Transatlantic trade and slavery in Africa: examining interconnected themes

Transatlantic Trade and Slavery in Africa

The final research paper will consider the transatlantic slave trade (within and outside the continent of Africa), its effects on the African people, and the outcome of this nearly global trafficking of human labor. From the current moral viewpoint, many consider slave trading as it manifested itself at the time as a vast disregard not only for human life, but also for cultural differences and belief systems. In order to investigate the deeper reasons for such terrible oppression, I wish to delve deep into the psyche of slave traders from each of Africa's regions (West Africa, North Africa, East Africa, South Africa, Central Africa).

Specific questions to address include the progressive European interest in Africa after the 15th century; the apparent choice of Africans as slaves rather than other races; the causes and results of shipping millions of Africans by cargo ships across the Atlantic to their destiny as slaves; and the application of these issues to the world today.

In order to address these questions, I will be using two texts and investigate their themes in terms of their focus of the transatlantic slave trade. These texts include Chapter 8 in Africa in World History by Gilbert and Reynolds

, and the article entitled "Trans-Saharan Exchange and the Black Slave Trade (The Routes and Traces of Slaves)" by Samir Amin and Jennifer Curtiss

Gage, published in Diogenes. With an investigation and comparison of these texts, it is my aim to provide as clear and informative an answer as possible to the questions posed above.

In general, Gilbert and Reynolds focus more specifically upon the slavery issue than the article by Amin and Gage. While the article is somewhat brief, however, it provides a valuable general perspective on the historical paradigms that led to the transatlantic slave trade. Amin and Gage (1) link the escalation of European interest in Africa after the 1500s to the rise of capitalism. They also not that there are two distinct periods in slave trading, as this manifested in exchanges between sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa, the Middle East, and tropical Asia (Amin and Gage 2). These two periods are the period preceding European mercantilism, or premercantilism, and mercantilism itself.

While premercantilism was generally focused upon agriculture and trade, mercantilism marked the beginning of capitalism in terms of the decay of feudal relations on the one hand, and wealth in the form of money on the other (Amin and Gage 6). This, according to the authors, culminated in the Industrial Revolution and capitalism in its fully fledged form. While this accumulation of money was still centered in Europe, the peripheries to such accumulation were no less important. Indeed, according to Amin and Gage (7), the American periphery of the European Atlantic mercantilist center played a critical role, while sub-Saharan Africa function as the "periphery of the periphery" in such money wealth.

The rising interest in Africa in terms of trade can be seen as one of the root causes that began the form of slave trade that is so maligned in today's moral viewpoint. American plantations became a very large industry in the accumulation of wealth. In order to maximize profit, wealthy plantation owners began to use slave labor to work on their lands. During the late 15th century, East Africa was marked by thriving Swahili states, and a peaceful climate. This was however changed during the course of the century by several invasions that began with the Portuguese (Gilbert and Reynolds 223)

For various reasons also addressed by Amin and Gage, Africa had lost its autonomy by the mercantilist period, and was reduced to a supplier not only of goods, but also of manpower for wealthy American landowners. The underlying reason for this is demographic, according to Amin and Gage (3); while Europe and China developed in terms of both population growth and agriculture between 1000 and 1500 AD, Africa developed only in terms of population growth. Hence, the continent's lack of agricultural productivity led to its involvement in other forms of trade, which included the supply of slave labor.

Interestingly, Gilbert and Reynolds (141) note that slave labor was not a new phenomenon in Africa, even though transatlantic slavery and the forms it took were. According to the authors, most African societies included some form of slavery as part of their economy. The long-distance trade in slaves was also well-established, with slaves often making their way across the Sahara to the Mediterranean. Even in classical times, slavery constituted a fundamental element of the economy in the Roman empire, while slavery continued to play a role in the daily way of life in areas such as southern Europe and North Africa (Gilbert and Reynolds 141). Inikori (39)

also notes that citizens of the "New World" tend to be surprised that slavery was in fact part of African society as well.

Importantly, the authors emphasize that these forms of pre-capitalist slavery contrasted strongly with the capitalist form, especially as manifested in the transatlantic slave trade. Slaves were not captured or kidnapped, as they were for the cargo ships. They were not coerced by a race on the basis of superiority. Instead, these slaves were purchased by North Africans from Africans, and were viewed as an essential part of the economy, as well as an extension of the African way of life. Furthermore, these slaves also were not necessarily enslaved for life, but had the opportunity to become part of the households they served.

