Chapter 20 Introduction• While much of Africa followed its own line of development

between the 15th and 19th centuries, the rise of the West and the Western-dominated economy was a powerful force in influencing African history

• The Atlantic slave trade predominated the economic affairs by the mid 17th century, and the forced removal of Africans had a major effect in some African regions and was a primary factor contributing to the nature of new world populations, with African strands becoming important in the development of American civilizations

• Despite the rise in the West and the slave trade, nearly all of Africa remained politically independent and culturally autonomous

• Islam consolidated its position in sub-Saharan and East Africa, and many independent states formed and expanded.

I) The Atlantic Slave Trade• The Portuguese established trading forts (factories)

along the African coast to receive gold from the interior, most with the approval of African authorities. The most important was El Mina (1482).

• Portuguese and Afro-Portuguese traders (lancados) followed routes to the interior to open up new markets, and missionary efforts followed, especially to the powerful states of Benin and Kongo. King Nzinga Mvemba of the Kongo accepted Christianity and sought to introduce European influences to his state.

• The Africans tried to fit European concepts they found useful, while the Europeans regarded the Africans as pagan savages who could adopt civilized behavior and convert to Christianity.

I) The Atlantic Slave Trade• Eventually slavery became the principal focus of

relationships with the development of sugar plantations and the reason for the limited success of the policies.

• The Portuguese continued southward with few permanent settlements such as Luanda in 1570, which later became the basis for the colony of Angola.

• Other European nations followed the Portuguese trading patterns, with a combination of force and diplomacy set up the predominant commercial relations with Africa.

a) Trend Toward Expansion• About 12 million Africans were shipped across the

Atlantic between 1450 and 1850, with 4 million killed in the initial raid and march to the coast, another 2 million dying in route called the middle passage.

• 80% of the slaves came in the last two centuries, with 40% of all slaves reaching America going to Brazil

• The high volume was needed because of high slave mortality, only in the southern United States did the slaves have a positive growth rate.

• Muslim slave trade in trans-Sahara, Red Sea and East Africa added 3 million more individuals to the total.

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b) Demographic Patterns• The slave trade to the Islamic world carried mostly

woman for sexual and domestic employment, while the Atlantic trade concentrated on young men for hard labor.

• African societies who sold slaves might keep woman and children for their own use, and skewed the balance of sexes in western and central Africa remaining so that the population was only ½ of what it might have been if the men stayed.

• The introduction of American crops such as maize and manioc helped suffering regions recover from the population loss.

c) Organization of the Trade• The Portuguese were the principal supplier of slaves until 1630,

when the Dutch seized El Mina and became competitors. By 1660 the English were eager to have their own source of slaves for their growing colonies in Barbados, Jamaica and Virginia, and the Royal African Company was chartered for that purpose.

• The French became major carriers in the 18th century, and even small European nations like Denmark had agents and forts on the African coast.

• European agents often had to deal directly with local rulers, paying a tax or offering gifts, and various forms of currency were used, such as iron bars, brass rings and cowrie shells.

• The Spanish developed a complicated system where a healthy man was called an Indies piece, and children and women were valued at fractions of that.

c) Organization of the Trade• Tropical diseases caused European residents and ship crews

high mortality rates.• Slaves arrived at the coast as a result of warfare and of

purchase from indigenous traders.• There have been arguments over the profitability of the slave

trade, but it surely contributed to the emerging Atlantic capitalism, while at the same time making African economies dependent on European trade and linked to the world economy.

• During some periods a triangular trade existed in which slaves were carried to the Americas; sugar, tobacco, and other goods then carried to Europe; and European products were sent to the coast of Africa to begin the triangle again.

• Individual voyages certainly did bring profits to merchants and specialized ports, but considerable risks were involved.

II) African Societies, Slavery, and the Slave Trade

• The Atlantic trade transformed African patterns of slavery.• Previously Africans had developed many forms of servitude in

their non-egalitarian societies, where slaves were an important way for individuals and lineages to gain wealth and status.

• Slaves held many occupations, and their treatment ranged from benign where they were incorporated into kinship systems to severe economic and social exploitation.

