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The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade: Where slaves were captured in Africa.

Information on how many slaves were shipped from Africa across the Atlantic to the Americas during the sixteenth century can only be estimated as very few records exist for this period. But from the seventeenth century onwards, increasingly accurate records, such as ship manifests, are available.

Where did the first Trans-Atlantic slaves come from?
At the beginning of the 1600s, slaves for the Trans-Atlantic slave trade were sourced in Senegambia and the Windward Coast. This region had had a long history of providing slaves for the Islamic trans-Saharan trade. Around 1650 the Kingdom of the Kongo, which the Portuguese had ties with, started exporting slaves. The focus of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade moved to here and neighbouring northern Angola (grouped together on the table and map as west-central Africa).

Kongo and Angola would continue to be substantial exporters of slaves until the nineteenth century. Senegambia would provide a steady trickle of slaves through the centuries, but never on the same scale as the other regions of Africa.

The rapid expansion of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade
From the 1670s the Slave Coast (Bight of Benin) underwent a rapid expansion of trade in slaves which continued until the end of the slave trade in the nineteenth century. Gold Coast slave exports rose sharply in eighteenth century, but dropped markedly when Britain abolished slavery in 1808 and commenced anti-slavery patrols along the coast.

The Bight of Biafra, centred on the Niger Delta and the Cross River, became a significant exporter of slaves from the 1740s and, along with its neighbour the Bight of Benin, dominated the Trans-Atlantic slave trade until its effective end in the mid-nineteenth century. These two regions alone account for two-thirds of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade in the first half of the 1800s.

The decline of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade
The scale of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade declined during the Napoleonic wars in Europe (1799--1815), but quickly rebounded once peace returned. Britain abolished slavery in 1808 and British patrols effectively ended trade in slaves along the Gold Coast and up to Senegambia. When the port of Lagos was taken by the British in 1840, the slave trade from the Bight of Benin also collapsed.

The slave trade from the Bight of Biafra gradually declined in the nineteenth century, partially as a result of British patrols and a reduction in demand for slaves from America, but also because of local shortages of slaves. To fulfil the demand for slaves, the significant tribes in the region (such and the Luba, Lunda, and Kazanje) turned on each other using the Cokwe (hunters from further inland) as mercenaries. Slaves were created as a result of raids. The Cokwe, however, became dependent on this new form of employment and turned on their employers when the coastal slave trade evaporated.

The increased activities of British anti-slaver patrols along the west-African coast resulted in a brief upturn in trade from west-central and south-east Africa as increasingly desperate Trans-Atlantic slave ships visited ports under Portuguese protection. The authorities there were inclined to look the other way.

With a general abolition of slavery in effect by the end of the nineteenth century, Africa started to be seen as a difference resource – instead of slaves, the continent was being eyed up for its land and minerals. The scramble for Africa was on, and its people would be coerced into 'employment' in mines and on plantations.

Trans-Atlantic slave trade data
The greatest raw-data resource for those investigating the Trans-Atlantic slave trade is the WEB du Bois database. However, its scope is restricted to trade destined for the Americas and ignores those sent to African plantation islands and Europe.

The Role of Islam in African Slavery

Part 1: Obtaining slaves on the African continent

Slavery has been rife throughout all of ancient history. Most, if not all, ancient civilizations practiced this institution and it is described (and defended) in early writings of the Sumerians, Babylonians, and Egyptians. It was also practiced by early societies in central America and Africa. See Bernard Lewis's work Race and Slavery in the Middle East for a detailed chapter of the origins and practices of slavery.

The Qur'an prescribes a humanitarian approach to slavery -- free men could not be enslaved, and those faithful to foreign religions could live as protected persons, dhimmis, under Muslim rule (as long as they maintained payment of taxes called Kharaj and Jizya). However, the spread of the Islamic Empire resulted in a much harsher interpretation of the law. For example, if a dhimmis was unable to pay the taxes they could be enslaved, and people from outside the borders of the Islamic Empire were considered an acceptable source of slaves.

Although the law required owners to treat slaves well and provide medical treatment, a slave had no right to be heard in court (testimony was forbidden by slaves), had no right to property, could marry only with permission of their owner, and was considered to be a chattel, that is the (moveable) property, of the slave owner. Conversion to Islam did not automatically give a slave freedom nor did it confer freedom to their children. Whilst highly educated slaves and those in the military did win their freedom, those used for basic duties rarely achieved freedom. In addition, the recorded mortality rate was high -- this was still significant even as late as the nineteenth century and was remarked upon by western travellers in North Africa and Egypt.

Slaves were obtained through conquest, tribute from vassal states (in the first such treaty, Nubia was required to provide hundreds of male and female slaves), offspring (children of slaves were also slaves, but since many slaves were castrated this was not as common as it had been in the Roman empire), and purchase. The latter method provided the majority of slaves, and at the borders of the Islamic Empire vast number of new slaves were castrated ready for sale (Islamic law did not allow mutilation of slaves, so it was done before they crossed the border). The majority of these slaves came from Europe and Africa -- there were always enterprising locals ready to kidnap or capture their fellow countrymen.

Black Africans were transported to the Islamic empire across the Sahara to Morocco and Tunisia from West Africa, from Chad to Libya, along the Nile from East Africa, and up the coast of East Africa to the Persian Gulf. This trade had been well entrenched for over 600 years before Europeans arrived, and had driven the rapid expansion of Islam across North Africa.

By the time of the Ottoman Empire, the majority of slaves were obtained by raiding in Africa. Russian expansion had put an end to the source of "exceptionally beautiful" female and "brave" male slaves from the Caucasians -- the women were highly prised in the harem, the men in the military. The great trade networks across north Africa were as much to do with the safe transportation of slaves as other goods. An analysis of prices at various slave markets shows that eunuchs fetched higher prices than other males, encouraging the castration of slaves before export.

Documentation suggests that slaves throughout Islamic world were mainly used for menial domestic and commercial purposes. Eunuchs were especially prised for bodyguards and confidential servants; women as concubines and menials. A Muslim slave owner was entitled by law to use slaves for sexual pleasure.

As primary source material becomes available to Western scholars, the bias towards urban slaves is being questioned. Records also show that thousands of slaves were used in gangs for agriculture and mining. Large landowners and rulers used thousands of such slaves, usually in dire conditions: "of the Saharan salt mines it is said that no slave lived there for more than five years.¹"

4 love of the hostory

World War II in Africa Timeline: July 1940

Sinking the French fleet and protecting borders

 

With the fall of France Britain became concerned for the continuation of its naval superiority. The French fleet, at harbour around the world would inevitably by used by Germany unless action was taken. French ships in British ports were seized, others received an ultimatum (see 3 July below). A British naval force sailed from Gibraltar to face down the most significant part of the French fleet at port at Mers-el-Kebir, Algeria. The resultant loss of life was regrettable but necessary move.

Whilst the Italian army in Libya continued to stall, in East Africa its forces made a move to secure the borders of Italian territory. As would happen in North Africa, however, the Italians overestimated the size of British opposition and failed to advance any further. It was a missed opportunity to move into the Sudan in force and threaten the Suez Canal from the south.

North Africa: July 1940

       Timeline Continued: A Slow Beginning

           World War II in Africa: North Africa June 1940

Timeline : World War II in Africa