Furthermore, the trade relationships during this time was marked by a fairly open and friendly relationship between Africa and Europe, as Gilbert and Reynolds note in Chapter 9 (178)

. Later, in Chapter 10, the authors also however note that Portuguese traders tended to use force to mark their territories, and to prevent others from trading there (Gilbert and Reynolds 225)

The relatively peaceful paradigm of slavery strongly contrasts with the graphic descriptions the authors provide of slaves being captured for cargo ships, which was an essentially humiliating experience. Slaves were stripped and examined for diseases, forced to perform physical actions as a demonstration of their fitness, and often branded to indicate the names of their new owners (Gilbert and Reynolds 157). This is the type of slavery brought about by capitalism and mercantilism. According to Gilbert and Reynolds (145), more than 10 million Africans crossed the Atlantic as slaves, the majority of which worked on sugar plantations in the Caribbean and Brazil.

Parts of the African continent itself also fell victim to invasion and the darker aspect of slavery. In South Africa, for example, the Dutch and other European nations settled in South Africa, bringing with them their African slaves and in turn enslaving and devastating the local native tribes. Further north however, the European settlers encountered militant tribes such as the Zulus, who would not give up their land without war. While the settlers eventually conquered the land, warrior kings such as Shaka live on in mythological legacy (Gilbert and Reynolds 252)

Once again, slavery became a central part of the economy, although the capitalist economy was somewhat more malevolent than the premercantilist paradigm. Shipping companies for example took advantage of the demands and expenses connected with African slaves (Gilbert and Reynolds 156). Colonial governments would for example profit from taxes on the slave trade, while individual slave traders in Europe, Africa and the Americas grew rich from their activities. With the amount of labor provided by slaves, economies and societies flourished. However, this new prosperity was built upon an extremity of suffering that cultivated a legacy of bitterness that many societies and populations are even today working to overcome.

An interesting fact that Amin and Gage do not address, is that not only Africans were used as slaves. According to the Gilbert and Reynolds, the first choices were Native Americans and even Europeans. For a variety of reasons, Africans were later favored for their ability to adapt to slave labor. Slavery in the New World was based upon the drive for profit (Gilbert and Reynolds 151). As such, landowners began on local turf in their efforts to secure nonfree labor, and tapped into the Native American market for this purpose. Europeans were able to enslave the Native Americans fairly easily, as the former had the technological advantage. The authors however note several disadvantages to using this population as slaves (Gilbert and Reynolds 152).

The most important of these was disease. Native Americans had not resistance to European diseases, and barely lived more than a year on the plantations. Also, they were not familiar with the crops used to profit, and the time to train Native American slaves became uneconomic, particularly when viewed in the light of their brief life expectancy. Native Americans could escape easily, because they knew the geography of the area, and could use the surrounding free populations as cover against begin recaptured. These issues made Native Americans unviable as slaves on the American plantations.

Europeans used as slaves were generally either lower-class citizens brought to the plantations by landowners, or persons who were mainly imprisoned for debt (Gilbert and Reynolds 153). The problem with European slaves was mainly that they had recourse to legal action for the protection of their rights and redressing their grievances. Like the Native Americans, European slaves were also unfamiliar with the soils and cash crops of the New World. Furthermore, they tended to use their status as slaves only as a vehicle for traveling to the United States, after which they would claim their freedom on the grounds of their Christianity and their race (Gilbert and Reynolds 154).

On the other hand, the main disadvantage of using Africans as slaves was the expense and danger involved in capturing and transporting them from the continent (Gilbert and Reynolds 155). Their knowledge and familiarity with both the tropical environment and the soils of the area however favored them highly over their European and Native American counterparts. This, along with their skill in extracting ores from American soils, as well as cattle ranching, brought about the long suffering that was the transatlantic slave trade for Africans.

As Amin and Gage (2-3) therefore note, it was not mainly because Africa as a whole was inferior to or weaker than the rest of the world, but rather its inequalities of interior development, along with the factors mentioned above, that made it the focus of the slave trade.