8.7Why were Europeans interested in Africa? Case study: Slave Trade
In the 1500s, Europeans began to view African slaves as the most valuable item of African trade. Slavery had existed in Africa, as elsewhere around the world, since ancient times. Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Persians, Indians, and Aztecs often enslaved defeated foes. Our word slave comes from the large number of Slavs, taken from southern Russia, to work as unpaid laborers in Roman times. The Arab empire also used slave labor, often captives taken from Africa. In the Middle East, many enslaved Africans worked on farming estates or large-scale irrigation projects. Others became artisans, soldiers, or merchants.
The Atlantic slave trade began in the 1500s, when Europeans began buying large numbers of Africans to satisfy the labor shortage on American plantations, or large estates. Many of the indigenous peoples were dying from diseases brought over from Europe. Africans were used as replacements because they had experience with agriculture and keeping cattle, they were used to a tropical climate, and they were resistant to tropical diseases. In the next 300 years, the slave trade grew into a huge and profitable business. Each year, traders shipped tens of thousands of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic to work on tobacco and sugar plantations in the Americas.
Europeans seldom took part in slave raids. Instead, they relied on African traders to bring captives from the interior to coastal trading ports. There, the captives were exchanged for textiles, metalwork, rum, tobacco, weapons, and gunpowder.
Once purchased, Africans were packed below the decks of slave ships. For enslaved Africans, this voyage was a horror. Hundreds of men, women and children were crammed into a single vessel. Slave ships became “floating coffins” on which up to half the Africans on board died from disease or brutal mistreatment. Sometimes, enslaved Africans committed suicide by leaping overboard. Others tried to seize control of the ship and return to Africa.
The Europeans called the voyage of slaves from Africa to the Americas the Middle Passage. It was part of a three-legged network that 1) sent raw materials such as cotton, sugar, tobacco, molasses and rum from the slave-labor plantations from the Americas to Europe, 2) slaves from Africa to the Americas, and 3) manufactured goods including beads, textiles, brandy, and guns from Europe to Africa. This trade was also sometimes referred to as “triangular trade” because the sea routes among these three continents formed vast triangles.
As a result of the slave trade, five times as many Africans arrived in the Americas than Europeans. Slaves were needed on plantations and for mines and the majority was shipped to Brazil, the Caribbean, and the Spanish Empire. Less than 5% traveled to the Northern American States formally held by the British. By the 1800s, when the slave trade ended, an estimated 11 million Africans had been sent to the Americas. The slave trade caused local wars to develop in Africa. As a result, traditional African political structures were undermined. Through slavery, many African societies were deprived of the talents of strong, intelligent people. West Africa especially lost many young men and women. Some societies and small states disappeared forever. Other states formed, some of them dependent on the slave trade.
8.7Why were Europeans interested in Africa? Case study: Slave Trade
Do Now: Look at the image and 1) describe what you see, and 2) write your thoughts about the image.
List the examples of slavery in history. (paragraph 1)
Why did Europeans enslave Africans? (paragraph 2)
How did Europeans get slaves from Africa? (paragraph 3)
What was the slaves’ voyage to the Americas like? (paragraph 4)
Define Middle Passage and triangular trade. (paragraph 5)
Middle Passage
Triangular trade
What were the results of the slave trade? (paragraph 6)