Chronology Of The History Of Slavery: 1619-17891619The other crucial event that would play a role in the development of America was the arrival of Africans to Jamestown. A Dutch slave trader exchanged his cargo of Africans for food in 1619. The Africans b
...ual relations between white women and black men. The punishment in 1691 for marriage between an English or white individual and a black, mulatto, or Indian was banishment and removal from Virginia forever. Id. (The last antimiscegenation laws in Virginia were overturned in 1967). (UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, v. NORWOOD W. BARBER, (CR-92-30024) Decided: April 5, 1996) Slavery in the United States was governed by an extensive body of law developed from the 1660s to the 1860s. Every slave state had its own slave code and body of court decisions. All slave codes made slavery a permanent condition, inherited through the mother, and defined slaves as property, usually in the same terms as those applied to real estate. Slaves, being property, could not own property or be a party to a contract. Since marriage is a form of a contract, no slave marriage had any legal standing. All codes also had sections regulating free blacks, who were still subject to controls on their movements and employment and were often required to leave the state after emancipation. (American Treasures of the Library of Congress: MEMORY, Slavery in the Capitol, http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/trm009.html) Slaves charged with crimes in Virginia were tried in special non-jury courts created in 1692. The purpose of the courts was not to guarantee due process but to set an example speedily. "Those slaves who attacked white people or property usually acted with a purpose and not just on impulse," wrote Philip J. Schwarz, a Virginia Commonwealth University professor who has studied slave courts. "Many killings, poisonings, thefts, uses of arson and attempts to rebel were efforts to oppose the means of maintaining slavery." The courts could resort to hideous punishments to reassert white authority. Offending slaves were hung, burned at the stake, dismembered, castrated and branded in addition to the usual whippings. White fear of black rebellion was a constant undercurrent. (How the Cradle of Liberty Became a Slave-Owning Nation. By Susan DeFord, Special to The Washington Post Wednesday, December 10, 1997; Page H01 http://www.washingtonpost.com) 1663 Maryland Settlers pass law stipulating that all imported blacks are to be given the status of slaves. Free white women who marry black slaves are to be slaves during the lives of their spouses, Ironically, children born of white servant women and blacks are regarded as free by a 1681 law. (The Negro Almanac a reference work on the Afro American, compiled and edited by harry A Ploski, and Warren Marr, II. Third Edition 1978 Bellwether Publishing) 1663/09/13 First serious recorded slave conspiracy in Colonial America takes place in Virginia. A servant betrayed plot of white servants and Negro slaves in Gloucester County, Virginia. (Major Revolts and Escapes, Lerone Bennett, Before the Mayflower, http://www.afroam.org/history/slavery/revolts.html) 1664 Slavery sanctioned by law; slaves to serve for life. (MD info from Maryland A Chronology & Documentary Handbook, 1978 Oceana Publications, Inc. And Maryland Historical Chronology ) 1664 Maryland passes a law making lifelong servitude for black slaves mandatory to prevent them from taking advantage of legal precedents established in England which grant freedom under certain conditions, such as conversion to Christianity. Similar laws are later passed in New York, New Jersey, the Carolinas and Virginia. (The History Place, Early Colonial Era Beginnings to 1700 Chronology) 1664 Slavery introduced into law in Maryland, the law also prohibited marriage between white women and black men. This particular act remained in effect for over 300 years, and between 1935 and 1967 the law was extended to forbid the marriage of Malaysians with blacks or whites. The law was finally repealed in 1967. (Maryland State Archive, THE ARCHIVISTS' Record Series of the Week, Phebe Jacobsen "Colonial Marriage Records" Bulldog Vol. 2, No. 26 18 July 1988) There had been a number of marriages between white women and slaves by 1664 when Maryland passed a law which made them and their mixed-race children slaves for life, noting that "divers freeborne English women forgettfull of their free Condicon and to the disgrace of our Nation doe intermarry with Negro Slaves" [Archives of Maryland, 1:533-34]. (FREE AFRICAN AMERICANS OF MARYLAND AND DELAWAREINTRODUCTION By Paul Heinegg, p.heinegg@worldnet.att.net This is the history of the free African American communities of Maryland and Delaware during the colonial period as told through their family histories. http://www.freeafricanamericans.com/Intro_md.htm) Also see 1681. Throughout most of the colonial period, opposition to slavery among white Americans was virtually nonexistent. Settlers in the 17th and early 18th centuries came from sharply stratified societies in which the wealthy savagely exploited members of the lower classes. Lacking a later generation's belief in natural human equality, they saw little reason to question the enslavement of Africans. As they sought to mold a docile labor force, planters resorted to harsh, repressive measures that included liberal use of whipping and branding. ("Slavery in the United States," Microsoft Encarta 98 Encyclopedia. Microsoft Corporation.) One characteristic which set American slavery apart was its racial basis. In America, with only a few early and insignificant exceptions, all slaves were Africans, and almost all Africans were slaves. This placed the label of inferiority on black skin and on African culture. In other societies, it had been possible for a slave who obtained his freedom to take his place in his society with relative ease. In America, however, when a slave became free, he was still obviously an African. The taint of inferiority clung to him. Not only did white