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Atlantic slavery and the slave trade: history and historiography.

Daniel B. Domingues da Silva Daniel B. Domingues da Silva History Department, Rice University
and Philip Misevich Philip Misevich Department of History, St. John’s University
https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.371
Published online: 20 November 2018

Over the past six decades, the historiography of Atlantic slavery and the slave trade has shown remarkable growth and sophistication. Historians have marshalled a vast array of sources and offered rich and compelling explanations for these two great tragedies in human history. The survey of this vibrant scholarly tradition throws light on major theoretical and interpretive shifts over time and indicates potential new pathways for future research. While early scholarly efforts have assessed plantation slavery in particular on the antebellum United States South, new voices—those of Western women inspired by the feminist movement and non-Western men and women who began entering academia in larger numbers over the second half of the 20th century—revolutionized views of slavery across time and space. The introduction of new methodological approaches to the field, particularly through dialogue between scholars who engage in quantitative analysis and those who privilege social history sources that are more revealing of lived experiences, has conditioned the types of questions and arguments about slavery and the slave trade that the field has generated. Finally, digital approaches had a significant impact on the field, opening new possibilities to assess and share data from around the world and helping foster an increasingly global conversation about the causes, consequences, and integration of slave systems. No synthesis will ever cover all the details of these thriving subjects of study and, judging from the passionate debates that continue to unfold, interest in the history of slavery and the slave trade is unlikely to fade.

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From the 16th to the mid- 19th century , approximately 12.5 million enslaved Africans were forcibly embarked on slave ships, of whom only 10.7 million survived the notorious Middle Passage. 1 Captives were transported in vessels that flew the colors of several nations, mainly Portugal, Britain, France, Spain, and the Netherlands. Ships departed from ports located in these countries or their overseas possessions, loaded slaves at one or more points along the coast of Africa, and then transported them to one or more ports in the Americas. They sailed along established trade routes shaped by political forces, commercial partnerships, and environmental factors, such as the winds and sea currents. The triangular system is no doubt the most famous route but in fact nearly half of all slaves were embarked on vessels that traveled directly between the Americas and Africa. 2 Africans forced beneath the decks of slave vessels were captured in the continent’s interior through several means. Warfare was, perhaps, the commonest, yielding large numbers of captives for sale at a time. Other methods of enslavement included judicial proceedings, pawning, and kidnappings. 3 Depending on the routes captives traveled and the ways they were captured, Africans could sometimes find themselves in the holds of ships with people who belonged to their same cultures, were from their same villages, or were even close relatives. 4 None of this, however, attenuated the sufferings and appalling conditions under which they sailed. Slaves at sea were subjected to constant confinement, brutal violence, malnutrition, diseases, sexual violence, and many other abuses. 5

Upon arrival in the Americas, Africans often found themselves in equally hostile environments. Slavery in the mining industry and on cash crop plantations, especially those that produced sugar and rice, significantly reduced Africans’ life expectancies and required owners to replenish their labor force through the slave trade. 6 By contrast, slave systems centered on less intensive crops and the services industry, particularly in cities, ports, and towns, often offered enslaved Africans better chances of survival and even the possibility of achieving freedom through manumission by purchase, gift, or inheritance. 7 These apparent advantages did not necessarily mean that life was any less harsh. Neither did the prospect of freedom significantly change slaves’ material lives. Few individuals managed to obtain manumission and those who did encountered many other barriers that prevented them from fully enjoying their lives as free citizens. 8 In spite of those barriers, slaves challenged their status and conditions in many ways, ranging from “quiet” forms of resistance—slowdowns, breaking tools, and feigning illness at work—to bolder initiatives such as running away, plotting conspiracies, and launching rebellions. 9 Although slavery provided little room for autonomy, Africans strove to maintain or replicate aspects of their cultures in the Americas. Whenever possible, they married people with their same backgrounds, named their children in their own languages, cooked foods using techniques, styles, and ingredients similar to those found in their motherlands, composed songs in the beats of their homelands, and worshipped ancestral spirits, deities, and gods in the same fashion as their forbears. 10 At the same time, slave culture was subject to constant change, a process that over the long run enabled enslaved people to better navigate the dangerous world that slavery created. 11

