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ADVANCED LEVEL HISTORY

THE SLAVE TRADE LESSON 1
INTRODUCTION
 A slave can be defined as a person who is owned like property by another person and is under
that person’s total control.
 The slave is treated more like articles in a market or a domestic animal.
 In some cases, slaves were captured during war or a raid and then forced to work for the captor
for no pay at all.
 Trade is a system of exchange or the buying and selling of goods and services.
 Taking the definition of trade into consideration, we can define the slave trade as a system of
buying and selling human beings.
 Slavery can be defined as the practice of treating other human beings as part of one’s property.
ORIGINS OF THE SLAVE TRADE
 Slavery has been practiced by a lot of people throughout history for example the Romans, Greeks
and even the Egyptians as well as the Mutapa.
 The pyramids in Egypt were built by slave labour even Great Zimbabwe as well.
 The bible even talks about the Israelites who were enslaved in Egypt.
 These slaves were usually criminals who were being punished for their crimes or they were
captives of war.

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 They were not bought and sold as was the case during the Triangular slave trade.
 The slave trade across the Atlantic began with the Portuguese in 1441, they bought Africans and
took them back home to Portugal to work as household or farm servants.
 These slaves were later freed when they accepted Christianity.
 The actions of the Portuguese however led to the worst example of slavery and slave trade in
human history i.e. the trans-Atlantic slave trade which took place from about 1500-1900 AD.
 The slave trade lasted for about 400 years during which millions of Africans were taken across
the Atlantic and sold as slaves in North America, South America and the West Indies. This area
is collectively known as the Americas.
 This is where all the slaves were taken and sold as labourers.
 The plantation owners in this region needed slaves because there were no machines at the time
and all work was basically done by hand for example picking coffee, beans, cotton and tobacco
leaves.
 The trade in human beings began when European trading ships were exploring the West African
coastline.
 Early Portuguese traders came looking for ordinary goods but they then took some captives home
to work as domestic and farm servants.
 These Portuguese traders were later joined by other European nations such as the British, Dutch,
Danish and the French.
 By the 18th century Britain had become the largest exporter of slaves from the West African
coast, we have British ports like Bristol and Liverpool becoming very important slave centres
during this period.
 The cities of Birmingham and Manchester profited greatly from selling pots, beads, cutlery and
clothing, things which were used to exchange for slaves in Africa.
 When the Portuguese and the Spaniards established sugarcane plantations on the Islands of
Madeira, Sao Tome and the Canaries they began to rely mainly on African slave labour.
 The Atlantic slave trade began soon after the discovery of the West Indies by Christopher
Columbus in 1492.
 The Portuguese and the Spaniards set up plantations in their colonies where they grew tropical
plants like sugar and coffee.
 At first the plantation owners enslaved the local American Indians and forced them to work in
their mines and on their farms. However, the American Indians soon died of diseases such as
small pox which had been brought by the Europeans.
 Small pox nearly wiped out the entire local American Indian population. At the same time, it was
also discovered that the American Indians were not used to a life of hard labour so they did not
make good labourers.
 As a result, the American slave trade failed.
 Next, the plantation owners tried to use European criminals taken from prisons across Europe.
This experiment also failed because the criminals were not enough to work the large plantations.
Apart from that, European criminals died from tropical diseases such as malaria which were
common in the Americas.

