Africa in the Age of the Atlantic Slave Trade

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Africa in the Age of the Atlantic Slave Trade

• Mr. Millhouse
• AP World History
• Hebron High School

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Volume of the Slave Trade

• 15th century minimal to Atlantic island
  plantations
• 16th century small
• 17th c. increase to 16,000 per year
• 18th c. most of trade, 7 million slaves, 80 of
  all trade over all years
• 19th c. slows down, under attack, still exports
  to Cuba Brazil (1.7 million)

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African Slave Trade
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African Slave Trade
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Middle Passage
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American Sugar Plantation
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African Slavery

• Slavery was common in African society
• Where?
• The Kongo, Ghana, Benin, etc.
• All land was owned by the state
• Owning slaves was a way to gain wealth
• Slaves were used for servants, concubines, and
  field workers
• Arrival of Europeans provided new opportunities
  for expansion of slavery

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Slavery African Politics

• Competition between rival kingdoms led to endless
  wars
• Kingdoms trade slaves for guns
• Wars led to political centralization
• Slave trade shifts balance of power
• From Sudanic Africa to the Gold Coast, the Kongo,
  and Angola

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The Asanti A Sample Kingdom

• Asante is on the Gold Coast
• Modern day Ghana
• Asante were members of the Akan people
• Began as twenty small states
• Matrilineal clan lineage
• Most prominent clan was the Okoyo
• Access to firearms allowed the Okoyo to
  centralize their authority after 1650 CE
• Under the leadership of Osei Tutu (d. 1717)

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Asanti Kingdom

• Other Akan clans forced to pay tribute
• Clans maintain some autonomy
• A council advised the ruler on important issues
• Used an ideology of unity to overcome clan
  divisions
• Dealt directly with the Dutch at El Mina
• Slave made up 2/3 of trade by 1700

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The Kongo

• Centralized kingdom
• Converted to Christianity
• Maintained diplomatic ties with Portugal
• Attempted to abolish the slave trade
• Portugal monopolized trade with the Kongo
• Cowries, slaves, Asian luxuries

Loango, capital city of the Kongo
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Cape Colony

• Dutch East India Co. establish a colony at the
  Cape of Good Hope in 1652
• Provision ships headed to Asia
• Large fertile lands were great for farming
• Used slave labor
• Slaves brought from Indonesia and other parts of
  Asia
• Eventually enslave the natives
• Dutch settlers, called Boers, move to Cape Colony
  in search of land
• 17, 000 settlers, 26,ooo slaves, and 14,ooo
  natives by 1800

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East Africa the Arrival of Europe

• Swahili city-states continued traditional
  commerce in the Indian Ocean
• Portuguese settlers on the coast used slave
  soldiers to expand their territories
• Established plantations growing Asian spices
  using African slaves
• Some African states copied European plantation
  system
• Zanzibar had 100,000 slaves by 1860

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Sudanic Africa

• Fall of Songhai brought period of violent
  Islamization
• Islamic elites vs. animistic natives
• Violence helped supply slaves to coastal regions
• In the 1770s Muslim reform movements began to
  spread a purified Sufi Islam
• Movement had a major impact on Fulani tribe of
  the Western Sudan

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The Sokoto Caliphate

• Founded by Usman Dan Fodio
• Believed he was an instrument of Allah
• Preached jihad against Hausa kingdoms
• Usmans son founded the Sokoto Caliphate in
  northern Nigeria
• Attacked neighboring Muslim kingdoms
• Effects of reformist Islam
• Spread literacy, new centers of trade emerged,
  attempts to eliminate pagan practices