This overview may seem rather free of controversy, but it is in fact the result of years of debates, some still raging, and research conducted by generations of historians of slavery and the slave trade. Perhaps no other historical fields have been so productive and transformative over such a short period of time. Since the 1950s, scholars have developed and refined new methods, created new theoretical models, brought previously untapped sources to light, and posed new questions that shine bright new light on the experiences of enslaved people and their owners as well as the social, political, economic, and cultural worlds that they created in the diaspora. Although debates about Atlantic slavery and the slave trade go back to the era of abolition, historians began grappling in earnest with these issues in the aftermath of World War II. Early scholarship focused on the United States and tended to articulate views of slavery that reflected elite sources and perspectives. 12 Inspired by the US civil rights movement, second-wave feminism, and wider global decolonization campaigns, the 1960s and 1970s witnessed the rise of approaches to the study of slavery rooted in new social history, which aimed to understand slaves as central historical actors rather than mere victims of exploitation. 13 Around the same time, a group of scholars trained in statistical analysis sparked passionate debates about the extent to which quantitative assessments of slavery and slave trading effectively represented slaves’ lived experiences. 14 To more vividly capture those experiences, some historians turned to new or underutilized tools, particularly biographies, family histories, and microhistories, which provided windows into local historical dynamics. 15 The significance of the penetrating questions that these fruitful debates raised has been amplified in recent decades in response to the growing influence of transnational and Atlantic approaches to slavery. Atlantic frameworks have required the gathering and analysis of new data on slavery and the slave trade around the world, encouraging scholars from previously underrepresented regions to challenge Anglo-American dominance in the field. Finally, the digital turn in the 21st century has provided new models for developing historical projects on slavery and the slave trade and helped democratize access to once inaccessible sources. 16 This article draws on this rich history of scholarship on slavery and the slave trade to illustrate major theoretical and interpretive shifts over time and raise questions about the future prospects for this dynamic field of study.

Models of Slavery and Resistance

While each country in the Americas has its own national historiography on slavery, from a 21st-century perspective, it is hard to overestimate the role that US-based scholars played in shaping the agenda of slavery studies. Analyses of American plantation records began around the turn of the 20th century . Early debates emerged in particular over the conditions of slavery in the American South and views of the relationship between slaves and owners. Setting the foundation for these debates in the early- 20th century , Ulrich Bonnell Phillips offered an extraordinarily romanticized vision of life on the plantation. 17 Steeped in open racism, his work compared slave plantations to benevolent schools that over time “civilized” enslaved peoples. Conditioned by the kinds of revisionist interpretations of Southern slavery that emerged in the era following Reconstruction, Phillips saw American slavery as a benign institution that persisted despite its economic inefficiency. His work trivialized the violence inherent in slave systems, a view some Americans were eager to accept and, given his standing among subsequent generations of slavery scholars, one that prevailed in the profession for half of a century.

Early challenges to this view had little immediate impact within academic circles. That primarily black intellectuals, working in or speaking to white-dominated academies, offered many of the most sophisticated objections helps explain the persistence of Phillips’ influence. In the face of looming institutional racism, several scholars offered bold and fresh interpretations that uprooted basic ideas about the slave system. Over his illustrious career, W. E. B. Du Bois highlighted the powerful structural impediments that restricted black lives and brought attention to the dynamic ways that African Americans confronted systematic exploitation. Eric Williams, a noted Trinidadian historian, took aim at the history of abolition, arguing that self-interest—rather than humanitarian concerns—led to the abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire. Melville Herskovitz, a prominent white American anthropologist, turned his attention to the connections between African and African American culture. 18 Though many of these works were marginalized at the time they were produced, this scholarship is rightfully credited with, among other things, shining light on the relationship between African and African American history. Turning their attention to Africa, scholars discovered a variety of cultural practices that, they argued, shaped the black experience under slavery and in its aftermath. Even those scholars who challenged or rejected this Africa-centered approach pushed enslaved people to the center of their analyses, representing a radical departure from previous studies. 19