America become convinced of white superiority and black inferiority, but it strove to impose these racial beliefs on the Africans themselves. Slave masters gave a great deal of attention to the education and training of the ideal slave, In general, there were five steps in molding the character of such a slave: strict discipline, a sense of his own inferiority, belief in the master's superior power, acceptance of the master's standards, and, finally, a deep sense of his own helplessness and dependence. At every point this education was built on the belief in white superiority and black inferiority. Besides teaching the slave to despise his own history and culture, the master strove to inculcate his own value system into the African's outlook. The white man's belief in the African's inferiority paralleled African self hate. (Norman Coombs, The Immigrant Heritage of America, Twayne Press, 1972. CHAPTER 3, CHAPTER 3, The Shape of American Slavery). The psychological impact on the individual of slavery contrasted to that of individuals who survived the Nazi holocaust, In Stanley M. Elkins thinking, the concentration camps were a modern example of a rigid system controlling mass behavior. Because some of those who experienced them were social scientists trained in the skills of observation and analysis, they provide a basis for insights into the way in which a particular social system can influence mass character. While there is also much literature about American slavery written both by slaves and masters, none of it was written from the viewpoint of modern social sciences. However, Elkins postulates that a slave type must have existed as the result of the attempt to control mass behavior, and he believes that this type probably bore a marked resemblance to the literary stereotype of "Sambo." Studying concentration camps and their impact on personality provides a tool for new insights into the working of slavery, but, warns Elkins, the comparison can only be used for limited purposes. Although slavery was not unlike the concentration camp in many respects, the concentration camp can be viewed as a highly perverted form of slavery, and both systems were ways of controlling mass behavior The concentration camp experience began with what has become labeled as shock procurement. As terror was one of the many tools of the system, surprise late-night arrests were the favorite technique. Camp inmates generally agreed that the train ride to the camp was the point at which they experienced the first brutal torture. Herded together into cattle cars, without adequate space, ventilation, or sanitary conditions, they had to endure the horrible crowding and the harassment of the guards. When they reached the camp, they had to stand naked in line and undergo a detailed examination by the camp physician. Then, each was given a tag and a number. These two events were calculated to strip away one's identity and to reduce the individual to an item within an impersonal system. (for critic of Stanley M. Elkins see Norman Coombs, The Immigrant Heritage of America, Twayne Press, 1972. CHAPTER 3, Slavery and the Formation of Character and Slavery, The Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life, by Stanley M. Elkins. University of Chicago) "Two days before embarkation, the head of every male and female is neatly shaved; and, if the cargo belongs to several owners, each man's brand is impressed on the body of his irrespective Negro. This operation is performed with pieces of silver wire, or small irons fashioned into the merchant's initials, heated just hot enough to blister without burning the skin. When the entire cargo is the venture of but one proprietor, the branding is always dispensed with. "On the appointed day, the barracoon or slave-pen is made joyous by the abundant 'feed' which signalizes the negro's last hours in his native country. The feast over, they are taken alongside the vessel in canoes; and as they touch the deck, they are entirely stripped, so that women as well as men go out of Africa as they came into it-naked. This precaution, it is understood, is indispensable; for perfect nudity, during the whole voyage, is the only means of securing cleanliness and health. In this state they are immediately ordered below, the men to the hold and the women to the cabin, while boys and girls are, day and night, kept on deck, where their sole protection from the elements is a sail in fair weather, and a tarpaulin in foul. "At meal time they are distributed in messes of ten. Thirty years ago, when the Spanish slave trade was lawful, the captains were somewhat ceremoniously religious than at present, and it was then a universal habit to make the gangs say grace before meat, and give thanks afterwards. In our days, however, they dispense with this ritual… This over, a bucket of salt water is served to each mess by way of 'finger glasses' for the ablution of hands, after which a kidd-either of rice, farina, yams, or beans-according to the tribal habit of the negroes, is placed before the squad. In order to prevent greediness or inequality in the appropriation of nourishment, the process is performed by signals from a monitor, whose motions indicate when the darkies shall dip and when they shall swallow." (Debow's review, Agricultural, commercial, industrial progress and resources./ vol. 18, iss. 3, Mar 1855, New Orleans, The African Slave Trade (pp. 297-305) ) "At sundown, the process of stowing the slaves for the night is begun. The second mate and boatswain descend into the hold, whip in hand, and range the slaves in their regular places; those on the right side of the vessel facing forward, and lying in each other's lap, while those on the left are similarly stowed with their faces towards the stern. In this way each negro lies on his right side, which is considered preferable for the action of the heart. In allotting places, particular attention is paid to size, the taller being selected for the greatest breadth of the vessel, while the shorter and younger are lodged near the bows. When the cargo is large