Atlantic Slave Trade: Africa, Exploration, Middle Passage & Resistance

Slavery in Africa before European contact

Common in many West African societies; captives came from war, debt, crime/punishment, or raids; often lineage/kinship-based — enslaved people could marry, own property, rise in status, and be absorbed into the owner's family over generations; NOT based on race and not always hereditary.

"Wealth in people"

Idea in West African societies that land was plentiful but labor was scarce, so power and wealth were measured by how many people (family, dependents, enslaved) a ruler controlled — not by land ownership.

Trans-Saharan slave trade

Trade of enslaved Africans north across the Sahara to North Africa and the Middle East (c. 7th-19th centuries); controlled by Berber and Arab merchants; traded alongside gold and salt; millions of people moved over many centuries.

Why Muslim traders enslaved people from south of the Sahara

Islamic law forbade enslaving fellow Muslims, so captives were taken from non-Muslim peoples in sub-Saharan Africa.

Indian Ocean slave trade

Trade of enslaved East Africans to Arabia, Persia, and India by Arab and Swahili merchants; existed for centuries before the Atlantic trade.

Slavery in Europe before the Atlantic trade

Ancient Greeks and Romans enslaved war captives of all ethnicities; in medieval Europe many enslaved people were Slavs from Eastern Europe (origin of the word 'slave'); Italian city-states traded slaves around the Mediterranean.

Chattel slavery

System that developed in the Americas: enslaved people were legal property that could be bought and sold, enslaved for life, status passed to children (hereditary), and based on race — very different from most earlier African slavery.

Key differences: African slavery vs. American chattel slavery

African: not race-based, enslaved could be absorbed into families, children often free, had some rights. Americas: race-based, lifelong, hereditary, enslaved treated as property with almost no rights.

Prince Henry the Navigator (1394-1460)

Portuguese prince who sponsored voyages down the West African coast; began Portugal's age of exploration (did not sail himself).

Portugal's motives for exploring Africa ("Gold, God, Glory")

Reach West African gold directly and bypass Muslim/Berber middlemen of the trans-Saharan trade; find a sea route to Asian spices; spread Christianity; gain fame and power.

1415 - Ceuta

Portugal captured the North African port of Ceuta (Morocco) — beginning of Portuguese expansion into Africa.

Caravel

Small, fast Portuguese ship with triangular (lateen) sails that could sail against the wind — made voyages down the African coast and across the Atlantic possible.

Navigation tools of exploration

Compass, astrolabe, and improved maps; along with the caravel, allowed Europeans to sail far from land.

1434 - Cape Bojador

Gil Eanes sailed past Cape Bojador (off Western Sahara), a point sailors had feared; opened the West African coast to Portuguese ships.

1441 - first captives taken to Portugal

Portuguese sailors (Antão Gonçalves) kidnapped Africans on the West African coast and brought them to Portugal — start of the European trade in enslaved Africans.

1444 - Lagos, Portugal

First large public sale of enslaved Africans in Europe (about 235 captives) at Lagos, Portugal.

Papal bulls of 1452 & 1455 (Dum Diversas, Romanus Pontifex)

The Pope authorized Portugal to conquer and enslave non-Christians ('perpetual servitude'), giving religious justification to the Portuguese slave trade.

Elmina Castle (São Jorge da Mina), 1482

First European fort in sub-Saharan Africa, built by Portugal on the Gold Coast (modern Ghana) for the gold trade; later became a major holding prison for enslaved Africans.

Bartolomeu Dias (1488)

Portuguese explorer who first sailed around the Cape of Good Hope (southern tip of Africa).

Vasco da Gama (1497-1498)

Portuguese explorer who sailed around Africa to India — the sea route to Asia Portugal had sought.

Kingdom of Kongo

Powerful Central African kingdom near the Congo River; contacted by Portugal in 1483 (Diogo Cão); its rulers converted to Christianity and traded with Portugal, but the slave trade weakened it.