Similarly, works focused on the history of slavery and the slave trade in other regions of the Americas, especially those colonized by France, Spain, and Portugal, were often overlooked. The economies of many of these regions had historically depended on slave labor. The size of the captive populations of some of them rivaled that of the United States. Moreover, they had been involved in the slave trade for much longer and far more extensively than any other region of what became the United States. Researchers in Brazil, Cuba, and other countries often noticed these points. 20 Some of them, like the Brazilian sociologist Gilberto Freyre, received training in the United States and produced significant research. However, because they published mainly in Portuguese and Spanish, and translations were hard to come by, their work had little initial impact on Anglo-American scholarship. The few scholars who did realize the importance of this work used it to draw comparisons between the Anglophone and non-Anglophone worlds of slavery, highlighting differences in their patterns of colonization and emphasizing the distinctive roles that Catholicism and colonial legal regimes played in shaping slave systems across parts of the Americas. A greater incidence of miscegenation and slaves’ relative accessibility to freedom through manumission led some scholars to argue that slavery in the non-Anglophone New World was milder than in antebellum America or the British colonies. 21

In the United States, the dominant narratives of American slavery continued to emphasize the absolute authority of slave owners. Even critics of Phillips, who emerged in larger numbers in the 1950s and vigorously challenged his conclusions, thought little of slaves’ abilities to effect meaningful change on plantations. Yet they did offer new interpretations of American slavery, as the metaphors scholars used in this decade to characterize the system attest. Far from Phillips’ training school, Kenneth Stampp argued that plantation slavery more appropriately resembled a prison in which enslaved people became completely dependent on their owners. 22 Going even further, Stanley M. Elkins compared American slavery to a concentration camp. 23 The experience of slavery was so traumatic that it stripped enslaved people of their identities and rendered them almost completely helpless. American slavery, in Elkins’ view, turned African Americans into infantilized “Sambos” whose minds and wills came to mirror those of their owners. While such studies drew much needed attention to the violence of plantation slavery, they all but closed the door on questions about slave agency and cultural production. Emphasizing slave autonomy ran the risk of minimizing the brutality of slave owners, and for those scholars trying to overturn Phillips’s vision of American slavery, that brutality was what defined the plantation enterprise.

It took the revolutionary spirit of the 1960s to move slavery studies in a significantly new direction. Driven by their hard-fought battles for political rights at home, African Americans and others whom the civil rights movement inspired added critical new voices and perspectives that required a rethinking of the American past. Scholars who emerged during this period largely rejected the overwhelming authority of the planter class and instead turned their attention to the activities of enslaved people. Slaves, they found, created spaces for themselves and exercised their autonomy on plantations in myriad ways. While they recognized the violence of the slave system, historians of this generation were more interested in assessing the development of black society and identifying resistance to plantation slavery. Far from the brainwashed prisoners of their owners, enslaved people were recast as producers of dynamic and enduring cultures. One key to this transformation was a more careful analysis of what occurred within slave quarters, where new research uncovered the existence of relatively stable—at least under the circumstances—family life. Another emphasized religion as a tool that slaves used to improve their conditions and forge new identities in the diaspora. The immediate post-civil rights period also saw scholars renew their interest in Africa, breathing new life into older debates about the origins and survival of cultural practices in the Americas. 24

What much of the scholarship in this period shared was the idea that no matter how vicious the system, planter power was always incomplete. Recognizing that reality, slaves and their owners established a set of ground rules that granted slaves a degree of autonomy in an attempt to minimize resistance. Beyond mere brutality, slavery thus rested on unwritten but widely understood slave “rights”—Sundays off from plantation labor, the cultivation of private garden plots, participation in an independent slave economy—that both sides negotiated and frequently challenged. This view was central to Eugene Genovese’s magisterial book, Roll Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made , which employed the concept of paternalism to help make sense of 19th-century Southern slavery. 25 Paternalist ideology provided owners with a theoretical justification for slavery’s continuation in the face of widespread criticism from Northern abolitionists. Unlike in the urban North, Southerners claimed, where free African Americans faced deplorable conditions and had little social support, slave owners claimed to take better care of their “black and white” families. Slaves also embraced paternalism, though toward a different end: doing so enabled them to use the idea of the “benevolent planter” to their own advantage and make claims for incremental improvements in slaves’ lives. Slavery, Genovese argued, was thus based on the mutual interdependence of owners and slaves.