and the lower deck crammed, the supernumeraries are disposed of on deck, which is securely covered with boards to shield them from moisture. The strict discipline of nightly stowage is, of course, of the greatest importance in slavers, else every negro would accommodate himself as if he were a passenger. "In order to insure perfect silence and regularity during night, a slave is chosen as constable from every ten, and furnished with a 'cat' to enforce commands during his appointed watch. In remuneration for his services, which, it may be believed, are admirably performed whenever the whip is required, he is adorned with an old shirt or tarry trousers. Now and then, billets of wood are distributed among the sleepers, but this luxury is never granted until the good temper of the negroes is ascertained, for slaves have often been tempted to mutiny by the power of arming themselves with these pillows from the forest." (Debow's review, Agricultural, commercial, industrial progress and resources./ vol. 22, iss. 6, June 1857, New Orleans, The Middle Passage; or, Suffering of Slave and Free Immigrants: pp 570-583 ) Even the most abstract ideals of the [German] SS, such as their intense German nationalism and anti-Semitism, were often absorbed by the old [concentration camp] inmates-a phenomenon observed among the politically well-educated and even among the Jews themselves. The final quintessence of all this was seen in the "Kapo" the prisoner who had been placed in a supervisory position over his fellow inmates. These creatures, many of them professional criminals, not only behaved with slavish servility to the SS, but the way in which they often out did the SS in sheer brutality became one of the most durable features of the concentration-camp legend. (Slavery, The Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life, by Stanley M. Elkins. University of Chicago, first 1959 third edition 1976 page 113 see also Bettelheim, "Individual and Mass Behavior," and Elie Cohen, "Human Behavior," pp. 18p-93, for a discussion of anti-Semitism among the Jews".) When the vessels arrive at their destined port, the Negroes are again exposed naked to the eyes of all that flock together, and the examination of their purchasers. Then they are separated to the plantations of their several masters, to see each other no more. Here you may see mothers hanging over their daughters, bedewing their naked breasts with tears, and daughters clinging to their parents, till the whipper soon obliges them to part. And what can be more wretched than the condition they then enter upon? Banished from their country, from their friends and relations for ever, from every comfort of life, they are reduced to a state scarce anyway preferable to that of beasts of burden. In general, a few roots, not of the nicest kind, usually yams or potatoes, are their food; and two rags, that neither screen them from the heat of the day, nor the cold of the night, their covering. Their sleep is very short, their labour continual, and frequently above their strength; so that death sets many of them at liberty before they have lived out half their days. The time they work in the West Indies, is from day-break to noon, and from two o'clock till dark; during which time, they are attended by overseers, who, if they think them dilatory, or think anything not so well done as it should be, whip them most unmercifully, so that you may see their bodies long after wealed and scarred usually from the shoulders to the waist. And before they are suffered to go to their quarters, they have commonly something to do, as collecting herbage for the horses, or gathering fuel for the boilers; so that it is often past twelve before they can get home. Hence, if their food is not prepared, they are sometimes called to labour again, before they can satisfy their hunger. And no excuse will avail. If they are not in the field immediately, they must expect to feel the lash. Did the Creator intend that the noblest creatures in the visible world should live such a life as this? (Thoughts Upon Slavery, John Wesley, Published in the year 1774, John Wesley: Holiness of Heart and Life, 1996 Ruth A. Daugherty) Africa occupies just over 20 percent of the earth's land surface and has roughly 20 percent of the world's population, but European slave traders in the 17th century and the next will decimate the continent by exporting human chattels and introducing new diseases. (The People's Chronology, 1994 by James Trager from MS Bookshelf.) The transatlantic slave trade produced one of the largest forced migrations in history. From the early 16th to the mid-19th centuries, between 10 million and 11 million Africans were taken from their homes, herded onto ships where they were sometimes so tightly packed that they could barely move, and sent to a strange new land. Since others died before boarding the ships, Africa's loss of population was even greater. ("Slavery in the United States," Microsoft Encarta 98 Encyclopedia. Microsoft Corporation.) While Ghana was the headquarters of the African slave trade, Tropical America was the real center of the trade. Thirty-six of the forty-two slave fortress were located in Ghana. Aside from Ghana, slaves were shipped from eight coastal regions in Africa including Senegambia, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast and Liberia region, Gold Coast, Bight of Benin, Bight of Biafra, Central Africa, and Southeast Africa (from the Cape of Good Hope to the Cape of Delgado, including Madagascar). The slave trade had the greatest impact upon central and western African. According to James Rawley, West Africa supplied 3/5ths of the slaves for exportation between 1701-1810. Half of the slaves were exported to South America, 42% to the Caribbean Islands, 7% to British North America, and 2% to Central America. (The Economics of the African Slave Trade, By Anika Francis, The March Issue of The Vision Online) The Bight of Biafra was one of the most important sources of enslaved Africans sent to the Americas in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Indeed, the