#10, Africa and the Atlantic Slave Trade

Argument of lecture #10, Africa and the Atlantic Slave Trade

American slavery severed many of the kinship bonds that formed African peoples' social identities. And yet, African and African-descended peoples formed new communities, and occasionally reconstituted older kinship structures, as slaves in the Americas.

Kinship

A web of relations that bound people together, and its absence could mean one was a slave in some cultures.

African Slavery

In Africa, slaves were still people, not property

1. Enslaved status could be impermanent

2. Certain slaves performed important jobs

The Middle Passage

Enslaved Africans' Atlantic voyage

i. terror, characterized by overcrowding, disease, & abuse

ii. condemned African captives to social death - decisive break w/kin

iii. shared suffering forged new bonds, began creation of new kin groups

The Atlantic World

A historical concept referring to the interconnected systems of Europe, Africa, and the Americas (North and South America, including the Caribbean) that developed after the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492.

The Slave Community

i. Reconstituted African kinship structures in Americas

ii. African religions & cosmologies survived the Middle Passage

iii. Healing rituals - calundú

Calundú

An African-derived religious practice

The Stono Rebellion

In 1739 South Carolina, The Stono Rebellions, the largest slave insurrection in British North American, began nearby on September 9, 1739. About 20 Africans raided a store near Wallace Creek, a branch of the Stono River. Taking guns and other weapons, they killed two shopkeepers. the rebels marched south toward promsied freedom in Spanich Florida, waving flags, beating drums, and shouting "Liberty!"

When does the Atlantic Slave Trade date back to?

The Atlantic slave trade dates back to the 1440s, when Portuguese sailors landed in West Africa

When did the first African Slave ship cross the Atlantic

The first African slave ship crossed the Atlantic in 1518, beginning 350 years of horror and misery

How many slaves did the Europeans enslave

Europeans enslaved and transported between 11 & 12 million people across the ocean.

•Approximately 2 million enslaved people died en-route

•Another 2 million died in slave-raiding wars in West Africa before boarding a ship

Kinship Slavery

What defined enslaved people in Africa was their lack of kinship ties

i. Slavery severed people from old kin groups & incorporated them into new ones

ii. Slaves occupied subordinate position w/in kin group—but were considered kin

iii. Slaves could assimilate (often by birthing children and growing kin group)