The degree of intimacy between slaves and owners that paternalism implied spoke to another question that occupied scholars writing in the 1960s and 1970s: given the violence of the slave system, why had so few large-scale slave rebellions occurred? For Phillips and those whom he influenced, the benevolent nature of Southern slavery provided a sufficient explanation. But undeniable evidence of the violence of slavery required making sense of patterns—or the seeming lack—of slave resistance. Unlike on some Caribbean islands, where slaves far outnumbered free people and environmental and geographic factors tended to concentrate the location of plantations, conditions in the United States were less conducive to widespread rebellion. Yet slaves never passively accepted their captivity. The literature on resistance during this period deemphasized violent forms of rebellion, which occurred infrequently, and reoriented scholarship toward the variety of ways that enslaved people challenged the domination of slave owners over them. Having adjusted their lenses, historians found evidence of slave resistance seemingly everywhere. Enslaved people slowed the paces at which they worked, feigned illnesses, broke tools, and injured or let escape animals on plantations. Such “day-to-day” resistance did little to overturn slavery but it gave some control to captives over their work regimes. In some cases, slaves acted even more boldly, committing arson or poisoning those men and women responsible for upholding the system of bondage. Resistance also took the form of running away, a strategy that long preceded the famous Underground Railroad in North America and posed unique problems in territories with unsettled frontiers, unfriendly environmental terrain, and diverse indigenous populations into which fleeing captives could integrate. 26

This shift in scholarship toward slave agency and resistance was anchored in the creative use of sources that had previously been unknown or underappreciated. Although they had long recognized the shortcomings of Phillips’s reliance on records from a limited number of large plantations, historians struggled to find better options, particularly those that shed light on the experiences and perspectives of enslaved people. Slave biographies provided one alternative. In the 1970s, John Blassingame gathered an exhaustive collection of runaway slave accounts to examine the life experiences of American slaves. 27 Whether such biographies spoke to the majority of slaves or represented a few exceptional black men became the subject of considerable disagreement. Scholars who were less trusting of biographies turned to the large collection of interviews that the Federal Writers’ Project of the Works Progress Administration conducted with former slaves. 28 Though far more numerous and representative of “typical” slave experiences, the WPA interviews had their own problems. Would former slaves have been comfortable speaking freely to primarily white interviewers about their lives in bondage? The question remains open. Equally pressing was the concern over the amount of time that had passed between the end of slavery and the period when the interviews were conducted. Indeed, some two-thirds of interviewees were octogenarians when federal employees recorded their stories. Despite such shortcomings, these sources and the new interpretations of slavery that they supported pushed scholarship in exciting new directions. Slaves could no longer be dismissed as passive victims of the plantation system. The new sources and approaches humanized them and reoriented scholarship toward the communities that slaves made.

Across the Atlantic, scholars of Africa began to grapple in earnest with questions about slavery, too. Early contributions to debates over the role of the institution in Africa and its impact on African societies came from historians and anthropologists. One strand of disagreement emerged over whether slavery existed there at all prior to the arrival of Europeans. This raised more fundamental questions about how to define slavery. The influential introduction to Suzanne Miers and Igor Kopytoff’s edited volume, Slavery in Africa: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives , took pains to distinguish African slavery from its American counterparts. It rooted slavery not in racial difference or the growth of plantation agriculture but rather in the context of Africa’s kin-based social organization. According to the coauthors, the institution’s primary function in Africa was to incorporate outsiders into new societies. 29 So distinctive was this form of captivity that Miers and Kopytoff famously deployed scare quotes each time they used the word “slavery” in order to underscore its uniqueness.