forced transport of considerable numbers of Igbo-speaking slaves and others from the interior of the Bight of Biafra across the Atlantic was a central development in the emergence of relatively cohesive ethnic groups in the African diaspora. Igbo, "Moko", "Bibi" and other ethnic groups have been identified in many parts of the Americas, most especially in Jamaica, the tidewater areas of Maryland and Virginia, and other anglophone colonies. Nonetheless, little research has been undertaken to explore the cultural and historical continuities and disjunctures in this population displacement. Moreover the repercussions of the trans-Atlantic slave trade on the interior of the Bight of Biafra during the period of heaviest population displacement in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries remain poorly understood. (Repercussions of the Atlantic Slave Trade: The Interior of the Bight of Biafra and the African Diaspora. Conference to hosted by His Excellency, Governor Chimaroke Nnamini, Enugu State, Nigeria at the Nike Lake Resort, Enugu, Nigeria, July 10-14, 2000. For additional information, contact: Professor Carolyn Brown, Department of History, Rutgers University.) PROJECTED EXPORTS OF THAT PORTION OF THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH SLAVE TRADE HAVING IDENTIFIABLE REGION OF COAST ORIGIN IN AFRICA, 1711-1810. * Senegambia (Senegal-Gambia)* 5.8% * Sierra Leone 3.4% * Windward Coast (Ivory Coast)* 12.1% * Gold Coast (Ghana)* 14.4% * Bight of Benin (Nigeria)* 14.5 * Bight of Biafra (Nigeria)* 25.1% * Central and Southeast Africa (Cameroon- N.Angola)* 24.7% * The countries in parentheses are rough approximations to help you find the location on a modern map. "Were these people called by that name during that time in that place?" Excluding some nomadic and semi-nomadic groups. * SENEGAMBIA: Wolof, Mandingo, Malinke, Bambara, Papel, Limba, Bola, Balante, Serer, Fula, Tucolor * SIERRA LEONE: Temne, Mende, Kisi, Goree, Kru. * WINDWARD COAST (incl. Liberia): Baoule, Vai, De, Gola (Gullah), Bassa, Grebo. * GOLD COAST: Ewe, Ga, Fante, Ashante, Twi, Brong * BIGHT OF BENIN & BIGHT OF BIAFRA Combined (sorry): Yoruba, Nupe, Benin, Dahomean (Fon), Edo-Bini, Allada, Efik, Ibibio, Ijaw, Ibani,Igbo(Calabar) CENTRAL & * SOUTHEAST AFRICA: BaKongo, MaLimbo, Ndungo, BaMbo, BaLimbe, BaDongo, Luba, Loanga, Ovimbundu, Cabinda, Pembe, Imbangala, Mbundu, BaNdulunda Please send comments (see web page below) on whether the following groups should be included as a "Ancestral group" of African Americans, and in what region: Fulani, Tuareg, Dialonke, Massina, Dogon, Songhay, Jekri, Jukun, Domaa, Tallensi, Mossi, Nzima, Akwamu, Egba, Fang, and Ge. (Compid by Kwame Bandele from information in P.D. Curtin's book, "Atlantic Slave Trade" p. 221. http://www.panix.com/~mbowen/sf/faq054.htm) (Graphic from Kids Zone, The countries of Africa and http://library.advanced.org/10320/Tour.htm) In the 1700s the coasts of West Africa had three main divisions controlled by Europeans in their effort to monopolize the slave trade. The three divisions were SENEGAMBIA, UPPER GUINEA, and LOWER GUINEA. SENEGAMBIA'S two navigable rivers, the Senegal and the Gambia, were controlled by the French and the English, respectively. The West Africans who became slaves from the SENEGAMBIA included the Fula, Wolof, Serer, Felup, and the Mandingo. UPPER GUINEA had a two thousand miles coastline from the Gambia south and east to the Bight of Biafra. This coastline was also designated the Windward Coast because of the heavy winds on the shore. The West Africans who became slaves from the UPPER GAMBIA included the Baga and Susu from French Guinea, the Chamba from Sierra Leone, the Krumen from the Grain Coast, and the Fanti and the Ashanti from the Gold Coast, commonly referred to today as Ghana. East of the Volta River was the Slave Coast which was so named because the slave trade was at its height there since the African kings (Slattees) permitted Europeans to compete equally for Africans to become slaves. Those West Africans who became slaves from this region included Yoruban, Ewe, Dahoman, Ibo, Ibibio, and the Efik. LOWER GUINEA had fifteen hundred miles of coastline from Calabar to the southern desert. The West Africans who became slaves from this region were all Bantus. The trading of Africans from the West Coast provided an economic boon for the Europeans. The trading of Africans from the West Coast produced the heinous Middle passage. The trading of Africans from the West Coast produced the African American! (Connections: A Culturally Historical Prospective of West African to African American, by Kelvin Tarrance, Revised: May 3, 1996 http://asu.alasu.edu/academic/advstudies/2b.html) Slave brokers believed that there were traits of the various African peoples and the preferences of the slave brokers for slaves from specific groups. Colonists always held some view of which tribes produced the most desirable slaves, and this preferred tribal affiliation changed depending on the work and the era. The docile Gold Coast slave was the preferred worker for a while before the Senegambians were elevated to an equal status. The Ashanti were more likely to seek revenge on their oppressor, which put them among the least sought-after tribes. (Margaret Washington's chapter on the Gullahs in Edward Countryman, ed. How Did American Slavery Begin? Boston: St. Martins, 1999. x + 150 pp. Bibliographical references. $35.00 (cloth), ISBN 0-312-21820-6; $11.95 (paper), ISBN 0-312-18261-9. Reviewed for H-Survey by Brian D. McKnight , from H-NET BOOK REVIEW Published by H-Survey@h- net.msu.edu (November, 1999)) Imperial African States that we know about mostly developed along the Sahel ("Corridor") which was the major trade route between East and West Africa. The Sahel "shore" was seen as a "coastline" on the great expanse of the Sahara Desert. (Map found at The Ohio State University Libraries Black Studies Library Website sources given as Ancient African Kingdoms, Margaret Shinnie DT25 .S5 1970. A History of the African People, Robert