9/11 Lecture 5: Atlantic Slave 1

Overview: Birth of the Atlantic World

In 1492, the Early Modern Atlantic was born.
After 1492, sailing ships connected distant parts of the Atlantic in new and dynamic ways.
As people, trade goods, and ideas flowed across the ocean, African, American, and European cultures and economies were radically reshaped.
- a) American Indians would die in tremendous numbers from diseases and wars.
- b) Europeans would colonize much of the Americas and establish plantations that produced exports for Old World metropoles.
- c) Blacks would labor on those plantations as Europe shipped what ultimately was over 12.5\times 10^6$ enslaved Africans.
The Atlantic slave trade was the largest forced migration in human history.
Before 1820, about \approx \frac{3}{4} of all people arriving in the New World came from Africa.

Discuss the historical significance of the rise of the Atlantic slave trade in modern world history.
Examine how the nature and size of the trade expanded after 1750 and why.
Explore why Africans were targeted for enslavement.

Portuguese sailing ships first reached the West African coast in the 1440s.
By the 1480s, the Portuguese discovered the uninhabited equatorial islands of Principe and São Tomé.
In the early 16th century, São Tomé became the largest single producer of sugar for the European market.
In the early 15th and 16th centuries, Senegambia shipped slaves to farms and plantations in Southern Spain and Portugal.
The first African captives to be taken directly across the Atlantic to the New World were transported in 1532.

The map shows eight principal regions of activity and ports of embarkation (based on The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade: A Database on CD-ROM, Cambridge, 1999).
Key areas include: Principe/São Tomé (sugar), Gorée Island, Cape Coast/Elmina on the Gold Coast, Benin Coast (Lagos, Badagry, Abomey, Oyo, Dahomey), Kalabar (Cross River), Bonny, Whydah, Bight of Benin, Bight of Biafra, Sierra Leone, Windward Coast, Senegambia, Gambia, and others.
Major coasts and kingdoms involved: Gold Coast, Slave Coast, Benin, Kano-like inland groups, Fanti, Akan, Yoruba, Mande (e.g., Bamara/Mandinka), Ashanti, Krobo, Bonny, Efik/Kalabari, Kongo, Loango, Cabinda, Ndongo/Luanda region in Angola, and others.
Notable ports and fortifications: Gorée, Elmina Castle, Cape Coast Castle, Fort James (on the Gold Coast), Annamabu, Bonny, Calabar, Whydah, Old Calabar, Benin, Lagos, Accra, Abomey/Daomhey (Dahomey).
Geographical note: West Africa includes the Bights (Benin, Biafra) and the Gold Coast region, extending to the Windward Coast and Senegambia; the map also marks the broader West Central Africa zone (Congo, Angola, Loango, Cabinda).

Western Sahara, Mauritania; Senegambia; Gambia; Windward Coast; Upper Niger; Mali; Guinea; Sierra Leone; Liberia; Ivory Coast; Gold Coast; Benin Coast; Lagos; Delta regions; Central Africa zones (Congo, Cabinda, Angola coast).
Slave routes linked West Africa to the Americas (Caribbean, Brazil, Spanish Main, British/North American ports) and to Europe via various outposts.
Notable embarkation and destination patterns include: Cape Coast/Elmina and the Gold Coast; Benin Coast; Lagos; Bonny; Bight of Biafra; Bight of Benin; Senegambia; Sierra Leone; Angola and the Congo for Southwestern African routes.

The map displays areas of national domination by European powers (British, Portuguese, French, etc.).
Origin of Africans in North America (percentages shown):
- Angola: 37\%
- Bight of Biafra: 15\%
- Senegambia: 4\%
- Sierra Leone: 9\%
- Gold Coast: 12\%$$
- Other regions combine to form the remainder.
These figures reflect the geographic sources of enslaved Africans transported to North America during the transatlantic trade.

Quote (Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery):
- "Slavery was not born of racism: rather racism was the consequence of slavery… The origin of Negro slavery was economic, not racial; it had to do not with the color of the laborer, but the cheapness of the labor."
Williams argues that enslaved labor was readily available in West Africa and that transportation costs/proximity influenced supply.

Winthrop Jordan emphasizes the intellectual and psychological roots of slavery’s racism.
Over time, religious, physical, and cultural differences between Africans and Europeans came to be perceived primarily in terms of appearance and color.
Source: Winthrop D. Jordan, "The Simultaneous Invention of Slavery and Racism".

It is simplistic to attribute the emergence of slavery and racialization to a single grand plan.
The Africanization of large parts of the New World resulted from numerous local and pragmatic choices rather than a single deterministic design.
Source: David Brion Davis, Sugar and Slavery.

The Atlantic slave trade transformed Africans and American societies.
Warfare and violence contributed to political and social fragmentation.
Millions of Africans were treated as commodities.
The introduction of commodities from Europe and the Americas altered consumption patterns.
Economically, West and West Central Africa were transformed into dependencies of Europe and American plantation societies.
Resulting social formations were hybrid, shaped by cross-cultural encounters and forced labor.

Atlantic World: the interconnected economies, cultures, and histories created by Atlantic trade and exchange.
Transatlantic Slave Trade: the forced movement of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic to the Americas.
Plantations: large agricultural estates in the Americas producing cash crops using enslaved labor.
Gold Coast, Slave Coast, Bight of Benin, Bight of Biafra: major West African coastal zones involved in the slave trade.
Gorée, Elmina Castle, Cape Coast Castle: key slave-trading forts along the West African coast.
São Tomé and Principe: early European sugar islands that increased demand for enslaved labor.
Economic vs racial explanations: debate about whether slavery originated from economic incentives or racial ideology (Williams vs. Jordan/Davis).
Hybrid societies: social formations arising from the mingling of African, European, and Indigenous American populations under conditions of slavery.