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 Finally, plantation owners turned to Africa to obtain slaves, this experiment worked because of
the following reasons:
1. Africans were already skilled in agriculture.
2. They were skilled in iron work.
3. Africans were well adapted to the tropical diseases and the climate.
 European merchants knew that they could easily buy slaves from some of the coastal African
Chiefs and they knew that the trade in humans was very profitable.
 The huge profits from the slave trade made it expand rapidly and it lasted for over 400 years with
Africans continuously shipped to the Americas giving rise to the people we now refer to as
African Americans.
METHODS USED TO OBTAIN SLAVES
 European traders wanted slaves but they did not have large armies which could go into the
interior of Africa and capture slaves for sale.
 They depended on African rulers to capture and sell slaves to them.
 European traders gave bribes to the rulers in exchange for slaves, in return the African rulers
gave the Europeans permission to trade in their kingdoms.
 European traders established several places along the coast where their ships waited while trade
was being carried out inland. At these places they built warehouses surrounded by high wooden
walls and protected by canons.
 Slaves were kept in these warehouses before being shipped to the Americas. The warehouses
were also used as auction floors where slaves were brought and sold.
 Goods used to exchange for slaves were also kept in these warehouses, these goods included the
following
Guns jewels
Ammunition beads
Alcohol bangles
Mirrors
 At this time ordinary trade or legitimate trade was not profitable which is why it was replaced by
the more profitable slave trade.
 Europeans sold their goods in Africa in exchange for slaves only and the Africans mostly wanted
guns and ammunition.
 The slave trade was carried out between the Europeans and the African Ruling class which was
made up of kings, Chiefs, Headmen and traditional Priests.
 These African rulers were careful not to sell their own people or to disturb their own societies,
however this changed when the slave trade expanded and the demand for slaves rose.
 African rulers began to attack and capture their own people as well as their neighbours capturing
people and selling them into slavery.
 Witches and criminals in the African societies were also sold into slavery- this situation led to an
increase in the number of people who were accused of witchcraft and criminal activity.
 The slave trade led to an increase in tribal wars, the greatest number of people who were sold
into slavery was captured during these tribal wars.

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 The Europeans encouraged these wars by supplying guns and ammunition their cooperating
rulers. At times the European traders even joined the wars mainly because the wars helped to
provide them with a good supply of slaves.
 Societies in Africa were destabilised because of these wars making social and economic
development in Africa almost impossible.
 By 1800 European traders had built hundreds of warehouses along the west African coast
especially in present day Ghana, Benin and Nigeria. Millions of slaves came from this area.
 The way in which the trade was conducted it was difficult for African rulers to stay out of it. If
the African ruler did not have guns and ammunition they were in danger of being attacked and
captured by their neighbours to be sold into slavery.
 To get guns and ammunition they needed to trade with the Europeans who only sold guns and
ammunition in exchange for slaves.
 This arrangement forced more and more people to become involved in the slave trade because
African rulers did not have a choice, they needed the guns and ammunition to protect themselves.
 A number of powerful kingdoms were formed as a result of the tribal wars that erupted in West
Africa as a result of the slave trade. Some of these kingdoms included Asante and Dahomey a.ka.
Benin.
 These kingdoms grew wealthy as a result of the slave trade, some of the local Africans became
full time slave traders.
 Slaves were also obtained through kidnapping. European slavers employed gangs of African
slave raiders who went around kidnapping young men and women they came across.
 Men were kidnapped when they went out hunting and fishing while women were taken when
they worked in the fields or when they went to fetch water or firewood.
 Kidnapping definitely affected the economic and social activities of the people. It was also
common for villagers to be attacked and raided at night as well.
 Cheating was also another method used to obtain slaves. After obtaining gold and other trade
items European merchants would hire strong young men to carry the goods back to the sea, once
at the coast the young men would be sold into slavery as well.
MOVEMENT OF CAPTIVES BY LAND
 Wars, kidnapping, cheating and seizures were the chief means of supplying slaves.
 After being captured, the captives were chained together and they began their long walk to the
coast surrounded by local brokers.
 The captives were taken along the traditional routes of trade in ivory and gold, by the time they
got to the coast the slaves were already tired from being force marched all the way.
 During the long march captives were given short rests to regain their strength, they were given
some food and some water to keep them active.
 They stopped marching during the night.
 Captives who became too tired to walk or too ill to continue were killed on the spot.
 The captives got tired because of the heavy loads they were forced to carry and also the
continuous whipping.