• The Atlantic trade opened new opportunities to slave-holding societies for expansion and intensification of slavery.

• Enslavement of women was central to African society and the Sudanic states had introduced Islamic concepts of slavery.

• The existence of slavery allowed the Europeans to mobilize commerce in slaves by tapping existing structures with the assistance of interested African rulers.

a) Slaving and African Politics- Most of the states of western and central Africa were

small and unstable, and the continuing wars elevated the importance of the military and promoted the slave trade.

- As a result of the presence of the Europeans along the western coast, there was a shift of the locus of African power.

- Inland states close to the coast were free of direct European influence, and became intermediaries in the slave trade and expanded their influence through their access to European firearms.

b) Asante and Dahomey- The empire of Asante among the Akan people

developed into an important state during the slave trade era, lying between the coast and the inland Hausa and Mande trading regions

- The Asante gained access to firearms after 1650, and began dealing directly with the Dutch. Under the vigorous rule of Osei Tutu, the title asantehene was created to designate the supreme civil and religious leader.

- Through control of gold-producing regions and slaves, Asante remained dominant in the Gold Coast until the 1820’s.

b) Asante and Dahomey- The state of Benin was at its height when the

Europeans arrived, controlling trade with the Europeans but slaves were never a primary commodity

- The kingdom of Dahomey was different, where access to firearms led to an autocratic regime based on trading slaves that lasted until the 19th century

- Too much emphasis on the slave trade obscured creative processes that occurred in other African states, where art, crafts, weaving and wood carving flourished in many regions, such as the Benin and Yoruba wood and ivory sculptures.

c) East Africa and Sudan- Swahili trading towns on Africa's east coast continued a

commerce of ivory, gold and slaves for Middle Eastern markets.- Much less is known about the interior of eastern Africa. In the

interior, African people created important states such as in Bunyoro, where the a Nilotic group of people called the Luo constructed a dynasty in an area of large lakes in east central Africa.

- The Buganda ruled a heterogeneous population with a strong monarchy near Lake Victoria.

- In western Africa and in the northern savanna , the process of Islamization was linked with the growing external slave trade. Religious brotherhoods advocating a purifying Sufi form of Islam extended their influence, having an intense influence on the Fulani, a pastoral people who were spread across a broad area of western Sudan.

c) East Africa and Sudan- Songhay broke up in the 16th century and in 1804

Uthman Dan Fodio inspired a religious revelation that won control over most of the Hausa states.

- A new and powerful kingdom developed at Sokoto under a caliph, whose authority was established over cities such as Kano and Zaria, and whose rulers became emirs.

- By 1840 the cultural and social change of the effects of Islamization were widely felt in the west African interior, as many war captives were dispatched to the coast or across the Sahara for the slave trade.

III) White Settlers and Africans in Southern Africa

- Bantu-speaking people occupied the eastern regions of southern Africa by the 16th century, where they practiced agriculture, herding, worked iron and copper, and traded with neighbors.

- The Dutch established a colony at Cape Town in 1652, and the settlers (Boers) developed large estates worked by slaves.

- Colonial expansion led to successful wars against the San, Khoikhoi, and Bantu.

- Britain occupied the Dutch colony in 1795 and tried unsuccessfully to limit Afrikaner expansion, because Boers staged a great trek far to the north as they escaped beyond colonial boundaries and formed autonomous states.

a) The Mfecane and the Zulu Rise to Power

- A new leader Shaka (1818-1828) gained authority among the Nguni, creating a formable military force of regiments organized on lineage and age lines.

- Shaka’s Zulu chiefdom became the center of a new political and military organization that destroyed rivals.

- The rise of the Zulu and other Nguni chiefdoms marked the beginning of Mfecane, or time of wars and wandering.

- Defeated people used Zulu tactics to create new states, such as the Swazi and Lesotho.

- The Afrikaners superior firepower allowed them to hold on to their lands.

- The basic patterns of conflict took form in 1870 when the British were able to defeat the Zulus.

b) In Depth: Slavery and Human Society

- Slavery has existed in both complex and simpler societies from the earliest of times.

