African Slave Trades: Trans-Saharan, Arab, and Transatlantic – Comparative Lecture

30 vocabulary flashcards covering routes, concepts, demographics, economics, ideology, resistance, and key statistics of the Trans-Saharan, Arab, and Transatlantic slave trades.

Trans-Saharan Slave Trade

Millennium-long traffic moving captives across the Sahara into North Africa, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East.

Red Sea & Indian Ocean Slave Routes

Corridors that transported enslaved East Africans from the Swahili coast to Arabia, Persia, and South Asia.

Arab / Islamic Slave Trade

Collective term for Trans-Saharan and Indian-Ocean systems dominated by Muslim merchants from ca. 700–1900.

Atlantic (Transatlantic) Slave Trade

15th–19th-century oceanic transport of African captives to the Americas by European powers; ~11.7 million embarked.

Bight of Benin

West African coastline that served as a major embarkation zone for Atlantic slaving ships.

Middle Passage

Deadly Atlantic crossing marked by overcrowding, disease, abuse, and high mortality among the enslaved.

Chattel Slavery

System in which people are legally treated as movable property; status is hereditary through the maternal line.

Manumission

Legal act of freeing a slave; possible in Islamic contexts through purchase, owner grant, or other avenues.

Eunuch

Castrated male slave, often employed as harem guard or palace servant in Islamic societies.

Plantation Complex

Large-scale agricultural system (sugar, cotton, etc.) in the Americas that relied on brutal coerced labor.

Gender Composition (Slave Trades)

Islamic trades were female-heavy; Atlantic trade was male-heavy, extracting many young African men.

Triangular Trade

Three-leg Atlantic circuit: Africa→Americas (slaves), Americas→Europe (raw goods), Europe→Africa/Americas (manufactures, weapons).

Industrial Revolution (Slave Link)

European industrial growth financed by profits from slave-produced commodities and trade.

Racism (Atlantic Era Origins)

Pseudo-scientific hierarchies developed to justify perpetual African enslavement and persist today.

Abolitionist Movement

19th-century campaign to end slavery; used moral, religious, and economic arguments.

"Am I Not a Man and a Brother?"

Iconic abolitionist image appealing to empathy and common humanity of enslaved men.

Slave-Export States

African polities (e.g., Benin) that militarized and reoriented economies toward capturing and selling captives.

Demographic Drain

Loss of millions of Africans—especially young men—reducing population growth and altering social structures.

Coastal Slave Forts

European fortified trade posts used to store captives and defend slaving interests along the African coast.

African Middlemen

Local rulers and merchants who captured or bought captives inland and sold them to coastal Europeans.

British West Africa Squadron

Royal Navy unit (1808–1870s) tasked with intercepting illegal slave ships off Africa’s west coast.

Sierra Leone

British colony founded partly as a settlement for freed slaves and as a base to suppress the trade.

Liberia

West African state established by the American Colonization Society for formerly enslaved African Americans.

Shipboard Revolts

Uprisings by enslaved Africans during voyages, demonstrating constant resistance to captivity.

Humanitarian Imperialism

Use of anti-slavery rhetoric by European powers to justify deeper colonial control in 19th-century Africa.

Mamluk Traditions

Islamic practice where enslaved soldiers could rise to high military or political office.

Concubinage

Use of enslaved women as secondary wives or sexual servants, common in Islamic slave systems.

Cowrie Shells

Sea-shell currency exported from Europe to Africa to purchase captives in the triangular trade.

Firearms-for-Slaves Trade

Exchange of European guns for captives, fuelling warfare and raiding within Africa.

Comparative Slave Numbers

≈7.22 million removed via Trans-Saharan & Red Sea routes versus ≈11.70 million via the Atlantic, totaling >18 million.