Afonso I of Kongo (Nzinga Mbemba)

Christian king of Kongo who wrote to the King of Portugal in 1526 complaining that Portuguese traders were kidnapping his people, even nobles and relatives, and asking him to stop the slave trade.

Portugal's two islands

Madeira and São Tomé — Atlantic islands where Portugal created the first sugar plantations worked by enslaved Africans; the model for slavery in the Americas.

Madeira

Uninhabited island in the Atlantic off Morocco, colonized by Portugal in the 1420s; by the mid-1400s grew sugar using enslaved Africans (and Canary Islanders); was the world's leading sugar producer around 1500.

São Tomé

Uninhabited island in the Gulf of Guinea (off Central Africa, near the Equator) colonized by Portugal in the 1490s; huge sugar plantations worked entirely by enslaved Africans from Kongo and Benin; the first true plantation slave society.

São Tomé as a transshipment point

Enslaved Africans were gathered on São Tomé before being shipped to Portugal, the Gold Coast, and later the Americas.

Amador's Revolt (1595)

Large revolt of enslaved Africans on São Tomé led by Amador; destroyed many sugar mills and helped push sugar production to Brazil.

Cape Verde Islands

Uninhabited islands off Senegal settled by Portugal in the 1460s; became a trading post/holding point for enslaved Africans from the Senegambia region.

Plantation complex

System perfected on Madeira and São Tomé: large estate, one cash crop (sugar), brutal work, enslaved African labor, run for profit in a world market — copied in Brazil, the Caribbean, and North America.

Why sugar mattered

Sugar was extremely profitable in Europe but required huge amounts of hard, dangerous labor (cutting cane, boiling in mills); the demand for sugar drove most of the Atlantic slave trade.

Christopher Columbus (1492)

Italian sailor sponsored by Spain (Ferdinand and Isabella); reached the Caribbean (Hispaniola) while seeking Asia; began European colonization of the Americas.

Taíno

Indigenous people of Hispaniola and the Caribbean whom Columbus encountered; were enslaved and nearly wiped out by disease, violence, and forced labor.

Columbian Exchange

Transfer of plants, animals, people, and diseases between the Old World and New World after 1492 — including smallpox to the Americas and enslaved Africans across the Atlantic.

Encomienda system

Spanish system granting colonists the labor of Native people; led to brutal forced labor.

Why Europeans turned to enslaved African labor

Native populations collapsed (disease like smallpox, war, overwork); Africans had resistance to Old World diseases, many had farming/mining/metalworking skills, and Portugal had an existing trade with Africa.

Bartolomé de las Casas

Spanish priest who protested the abuse of Native Americans and suggested using African labor instead — he later regretted it, saying Africans were enslaved just as unjustly.

Treaty of Tordesillas (1494)

Divided newly found lands between Spain and Portugal along a line; gave Portugal Africa and Brazil, Spain most of the Americas.

Pedro Álvares Cabral (1500)

Portuguese explorer who claimed Brazil for Portugal.

Hernán Cortés (1519-1521)

Spanish conquistador who conquered the Aztec Empire (Mexico).

Francisco Pizarro (1532-1533)

Spanish conquistador who conquered the Inca Empire (Peru).

Africans among the conquistadors

Africans (free and enslaved) sailed with Spanish explorers; e.g., Juan Garrido (with Cortés) and Estevanico (Esteban), an enslaved Moroccan who explored the American Southwest in the 1530s.

1518 - direct trade authorized

Spanish King Charles V allowed enslaved Africans to be shipped directly from Africa to the Americas; first direct voyages from Africa to the Americas followed in the 1520s.

Asiento

Spanish government contract/license giving a nation or company the right to sell enslaved Africans in Spain's American colonies.