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AT THE COAST
 When the slaves arrived at the coast they were kept in crowded pens or compounds
(warehouses)while they waited for the arrival of the slave ships from Europe.
 At times they would also wait for the slave ship to have a full slave cargo before it left.
 At the coast people were humiliated, they were examined naked in the presence of others
including relatives and they were branded using sharp tools and hot irons.
 Before the ships left a doctor would examine the slaves to see if they were perfectly healthy
because these would be saleable.
 They did not want any slaves with any physical deformities or visible illnesses or even mental
defects.
 Buyers also looked at the slave’s teeth to see if they were still young, young slaves basically cost
more.
 Sick slaves were sold very cheap, they were sometimes bought by the doctors who healed them
and made them healthy and then sold them at a much higher price.
 On arrival in the Americas the same inspections would be carried out again, after that the slaves
would be branded with a hot iron on their chests with the initials of the buyer.
THE TRANS-ATLANTIC JOURNEY BY SEA
 Slaves were chained together in twos fours and sixes and then put on the ships.
 Men were packed tightly on the deck, separated from the women and children. The women and
children were not chained, they were allowed to move around the ship freely.
 Common diseases on these ships included malaria, scurvy, dysentery, yellow fever and small
pox.
 The conditions on the ships were definitely unhealthy and dirty. slaves were crowded and they
were not given food, water or even medical care on their journey to the Americas.
 There was no proper ventilation and those who died or became seriously ill were thrown
overboard.
 At times the slaves would revolt against their masters but these revolts were often put down
brutally and with a lot of death.
 Sometimes the slaves revolted and won but because they could not navigate the high seas they
ended up dying as well.
 On the ships there were also cases of suicides.
 The slave ships were specially made to carry slaves; the slaves would lie side by side on shelves
which were made one on top of the other.
 The shelves were only half a metre apart meaning slaves had no room to sit up.
 Slave compartments were always in complete darkness and the slaves were chained together for
the whole journey.
 The journey itself took 3-5 weeks.
 The conditions on a slave ship were so unhealthy that one could smell a slave ship a long way
away, slaves lay in their own urine and waste like pigs or cattle.
 On average between 20% and 30% of slaves taken from Africa died on their way to the
Americas.

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 They died from crowdedness, shock diseases and hunger.

 Even though the death rate was high, slavers still made a huge profit from those that remained.
SLAVERY IN AMERICA
 As soon as the slave ships arrived in America, the slaves would be sold to the plantation owners.
 The slaves were actually advertised as if they were goods at a market stall, basically the same way in
which we advertise goods and services today as shown by the flier below.

 Once they were bought by the plantation owners, the slaves were forced to work for long hours
without any pay.
 They would work in the hot sun, in cold weather and even rainy weather.
 Slaves were not given a balanced diet, this is why many of them died from malnutrition, exhaustion
and disease.
 The plantations in Brazil were mainly owned by the Portuguese, whilst the British and the French
owned the plantations in the West Indies and North America.
 Slaves were forced to work in labour gangs which were supervised by a European overseer, these
overseers carried whips ad guns. The whips were used for instilling discipline in the slaves and also
when they tried to rest during work. The guns on the other hand were used to shoot slaves who tried
to escape.

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 Slaves were punished severely for any mistake or crime. For example, the punishment for stealing
food was to have the hands cut off and the punishment for trying to escape, a foot would be cut off.
 Be that as it may, these severe punishments did not stop slaves from escaping or rebelling.
 Rebellions were very common in the plantations but then they were always brutally crushed when
they began.
 The rebellions were crushed because plantation owners were armed, they would gang together to
help their fellow plantation owners against the slaves.
 Usually the slaves were not armed.
 Once the rebellions were crushed a lot of slaves were killed.
 One of the major challenges faced by the escaping slaves was the simple fact that they did not have
anywhere to go, they could not return to Africa, they could not be employed anywhere and if they
were caught they would be returned to their original owner.
 When a plantation owner needed extra money he or she would sell some of the slaves.
QN: DESCRIBE THE TRIANGULAR SLAVE TRADE
 The triangular slave trade was basically an economic system that was developed by European
merchants for their own benefit.
 The system was made up of three centres or points which formed a triangle, hence the name the
Triangular Trade. These three centres were Europe, West Africa and America.
 The first part of the triangular trade was Europe.
 In Europe the merchants sold sugar, coffee, cotton and tobacco at a high price. They used some of
the money they received to purchase some manufactured goods which they would exchange for
slaves in Africa.
 Examples of these manufactured goods included guns, ammunition, cutlery, pottery, alcohol, cloth
among other things.
 The second part of the triangular trade was West Africa.
 In West Africa, manufactured goods were exchanged for slaves, these slaves would be packed onto
the ships in preparation for the Journey to America.
 The third part of the system was America.
 In America, the slaves were sold to the plantation owners for cash. They would then be forced to
work in the plantations growing coffee, sugar cane, cotton and tobacco.
 With the money they got from selling the slaves the merchants would buy coffee, sugar, cotton and
tobacco for resale in Europe.
 The slave trade largely benefited the Europeans mainly because the goods that were given to
Africans in exchange for people (slaves) could not actually be used to develop Africa.

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