Encounters and Slave Trades

Iberian Expansion in Muslim African Lands

access gold and enter into the Indian Ocean trade

outflank the Ottomans

Portuguese Voyages

work their way down the coast and enslave people in the 1400s

Guinea Resistance

Portuguese face repeated attacks by Africans on the coast in the 1440s

contact between relatively equal societies

Portuguese try to turn back to a more “transactional” relationship, but slavery is still a part

Tradegoods

copper, brass, cowrie shells, textiles

Pope Nicholas V

allows Muslim and pagan slavery as a part of the crusades in 1452

Romanus Pontifex

Portugal allows Prince Henry to buy enslaved people for the purpose of encouraging conversion in lands south of Cape Bojador

Early Enslaved Labor

in households and sugar plantations on Spanish Canary Islands

Portuguese Contact

15-16 century: negotiation, equal power, and syncretism

Afro-Portuguese ivories

hybrid coastal populations

Kongo Kingdom from 1480

exploit Portuguese presence to make one of the largest states on the continent

dispersed villages unite by 1400 under a tribute system

Portuguese arrive in 1480 and have diplomatic relations with King, who partly Christianizes and incorporates Portuguese law code (allows for trade and acquisition of guns)

Central African Conflict

Jaga Kingdom invades Kongo in 1568, and the Portuguese reinstall Kongo King Alvaro I

demand for enslaved people increases

1660s Kongolese Civil Wars

new population centers fed by Atlantic crops, guns, and trade

collapse of central power

Portuguese search for more enslaved people and begin to Christianize

Plantation Complex

emerges in the 1630s

Dutch, French, and English become main shippers

Classical Slavery

Egyptian, Greek, and Roman slavery not tied to skin color

race is a 18th and 19th century phenomenon

Slave Trades

Mediterranean, trans-Saharan, Indian Ocean, Atlantic

Mediterranean Trade

Muslim privateers raid Christian boats and capture people to take back to north Africa; Christians do the same in opposite directions

Trans-Saharan and Indian Ocean Trade

people enslaved and sent north

Ibn Battuta describes the caravans of enslaved people

limited effects on demography

Indian Ocean Trade

enslavement under Islam

estimates as high as eight million traded

African Slavery

people not seen as chattel property

could integrate into society

labor measures wealth, not land

send people off to work

Areas of High Enslaved Populations

highlands of Ethiopia, Great Lakes, Sokoto

Trading Castles

converted to gather captive people

25 by the end of the 1700s

Plantation Complex

expands with sugar, which Europeans have a manic fascination with

Why Africans are Taken to the Americas

Amerindians die off, resistance to tropical diseases, lack of support network in new land, similar crops and soil types, technical skills like mining

Phil Curtain

drove across Africa and recorded the number of people who embarked slave ships on the coast

said it was more than 9.5 million

Joseph Inikori

said there have to much more than 9.5 million enslaved and estimates 15 million

War Captives

Europeans played Africans against each other and gathered captives

Africans realized the power of warfare and used it to their advantage

Modernization in Europe

slave trade fuels modernization in Europe but does the opposite in Africa through impoverishment, depopulation, and trauma

Kingdom of Benin

oba (king) trades with the Portuguese and expands; tries to control slave trade

restricts exports of male slaves in the 1500s at peak power

embargo lifted in 1700s

Oyo

originally inland but conquer down to the coast and engage in slave trade

become dependent on the slave trade and fall apart in 1700s as the trade shuts down

destabilize and are prone to upheaval

Dahomey

inland state with a strong king

acquire firearms in huge numbers

expand and become key area of enslavement

Kingdom of Asante

gold coast region

leader with golden stool and religious sanction

use guns and slave trade to expand

Abolition

1807- Britain bans the slave trade and pressures other powers

enslavement continues into the 1860s

Legitimate Commerce

reduction in slave exports but rising demand for industrial products in European factories

replacement of slave trade with agricultural products

power shifts to farmers and traders