1500s-1860s

About 350 years

Number of Africans taken in the Atlantic slave trade

About 12.5 million embarked from Africa; about 10.7 million survived the Middle Passage (SlaveVoyages database)

Number of slave voyages

About 36,000 documented voyages (SlaveVoyages database)

Largest carriers of the slave trade

Portugal/Brazil (about 5.8 million people — almost half), then Britain, France, Spain, the Netherlands, and the United States

Where enslaved Africans were taken

Brazil about 45%; Caribbean about 40% (British, French, Spanish, Dutch colonies); Spanish mainland America about 5%; North America (future U.S.) only about 3-4% (about 390,000 people)

Brazil

Portuguese colony and the single largest destination of enslaved Africans (about 4.9 million); sugar plantations (engenhos), later gold mines and coffee; last nation in the Americas to abolish slavery (1888)

Engenho

Sugar mill and plantation in Brazil

Bilateral trade (Brazil-Angola)

Direct two-way trade between Brazil and Angola that skipped Europe — Brazilian tobacco and cachaça (rum) traded for enslaved Africans

Palmares

Largest quilombo (maroon community) in Brazil (1600s); thousands of escaped Africans; led by Zumbi; destroyed by the Portuguese in 1694-1695

Quilombo / Maroons

Communities of people who escaped slavery (quilombos in Brazil; Maroons in Jamaica, Suriname, and elsewhere)

Golden Law (Lei Áurea), 1888

Law that abolished slavery in Brazil — the last country in the Americas to do so

Caribbean sugar islands

Barbados, Jamaica (English), Saint-Domingue (French), Cuba (Spanish); extremely deadly sugar work meant planters constantly imported new Africans

Barbados

English colony that switched to sugar in the 1640s with enslaved African labor; became the model for English slave colonies (and for South Carolina); where Equiano first landed

Saint-Domingue / Haitian Revolution (1791-1804)

Richest French sugar colony; enslaved Africans revolted and created Haiti, the first Black republic and first nation to permanently abolish slavery

Seasoning

Period (1-3 years) in the Caribbean when newly arrived Africans were 'broken in' to plantation labor; very high death rate — as many as a third died

San Miguel de Gualdape (1526)

Spanish settlement in present-day Georgia/South Carolina; enslaved Africans revolted and escaped — first known slave revolt in North America

St. Augustine, Florida (1565)

Spanish town, oldest European city in the U.S.; enslaved and free Africans were present from the start

1619 - Point Comfort, Virginia

'20 and odd' Africans arrived in English Virginia aboard the White Lion; they were Kimbundu-speaking people from Ndongo (Angola), stolen from the Portuguese slave ship São João Bautista

Indentured servants vs. slaves

Early Virginia: many laborers (Black and white) were indentured servants who worked for a set number of years and then were freed; over the 1600s, laws made slavery permanent and race-based for Africans

1662 Virginia law (partus sequitur ventrem)

A child's status followed the mother — children of enslaved women were born enslaved; made slavery hereditary

Bacon's Rebellion (1676)

Revolt in Virginia of poor whites and Black servants; afterward planters relied more on enslaved Africans and passed laws dividing workers by race

Tobacco

Main slave-labor crop of the Chesapeake (Virginia, Maryland)

Rice in the Low Country

South Carolina/Georgia rice plantations depended on the knowledge of enslaved Africans from rice-growing regions (Senegambia, Sierra Leone/Windward Coast)

Gullah Geechee

Descendants of enslaved Africans in the coastal Carolinas and Georgia who kept a distinct African-influenced language and culture

Stono Rebellion (1739)

Largest slave revolt in the British mainland colonies (South Carolina); led by Kongolese Africans trying to reach freedom in Spanish Florida

Fort Mose (1738)

Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, near St. Augustine, Florida; first legally free Black settlement in North America, made up of people who escaped slavery in the Carolinas

Natural increase in North America

Although North America received only about 390,000 Africans, the enslaved population grew to about 4 million by 1860 because births outnumbered deaths — unlike the Caribbean and Brazil

1807/1808 - end of legal trade

Britain abolished its slave trade in 1807; the U.S. banned importing enslaved people starting January 1, 1808 — but illegal smuggling continued

Second Middle Passage (domestic slave trade)

After 1808, about 1 million enslaved people in the U.S. were sold and forced to move from the Upper South to the cotton plantations of the Deep South, separating families