W. July DT20 .J8 1992, The History Atlas of Africa Samuel Kasule. G2446.S1 K3 1998 http://aaas.ohio-state.edu/) The African Diaspora Map - I This map is the result of almost 20 years research by Joseph Harris, Distinguished Professor, Department of History, Howard University, Washington. The purpose of the map is to show the general direction of the prinicpal sea routes of Arab, European and American trade in African slaves up to 1873. (Mapping Africa, Africa and the Diaspora Movement, The Kennedy Center African Odyssey) The study of the African component of slave resistance may appear to be the exception to the general state of slave studies, which has tended to pay more attention to the European influences on the Americas rather than the continuities with African history. Palmares is identified as an "African" kingdom in Brazil; an early and important example of the quilombos and palenques of Latin America which also often revealed a strong African link (See the excellent studies in Richard M. Price, ed., Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas, 2nd ed. (Baltimore, 1979); Patterson, "Slavery and Slave Revolts," 289-325.) In Jamaica, enslaved Akan are identified with rebellion and marronage; they are considered responsible for setting the course of cultural development among the maroons. (Monica Schuler, "Akan Slave Rebellions in the British Caribbean", Savacou, 1 (1970), 8-31. Also see Mavis C. Campbell, The Maroons of Jamaica, 1655- 1796 (Trenton, N.J., 1990); and Barbara Klamon Kopytoff, "The Development of Jamaican Maroon Ethnicity," Caribbean Quarterly, 22 (1976), 33-50.) Despite the identification of the ethnic factor, however, most studies of slave resistance fail to examine the historical context in Africa from which these rebellious slaves came. Whether or not there were direct links or informal influences that shaped specific acts of resistance simply has not been determined in most cases. Because the African background has been poorly understood, perhaps, scholars have tended to concentrate on the European influences which shaped the agenda of slave resistance. Eugene Genovese, for example, has argued that there was a fundamental shift in the patterns of resistance by slaves at the end of the eighteenth century, which he correlated with the French Revolution and the destruction of slavery in St. Domingue. (Eugene D. Genovese, From Rebellion to Revolution: Afro-American Slave Revolts in the Making of the Modern World Baton Rouge, 1979). Before the 1790s, according to Genovese, slave resistance tended to draw inspiration from the African past, but the content of that past remains obscure in Genovese's vision. With the spread of revolutionary doctrines in Europe and the Americas, slaves acquired elements of a new ideology that reinforced their resistance to slavery. The process of creolization, which introduced slaves to European thought, brought the actions of slaves more into line with the revolutionary movement emanating from Europe. Genovese's interpretation further highlights the problem of identifying the impact of African history on the development of the diaspora. Scholars who are not well versed in African history seem to have a cloudy image of the African contribution to resistance and the evolution of slave culture. Perhaps it is to be expected, therefore, that European influence is more easy to recognize than African influence. For Genovese, following the earlier lead of C.L.R. James, (C. L. R. James, The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution, New York, rev. ed., 1963). the French Revolution had such an obvious impact on the St. Domingue uprising that the African dimension is not relevant. As Thornton has demonstrated, however, even the uprising in St. Domingue had its African antecedents, especially the legacy of the Kongo civil war. (John K. Thornton, "`I am the Subject of the King of Congo': African Political Ideology and the Haitian Revolution," Journal of World History, 4:2 (1993), 181-214) Moreover, influences from Africa remained a strong force in the struggle against slavery well after the 1790s, especially in Brazil and Cuba, where there was a continuous infusion of new slaves from Africa, often from places where slaves had been coming for some time. The complex blending of African and European experiences undoubtedly changed over time, but until African history is studied in the diaspora, it will be difficult to weigh the relative importance of the European and African traditions. (The African Diaspora: Revisionist Interpretations of Ethnicity, Culture and Religion under Slavery Paul E. Lovejoy in Studies in the World History of Slavery, Abolition and Emancipation, II, 1 (1997).) Both images above. Go to URL below to zoom in on detailed and exact locations. During the 1700s when the Atlantic slave trade was flourishing, West Africans accounted for approximately two-thirds of the African captives imported into the Americas. The coastal ports where these Africans were assembled, and from where they were exported, are located on this mid-18th-century map extending from present-day Senegal and Gambia on the northwest to Gabon on the southeast. This decorated and colored map illustrates the dress, dwellings, and work of some Africans. The map also reflects the international interest in the African trade by the use of Latin, French, and Dutch place names. Many of the ports are identified as being controlled by the English (A for Anglorum), Dutch (H for Holland), Danish (D for Danorum), or French (F). Guinea propia, nec non Nigritiae vel Terrae Nigrorum maxima pars . ..Nuremberg: Homann Hereditors, 1743, Hand-colored, engraved map., Geography and Map Division. (http://international.loc.gov/ammem/aaohtml/exhibit/aopart1.html#0101) Similar map, of West Africa, 1754. (Not displayed here, but click on this URL. Snelgrave voyaged to West Africa as a slaver from 1704 to 1729-30. (Source, William Snelgrave, "A New Map of that Part of Africa called the Coast of Guinea," in Snelgrave, A New Account of Guinea (London, 1754).), (Acknowledgement, The