AOE: Lesson - Effects of Exploration: Africa
Effects of Exploration: Africa
Note: certain images on this page contain graphic depictions of the conditions endured by people who were enslaved. These images may be difficult to look at, but it is important to our understanding of history to recognize the brutality that took place.
Origins of the Transatlantic Slave Trade
Early in the 1400s, Portugal started exploring the west coast of Africa. Portugal established trade relationships with the kingdoms and empires along West Africa; part of that trade involved humans. In fact, the first permanent European structure built south of the Sahara Desert was a structure in which to trade slaves known as São Jorge da Mina, or more plainly "Elmina."
Slavery existed in Africa before the Europeans arrived but it was of a different form. Slaves usually came from conquered territories and served the victors for a period of time, not life or the lives of their descendants. However, it was not unusual for slaves to be traded. When the Portuguese arrived, they brought guns and other goods that African kings recognized as beneficial to defending their titles and enriching their lands. In exchange for European goods, African kingdoms allowed Europeans to set up trade ports along the Atlantic Ocean with locals supplying the people that would become slaves in foreign lands.
The image at the top of this page shows a Kongolese king named Alvaro VI meeting with Dutch emissaries. King Alvaro VI enriched himself through the transatlantic slave trade
The Growth of the Slave Trade
When the plantations and mines in the "New World" needed more hands, the Europeans knew exactly where a ready market awaited them. The first direct voyage of a slave ship from Africa to the "New World" occurred within the first quarter of the 1500s—within no time at all, that voyage became a regular occurrence.
The voyage of African slaves to the "New World" is referred to as the "Middle Passage" due to its place within the Triangular Trade between Europe, Africa, and the Americas. A triangular trade system is exactly what the term describes—trade between three points with each stop including the unloading and reloading of different goods. In the case of the "Middle Passage," that which was loaded upon the ships for trade was human. Crammed below deck on slave ships, millions of Africans were forced to participate in the "Middle Passage."
The next image is a diagram that was intended to show enslavers how to efficiently “pack” Africans on a slave ship. The ships could hold hundreds of enslaved people, kept in unhealthy and inhumane conditions for months while crossing the Atlantic Ocean.
Effects of the Transatlantic Slave Trade
These regions in Africa were home to several kingdoms and empires that sought to protect their holdings from each other. And while many African kings cooperated with the European traders who brought goods that would tip the balance in favor of the king, they resisted European expansion into Africa. However, many European traders were ruthless in protecting and expanding their markets and many of these kingdoms eventually fell.
The image to the right is a 16th-century engraving. It depicts a time when Spanish Hispaniola began cultivating sugar using slave labor from Africa. Locally, the gold had run out and the native Taino were mostly wiped out, so the colonizers shifted to using enslaved labor from Africa.
The disruption to African life that the Transatlantic Slave Trade brought was immense. In addition to changing the political structures of West Africa, social structures were radically broken down as well. Neighbors could no longer trust each other as the potential for profit increased the number of kidnappings to supply the slave ships.
The loss of millions of people, mostly men, impacted the demography of West Africa. Some historians estimate that the African population remained stagnant until the end of the 19th Century. These changes in politics and population left the African continent severely weakened.
While on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, those who were forced to sail on the "Middle Passage," if they survived, found themselves in a completely alien environment. Of the millions who survived the journey, roughly 60% became slaves in South America (with the majority in the Portuguese colony of Brazil), about 35% became slaves on Caribbean islands, and the remaining 5% became slaves in North America.
Each of these different regions was ruled by different imperial forces with varied laws as to the treatment of slaves and varied environments in which slaves worked. However, in all the regions, the slaves were considered property as were their descendants in a form of chattel slavery that didn't remotely resemble any of the types of slavery that had existed before.
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