Given their emphasis on incorporation, the process by which enslaved people over time became accepted insiders in the societies into which they were forcibly introduced, and their limited treatment of the economically productive roles that slaves played, Miers and Kopytoff came in for swift criticism on several fronts. Neo-Marxists were particularly dissatisfied. Claude Meillassoux, the prominent French scholar, responded with an alternative vision of slavery in Africa that highlighted the violence that was at the core of enslavement. 30 That violence made slavery the very antithesis of kinship, which to many scholars invalidated Miers and Kopytoff’s interpretation. Meillassoux and others also pointed to the dynamic economic roles that slaves played in Africa. 31 Studies in various local settings—in the Sokoto Caliphate, the Western Sudan, and elsewhere—made clear that slavery was a central part of how African societies organized productive labor. 32 This reality led some scholars to articulate distinct slave, or African, modes of production that, they argued, better illuminated the role of slavery in the continent. 33

In addition to these deep theoretical differences, one factor that contributed to the debates was the lack of historical sources that spoke to the changing nature of slavery in Africa. Documentary evidence describing slave societies is heavily concentrated in the 19th century , the period when Europe’s presence in Africa became more widespread and when colonialism and abolitionism colored Western views of Africans and their social institutions. To overcome source limitations, academics cast their nets widely, drawing on methodological innovations from anthropology and comparative linguistics, among other disciplines. 34 Participant observation, through which Africanists immersed themselves in the communities they studied in order to understand local languages and cultures, proved particularly valuable. 35 Yet the enthusiasm for this approach, which for many offered a more authentic path to access African cultures and voices, led some scholars to ignore or paper over its limitations. 36 To what extent, for example, did oral sources or observations of social structures in the 20th century reveal historical realities from previous eras? Other historians projected back in time insights from the more numerous written sources from the 19th century , using them to consider slavery in earlier periods. 37 Those who uncritically accepted evidence from such sources—whether non-written or written—came away with a timeless view of the African past, including as it related to slavery. 38 It would take another decade, during which the field witnessed revolutionary changes to the collection and analysis of data, until scholars began to widely accept the fact that, as in the Americas, slavery differed across time and space.

The Cliometric Debates

Around the same time that some scholars in the Americas were pushing enslaved people to the center of slavery narratives, a separate group of academics trained in economics began steering the focus of studies of slavery and the slave trade in a different direction. While research on planter power and slave resistance allowed historians to infer broad patterns of transformation from a limited collection of local records, this new group of scholars turned this approach upside down. They proposed to assess the underlying forces that shaped slavery and the slave trade to better contextualize the individual experiences of enslaved people. This big-picture approach was rooted in the quantification of large amounts of data available in archival sources spread across multiple locations and led ultimately to the development of “cliometrics,” a radically new methodology in the field. Two works were particularly important to the establishment of this approach: Philip Curtin’s The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census and Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman’s Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery . 39

Philip Curtin’s “census” provided the first quantitative assessment of the size, evolution, and distribution of the transatlantic slave trade between the 15th and 19th centuries . Previous estimates of the magnitude of the transatlantic trade claimed that it involved somewhere between fifteen and twenty million enslaved Africans—or in some cases many times that amount. 40 However, upon careful examination, Curtin found that such estimates were “nothing but a vast inertia, as historians have copied over and over again the flimsy results of unsubstantial guesswork.” 41 He thus set out to provide a new figure based on a close reading of secondary works that themselves had been based on extensive archival research. To assist in this endeavor, Curtin enlisted a technology that had only recently become available to researchers: the mainframe computer. He collected data on the number of slaves that ships of every nation involved in the traffic had embarked and disembarked, recorded these data on punch cards, and used the computer to organize the information into time series that allowed him to make projections for the periods and branches of the traffic for which data were scarce or altogether unavailable. Curtin’s findings posed profound challenges to the most basic assumptions about the transatlantic traffic. They revealed that the number of Africans forcibly transported to the Americas was substantially lower than what historians had previously assumed. Curtin also demonstrated that while the British were the most active slave traders during the second half of the 18th century , when the trade had reached its height, the Portuguese (and, after independence, Brazilians as well) carried far more enslaved people during the entire period of the transatlantic trade. 42 Furthermore, while the United States boasted the largest slave population by the mid- 19th century , it was a comparatively minor destination for vessels engaged in the trade: the region received less than 5 percent of all captive Africans transported across the Atlantic. 43