John Carter Brown Library, Brown Univ. (IMAGES OF THE TRANS-ATLANTIC SLAVE Trade, A media database compiled by Jerome S. Handler and Michael L. Tuite Jr, Presented by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities) Another slave route map is Slave Trade Map of Equatorial Afirca as the piece appeared in the English Abolitionist periodical, The Anti Slavery Reporter and Aborigines Friend, Series IV No. 8-9, 1881-1882 (http://www.ipl.org/ref/timeline/slavemap.htm for details from this map, which shows all of Africa.) The slave trade from Africa is said to have uprooted as many as 20 million people from their homes and brought them to the Americas. Slavery had existed as a human institution for centuries, but the slaves were usually captives taken in war or members of the lowest class in a society. The black African slave trade, by contrast, was a major economic enterprise. It made the traders rich and brought an abundant labor supply to the islands of the Caribbean and to the American Colonies. (Compton's Encyclopedia Online) The Methodist theologian, John Wesley, described how slaves were generally procured, carried to, and treated in, America. 1. First. In what manner are they procured? Part of them by fraud. Captains of ships, from time to time, have invited Negroes to come on board, and then carried them away. But far more have been procured by force. The Christians, landing upon their coasts, seized as many as they found, men, women, and children, and transported them to America. It was about 1551 that the English began trading to Guinea; at first, for gold and elephants' teeth; but soon after, for men. In 1556, Sir John Hawkins sailed with two ships to Cape Verd, where he sent eighty men on shore to catch Negroes. But the natives flying, they fell farther down, and there set the men on shore, "to burn their towns and take the inhabitants." But they met with such resistance, that they had seven men killed, and took but ten Negroes. So they went still farther down, till, having taken enough, they proceeded to the West Indies and sold them. 2. It was some time before the Europeans found a more compendious way of procuring African slaves, by prevailing upon them to make war upon each other, and to sell their prisoners. Till then they seldom had any wars; but were in general quiet and peaceable. But the white men first taught them drunkenness and avarice, and then hired them to sell one another. Nay, by this means, even their Kings are induced to sell their own subjects. So Mr. Moore, factor of the African Company in 1730, informs us: "When the King of Barsalli wants goods or brandy, he sends to the English Governor at James's Fort, who immediately sends a sloop. Against the time it arrives, he plunders some of his neighbours' towns, selling the people for the goods he wants. At other times he falls upon one of his own towns, and makes bold to sell his own subjects." So Monsieur Brue says, "I wrote to the King," (not the same,) "if he had a sufficient number of slaves, I would treat with him. He seized three hundred of his own people, and sent word he was ready to deliver them for the goods." He adds: "Some of the natives are always ready" (when well paid) "to surprise and carry off their own countrymen. They come at night without noise, and if they find any lone cottage, surround it and carry off all the people." Barbot, another French factor, says, "Many of the slaves sold by the Negroes are prisoners of war, or taken in the incursions they make into their enemies' territories. Others are stolen. Abundance of little Blacks, of both sexes, are stolen away by their neighbours, when found abroad on the road, or in the woods, or else in the corn-fields, at the time of year when their parents keep them there all day to scare away the devouring birds." That their own parents sell them is utterly false: Whites, not Blacks, are without natural affection! (Thoughts Upon Slavery, John Wesley, Published in the year 1774, John Wesley: Holiness of Heart and Life, 1996 Ruth A. Daugherty) People have asked why Africans themselves engaged in the slave trade. Given the function of slavery in African societies, the origin of their participation is not too difficult to understand. First and foremost, slavery was not confused with the notion of superiority and inferiority, a notion later invoked as justification for black slavery in America. On the contrary, it was not at all uncommon for African owners to adopt slave children or to marry slave women, who then became full members of the family. Slaves of talent accumulated property and in some instances reached the status of kings; Jaja of Opobo (in Nigeria) is a case in point. Lacking contact with American slavery, African traders could be expected to assume that the lives of slaves overseas would be as much as they were in Africa; they had no way of knowing that whites in America associated dark colors with sub-human qualities and status, or that they would treat slaves as chattels generation after generation. When Nigeria's Madame Tinubu, herself a slave-trader, discovered the difference between domestic and non-African slavery, she became an abolitionist, actively rejecting what she saw as the corruption of African slavery by the unjust and inhumane habits of its foreign practitioners and by the motivation to make war for profit on the sale of captives. (On Slavery By Femi Akomolafe. 