Trade Networks and the Transatlantic Slave Trade

Vocabulary flashcards covering Afro-Eurasian trade networks, European exploration motives, triangular commerce, the Transatlantic Slave Trade, and their regional impacts on Mali, the Swahili Coast, Dahomey, and Kongo.

Silk Road Trade Network

An extensive commercial trade route leading across China to Rome, involving societies such as the Ottoman Empire, Ancient Mali, Ming Dynasty China, France, Europe, Greece, Egypt, and India.

Silk Road Trade Products

Goods transported along the Silk Road, consisting of gold, silver, and precious gems moving from West to East, and silk, porcelain, spices, and ivory moving from East to West.

Trans-Saharan Trade Network

A major northern and western African trade system involving societies like Ghana, Mali, and Benin, whose primary exchange products were gold and salt.

Indian Ocean Trade Network

A maritime trading system connecting regions including the Swahili States and Great Zimbabwe, centered on the trade of precious metals, ivory, gold, iron, and Asian imports.

3 Gs

The primary motivations driving European maritime exploration and expansion: Gold, Glory, and God.

European Trading Posts and Forts

Coastal settlements established on land rented from Africans—who maintained territorial control—designed to ensure that local populations traded exclusively with designated European nations, such as Portugal.

Triangular Trade

A multi-regional trade system linking America, England, Europe, and Africa to exchange commodities including sugar, tobacco, slaves, guns, rum, and industrialized goods.

Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade (TAST)

The systematic commercial enterprise that involved capturing, buying, and transporting enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas.

Middle Passage

The transatlantic journey taken by slave ships from Africa to the Americas, averaging $6-8\text{ weeks}$, carrying roughly $400$ enslaved individuals per vessel, and resulting in an estimated mortality rate of $\approx 20\%$.

Impact of TAST on Africa

A period of demographic devastation and instability resulting in the loss of $20\text{ million}$ people (mostly young adults sent to Brazil and the Caribbean), decreased birth rates, widespread captive-raiding violence, and economies left vulnerable to European colonization.

Mali Empire

A wealthy, centralized West African empire that replaced Ghana, controlled West African trade until $1600\text{ AD}$, doubled in size within $20\text{ years}$, and flourished as a center of education and religion.

King's Pilgrimage

A renowned diplomatic and religious journey undertaken by the King of Mali that spread awareness and widespread recognition of Mali's wealth across other world regions.

Impact of TAST on Mali

Caused the empire to collapse after growing dependent on the slave trade; it decentralized in the 16th to 17th century and splintered into several minor, independent chiefdoms that lost their former power.

Swahili Coast City-States

A decentralized collection of independent coastal trading city-states characterized by a blended culture, low levels of conflict, and accessible import-export hubs along the Indian Ocean.

Swahili Coast Trade Goods

A trade exchange in which local merchants exported gold, ivory, and iron in return for ships from India and China delivering cotton, silk, clothes, beads, weapons, and porcelain.

Impact of TAST on the Swahili Coast

The Swahili city-states did not collapse because their commerce was integrated into the Indian Ocean trade network rather than being economically dependent on the transatlantic slave trade.

Dahomey

A centralized military state whose political and economic systems became completely dependent on conducting raids against neighboring communities to supply captives for the slave trade.

Impact of TAST on Dahomey

The kingdom rose to prominence specifically in response to the commercial opportunities of the slave trade, but suffered total collapse once the slave trade was ended due to severe economic dependency.

Kingdom of Kongo

A centralized African trading state focused on commerce and survival, with major trade networks specializing in the export of ivory and copper.

Impact of TAST on Kongo

The kingdom avoided total collapse but lost its centralized governance, becoming decentralized and ruled by disparate groups of regional traders amid captive-raiding instability.