all the
  negroes will go high up the river, but dont
  think they will remain slaves. Those negroes
  that you Honour has on the ships, they can remain
  slaves.

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Women conversing (or plotting?)