1994, The retrospective history of Africa, Hartford Web Publishing) The mortality rate among these new slaves ran very high. It is estimated that some five percent died in Africa on the way to the coast, another thirteen percent in transit to the West Indies, and still another thirty percent during the three-month seasoning period in the West Indies. This meant that about fifty percent of those originally captured in Africa died either in transit or while being prepared for servitude. Even this statistic, harsh as it is, does not tell the whole story of the human cost involved in the slave trade. Most slaves were captured in the course of warfare, and many more Africans were killed in the course of this combat. The total number of deaths, then, ran much higher than those killed en route. Many Africans became casualty statistics, directly or indirectly, because of the slave trade. Beyond this, there was the untold human sorrow and misery borne by the friends and relatives of those Africans who were torn away from home and loved ones and were never seen again. (Norman Coombs, The Immigrant Heritage of America, Twayne Press, 1972. CHAPTER 2 The Human Market, The Slave Trade) It was obvious, however, that the victims of the modern slave trade could not be said to have been acquired directly in war. They had been purchased from African rulers who had seized them in raids whose only purpose had been to acquire this valuable human commodity for the insatiable European market. To this, the advocates of the trade replied by claiming that the Africans purchased by the traders had originally been taken prisoner in "just" wars between Africans. The speciousness of this argument was evident from the beginning. But most slavers accepted what they claimed were African assurances that their human merchandise had indeed been "saved" in a just war, on the principle that it is not up to the purchaser to discover if the goods he is buying have been acquired legitimately or not. In this way slavery remained linked, throughout its 300-year history, to internecine African warfare. Thomas seems to imply that Africans, since they were involved in the trade, must take some measure of the blame for it. This can hardly be denied. What Thomas overlooks, though, is the degree to which the European slave trade contributed to the situation from which it benefited. The abolitionists had always been fully aware of the possible impact of the trade upon Africa. "The slave trade," bewailed Granville Sharp, one of the earliest of the English abolitionists, in 1776, "preyed upon the ignorance and brutality of unenlightened nations, who are encouraged to war with each other for this very purpose." The consequences of this for the continent have only just begun to be examined, but there is sufficient evidence to suggest that at least some of the horrors that modern African rulers continue to inflict upon their peoples, and that African states continue to inflict upon one another, can be linked not only to the disastrous process of de-colonization, but also to the long experience of the European slave trade. Modern slavers were faced with a further problem: religion. (Anthony Pagden he Slave Trade, Review of Hugh Thomas' Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade. The New Republic; 12-22-1997) "I have no hesitation in saying, that three fourths of the slaves sent abroad from Africa are the fruit of native wars, fomented by the avarice and temptation of our own race. I cannot exculpate any commercial nation from this sweeping censure. We stimulate the negro's passions by the introduction of wants and fancies never dreamed of by the simple native, while slavery was an institution of domestic need and comfort alone. But what was once a luxury has now ripened into an absolute necessity; so that MAN, in truth, has become the coin of Africa, and the 'legal tender' of a brutal trade." (Debow's review, Agricultural, commercial, industrial progress and resources./ vol. 18, iss. 3, Mar 1855, New Orleans, The African Slave Trade (pp. 297-305) ) African selling slaves to a European, 19th cent. (?), Source Isabelle Aguet, A Pictorial History of the Slave Trade (Geneva: Editions Minerva, 1971), plate 3, p. 18; from Hull Museums, original source not identified (IMAGES OF THE TRANS-ATLANTIC SLAVE Trade, A media database compiled by Jerome S. Handler and Michael L. Tuite Jr, Presented by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities) The history of the Atlantic trade in Africa involves trade routes penetrating deeper and deeper into Africa, in part because people near the coast learned to defend themselves. Coastal powers like Kongo and Benin actually lost territory. When a series of slaving states emerged in the 17th and early 18th century, all were in the interior. Oyo was a cavalry state centered north of the forest. Asante was in the forest but well north of the coast, able to control trade routes to different colonial forts. Segou was in western Mali. Futa Jallon was in the mountains of central Guinea. Trade routes in central Africa also penetrated deep into the heart of Africa. The Matamba of Queen Nzinga became a valuable trading partner only after it moved from the coast to a location deep in the interior of Africa. The Igbo developed a different a kind of trading system, but the largest numbers of slaves probably came from densely populated areas of central and northern Igboland. Where the coastal people were successful, it was as middlemen and agents of the trade. (comments by Martin Klein Re: Gates and African involvement in the slave trade on the Listserv Steven Mintz, U. Houston) Africans cooperated with Europeans in the slave trade, and some slaves transported to America were already of the slave class. But most slaves were simply hostages of the trade, and very few were slaves before. A set of political and military circumstances that the Portuguese, the Dutch, and other Europeans imposed on the West Africans forced many African kingdoms to cooperate with the slave trade. Stronger nations had driven many coastal kingdoms from the interior before the arrival of the Europeans. Yet with the coming of European tools and weaponry as payment for African slaves, these coastal kingdoms found themselves in power positions and began slave-raiding expeditions against their former enemies. European slave traders used these rivalries to increase tensions among the African kingdoms for their own mercenary purposes. By fomenting war between kingdoms and by introducing superior arms to those cooperating with the trade, the Europeans obligated many unwilling kingdoms to collaborate with them or face enslavement themselves--raid or be raided. The "most abominable aspect of the slave trade, was