Abolition of slavery in the Americas

Haiti 1804; British colonies 1834-1838; U.S. 1865 (13th Amendment); Cuba 1886; Brazil 1888 (last)

How Africans were enslaved for the Atlantic trade

Captured in wars, raids, and kidnappings (like Equiano), or enslaved as punishment for crimes or debt; then sold by African rulers and merchants to European traders

African states involved in the slave trade

Some kingdoms grew powerful selling captives for guns and goods — e.g., Dahomey, Asante, Oyo; others resisted or were weakened, like Kongo

Queen Nzinga (Njinga) of Ndongo and Matamba

17th-century Central African queen (modern Angola) who fought and negotiated against the Portuguese slave trade for decades

What Europeans traded for enslaved Africans

Textiles (cloth), guns and gunpowder, alcohol (rum, brandy), iron bars, copper, beads, and cowrie shells (used as money)

Triangular trade

1) Europe → Africa: manufactured goods (cloth, guns, alcohol); 2) Africa → Americas: enslaved Africans (Middle Passage); 3) Americas → Europe: sugar, tobacco, cotton, rum, molasses

Coffle

Line of captives chained or yoked together at the neck, marched from the interior to the coast — could take weeks or months

Barracoon

Holding pen or prison near the coast where captives were kept until a slave ship bought them

Slave forts/castles

European forts on the West African coast that held captives in dungeons, sometimes for months; e.g., Elmina Castle and Cape Coast Castle (Ghana), Gorée Island (Senegal), Bunce Island (Sierra Leone)

Door of No Return

Doorway in slave forts (famous at Gorée Island and Cape Coast Castle) through which captives were led onto ships, never to see Africa again

Gorée Island

Island off Dakar, Senegal; site of the 'House of Slaves' and its 'Door of No Return'; symbol of the Atlantic slave trade

Branding

Captives were often branded with a hot iron to show which merchant or company owned them

Main regions of embarkation in Africa

Senegambia, Sierra Leone, Windward Coast, Gold Coast, Bight of Benin ('Slave Coast'), Bight of Biafra, West Central Africa (Kongo/Angola), Southeast Africa (Mozambique)

West Central Africa (Kongo/Angola)

Largest source region of the Atlantic slave trade — almost half of all captives; mostly shipped by the Portuguese to Brazil

Luanda (Angola)

Portuguese port; the largest single port of embarkation in the entire Atlantic slave trade

Ouidah

Major slave port on the Bight of Benin ('Slave Coast'), controlled by the Kingdom of Dahomey

Bight of Biafra

Region near the Niger Delta (modern southeastern Nigeria); home of the Igbo people; Equiano said he came from here

Gold Coast

Coast of modern Ghana; named for its gold trade; site of Elmina and Cape Coast Castles

Middle Passage

Voyage across the Atlantic from Africa to the Americas aboard a slave ship — the second leg of the triangular trade

Length of the Middle Passage

Usually 1-3 months (often about 6-8 weeks); Angola to Brazil could be about 1 month; to North America took longer

Conditions below deck

Men chained in pairs by the ankles and packed onto shelves with less space than a coffin; little air, extreme heat, filth, vomit, and human waste; women and children kept separately and usually not chained

Loose packing

Tight packers crammed in as many captives as possible, expecting more deaths but more profit; loose packers carried fewer, hoping more would survive

The Brooks (1788 diagram)

British slave ship diagram showing 454 people packed into the hold (it had once carried over 600); used by abolitionists to show the horror of the Middle Passage

Dolben Act (1788)

British law that limited how many enslaved people a ship could carry based on its size — first law regulating the slave trade

"Dancing the slaves"

Captives were forced onto the deck to exercise (often "dance" under the whip) to keep them alive and sellable

Force-feeding

Captives who refused to eat were whipped or force-fed using tools like the speculum oris, which pried mouths open

Diseases of the Middle Passage

Dysentery ("bloody flux"), smallpox, scurvy, fevers, and dehydration

Death rate of the Middle Passage

About 12-15% of captives died on average (about 1.8 million people total); much higher on some voyages; bodies were thrown overboard and sharks followed the ships