- Coerced labor took different forms; indentured servants, convict laborers, debt peons, chattel slaves.

- It was easier to enslave people outside one’s own society, to exploit differences in culture, language and color.

- The attitude of Europeans and non-African Muslims contributed to the development of modern racism.

- An important turning point in history was the campaign against slavery that grew from Enlightenment ideas.

- African slavery was important in shaping the modern world, it assisted the development of capitalism and debate continues about the effect the trade had on both African and American society.

IV) The African Diaspora- Slaves came in large enough numbers to the

Americas to become an important segment of the New World populations

- African cultures adapted to their new physical and social environments

- The slave trade linked Africa and the Americas and was the principal way in which African societies joined the world economy.

- Africans participating in the commerce dealt effectively with the new conditions, using wealth and knowledge gained to advance their states.

a) Slave Lives

- The slave trade killed millions of Africans and family and community relationships were destroyed

- As many as 1/3 of the captives may have died on their way to shipping ports, and shipboard mortality reached about 18%.

- The trauma of the Middle Passage did not strip Africans of their culture and they interjected it into the New World.

b) Africans in the Americas- African slaves crossed the Atlantic to work in New

World plantations and mines.- The plantation system developed on the Atlantic

islands was transferred to the Americas.- Africans quickly replaced Indians and indentured

Europeans as agricultural laborers.- Slaves also mined gold and silver and labored in many

urban occupations- Africans outnumbered Europeans in early 17th century

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c) American Slave Societies- A social hierarchy developed in all American slave societies,

with whites at the top, slaves at the bottom, and free people of color in-between. Among slaves, owners created a hierarchy based on origin and color. African born saltwater slaves and their American born descendants, called Creole slaves, some of who were mulatto because of sexual exploitation of slave women, tended to divide the community.

- Despite pressures, slaves retained their own social perceptions, there is evidence African nobles or religious leaders continued to exercise authority and many slave rebellions were organized on ethnic and political lines.

- Africans formed the overwhelming majority of the population on Caribbean islands where the mortality rate was high. Brazil had a much more diverse population because many slaves were freed, so free people of color and slaves were equal (35%).

- The southern British North American colonies differed in that they had a positive growth rate, therefore slavery was less influenced by African ways.

d) People and Gods in Exile- Africans worked in harsh conditions and the limited number of

women brought overseas limited opportunities for family life.- Many aspects of African culture survived, especially when a

region had many slaves from one African grouping.- African culture was dynamic and creative, often incorporating

customs that assisted survival with their master’s ethnicity.- Religion is an example, African beliefs mixed with Christianity,

or survived independently, such as in the English islands (obeath), Brazil (candomble) or Haitian (vodun), which continue today despite efforts to suppress them.

• Muslim Africans tried to hold on to their beliefs, and organized a major slave uprising in 1835.

• Resistance to slavery was a common occurrence, several slaves ran away and many formed lasting independent communities, such as the 17th century Palmares in Brazil under Angolan leadership which grew to a population of 10,000. In Suriname runaway slaves formed a still existing community with a culture fusing West Africa, Indian, and European elements.

e) The End of the Slave trade and Abolition of Slavery

• The continued flourishing of slave based economies in Africa and America made it difficult to end the slave trade.

• Africans had economic alternatives, but they did not affect the supply of slaves

• The influences for causing the end of slavery were external to Africa, Enlightenment thinkers during the 18th century condemned the slave trade as immoral and cruel.

• The abolitionist movement gained strength in England under the leadership of religious humanitarians such as John Wesley and William Wilberforce, and won the abolition of the slave trade in Britain in 1807. The British then pressured other nations to follow course, although the final end of New World slavery did not come until Brazilian abolition in 1888.

f) Global Connection: Africa and the African Diaspora in World Context

• Africa entered the world economy in the slave-trade era.

• Its incorporation produced differing effects on African societies, but many societies had to adapt in ways that placed them at a disadvantage that facilitated later loss of independence during the 19th century.

• The legacy of the slave trade lingered into the 20th century as European rulers practiced forced labor policies.