fueled by the idea that Africans, even children, were better off Christianized under a system of European slavery than left in Africa amid tribal wars, famines and paganism" (p. 218). (Willie F. Page. _The Dutch Triangle: The Netherlands and the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1621-1664_. Studies in African American History and Culture. New York: Garland Publishing, 1997. xxxv + 262 pp. Bibliographical references and index. $66.00 (cloth), ISBN 0-8153-2881-8. Reviewed for H-Review by Dennis R. Hidalgo, Central Michigan University) In reality, slavery is an human institution. Every ethnic group has sold members of the same ethnic group into slavery. It becomes a kind of racism; that, while all ethnic groups have sold its own ethnic group into slavery, Blacks can't do it. When Eastern Europeans fight each other it is not called tribalism. Ethnic cleansing is intended to make what is happening to sound more sanitary. What it really is, is White Tribalism pure and simple. The fact of African resistance to European Imperialism and Colonialism is not well known, though it is well documented. Read, for instance, Michael Crowder (ed.), West African Resistance, Africana Publishing Corporation, New York, 1971. Europeans entered Africa in the mid 1400 s and early 1500 s during a time of socio-political transition. Europeans chose a favorite side to win between African nations at a war and supplied that side with guns, a superior war instrument. In its victory, the African side with guns rounded up captives of war who were sold to the Europeans in exchange for more guns or other barter. Whites used these captives in their own slave raids. These captives often held pre-existing grudges against groups they were ordered to raid, having formerly been sold into slavery themselves by these same groups as captives in inter- African territorial wars. In investigating our history and capture, a much more completed picture emerges than simply that we sold each other into slavery. (Did We Sell Each Other Into Slavery? A Commentary by Oscar L. Beard, Consultant in African Studies 24 May 1999 ) The slave trade and the movement of identifiable groups of people have to be tied to specific historical events and processes in Africa, and it must be demonstrated what was and what was not transferred to the Americas. From this perspective, specific historical circumstances determined who was exported and who was not, and these circumstances might well have influenced who was active in promoting adjustments under slavery and preserving knowledge of Africa. The different reasons for enslavement have to be distinguished as crucial variables in determining what factors were important to the enslaved population. Whether an individual became a slave as a result of war, famine, commercial bankruptcy, judicial punishment, or religious persecution mattered. The conscious deportation of political prisoners has to be distinguished from impersonal transactions in the fairs and market-places of Africa. Instances of "mistakes" need to be documented as a means of determining why individuals ended up in the Americas or North Africa who legally should not have been so enslaved. Such examples include arbitrary alterations in the terms and conditions of pawnship, failure to ransom kidnapped victims, and "panyarring", i.e. the seizure of individuals for debt or other compensation. (cf. Toyin Falola and Paul E. Lovejoy (eds.), Pawnship in Africa: Debt Bondage in Historical Perspective (Boulder, 1994). Slaves can be examined as individuals and as recognizable groups of people who had personal and collective histories. (The African Diaspora: Revisionist Interpretations of Ethnicity, Culture and Religion under Slavery Paul E. Lovejoy in Studies in the World History of Slavery, Abolition and Emancipation, II, 1 (1997).) Essay argues that slavery existed and sometimes flourished in Africa before the transatlantic slave trade, but neither the African continent nor persons of African origin were as prominent in the world of slaveholding as they would later become. Second, the capture and sale of slaves across the Atlantic between 1450 and 1850 encouraged expansion and repeated transformation of slavery within Africa, to the point that systems of slavery became central to societies all across the continent. Third, even after the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade (largely accomplished by 1850) and the European conquest of Africa (mostly by 1900), millions of persons remained in slavery in Africa as late as 1930. (For full reading see Slavery in Africa, Microsoft, Encarta, Africana content, 1999 Microsoft Corporation) But what American Slavery eventually developed into was somewhat unique in several respects. Slavery in other parts of the world had typically involved prisoners of war, and was considered a humane alternative to being put to death. Rarely were the children of those prisoners also placed into slavery. America had not waged a war with Ireland, nor had it waged a war with Africa, or with China. And although it had waged several wars with the Native Americans, they found that Natives made poor slaves and frequently escaped. America was...after all, their homeland...their turf. They knew the land far better than these European upstarts. Many of the Irish came to America voluntarily to escape the horrid economy and famines of their homeland. They choose to be here. African Slaves were brought to America against the choice. They were kept here against their choice. If they choose to become a part of "America"...they were denied the choice to exercise their full access and full rights within America. And that choice...is what makes the American Slavery of blacks so unique when compared to most other forms of historical slavery. America was one of the first nations to declare that the rights of the individual were paramount, that "all men were created equal". That a man's freedom to choose was one of his most sacred freedoms. These concepts contrasted radically with the idea that a man could be taken from his ...