Curtin’s assessment of the slave trade inspired researchers to flock to local archives and compile new statistical data on the number and carrying capacity of slaving vessels departing or entering particular ports or regions around the Atlantic basin. Building on Curtin’s solid foundation, these scholars produced dozens of studies on the volume of various branches of the transatlantic trade. Virtually every port that dispatched slaving vessels to Africa or at which enslaved Africans were disembarked in the Americas received scholarly attention. What emerged from this work was an increasingly clear picture of the volume and structure of the Atlantic slave trade at local, regional, and national levels, though the South Atlantic slave trade remained comparatively understudied. 44 Historians of Africa also joined in these discussions, providing tentative assessments of slave exports from regions along the coast of West and West Central Africa. 45 The deepening pool of data that such research generated enabled scholars to use quantitative methods to consider other aspects of the transatlantic trade. How did mortality rates differ on slave vessels from one national carrier to another? 46 Which ports dispatched larger or smaller vessels and what implications did vessel size have for participation in the slave trade? 47 Which types of European commodities were most highly sought after in exchange for African captives? 48 As these questions imply, scholars had for the first time approached the slave trade as its own distinctive topic for research, which had revolutionary consequences for the future of the field.

Time on the Cross had an effect on slavery scholarship that was similar to—indeed, perhaps even greater than—that of Curtin’s, especially among scholars focused on the antebellum US South. Inspired by studies that challenged the view of plantation slavery as unprofitable, Fogel and Engerman, with the help of a team of researchers, set out to quantify nearly every aspect of that institution in the US South, from slaves’ average daily food consumption to the amount of cotton produced in the US South during the antebellum era. 49 Consistent with the cliometricians’ approach, Fogel and Engerman listed ten findings that “contradicted many of the most important propositions in the traditional portrayal of the slave system.” 50 Their most important—and controversial—conclusions were that slavery was a rational system of labor exploitation maintained by planters to maximize their own economic interests; that it was growing on the eve of the Civil War; and that owners were optimistic rather than pessimistic about the future of the slave system during the decade that preceded the war. 51 Further, the authors noted that slave labor was productive. “On average,” the cliometricians argued, a slave was “harder-working and more efficient than his white counterpart.” 52

While cliometrics made important contributions to the study of slavery and the slave trade, the quantitative approach came in for swift and passionate criticism. Curtin’s significantly lower estimates for the number of enslaved Africans shipped across the Atlantic were met with skepticism; some respondents even charged that his figures trivialized the horrors of the trade. 53 Although praised for its revolutionary interpretation, which earned Fogel the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 1993 , Fogel and Engerman’s study of the economics of American slavery was almost immediately cast aside as deeply flawed and unworthy of serious scholarly attention. Critics pointed not only to carelessness in the authors’ data collection techniques but also to their mathematical errors, abusive assumptions, and insufficient contextualization of data. 54 Fogel and Engerman, for example, characterized lynching as a “disciplinary tool.” After counting the number of whippings slaves received at one plantation, they concluded that masters there rarely used the punishment. They failed to note, however, the powerful effect that such abuse had on slaves and free people who merely watched or heard the horrible spectacle. 55 More generally, and apart from these specific problems, critics offered a theoretical objection to the quantitative approach, which, they argued, conceived of history as an objective science, with strong persuasive appeal, but which silenced the voices of the individuals victimized by the history of slavery and the slave trade.

Nevertheless, the methodology found followers among historians studying the history of slavery in other parts of the Atlantic. B. W. Higman’s massive two-volume work, Slave Populations of the British Caribbean, 1807–1834 , remains an unparalleled quantitative analysis of slave communities on the islands under British control. 56 Robert Louis Stein’s The French Sugar Business in the Eighteenth Century also makes substantial use of cliometrics and remains a valuable reference for students of slavery in Martinique and Saint Domingue (present-day Haiti). 57 But outside of the United States, nowhere was cliometrics more popular than Brazil, where scholars of slavery, including Pedro Carvalho de Mello, Herbert Klein, Francisco Vidal Luna, Robert Slenes, and others, applied it to examine many of the same issues that their North American counterparts did: rates of profitability, demographic growth, and economic expansion of slave systems. 58 Africanists also found value in the methodology and employed it as their sources allowed. Patrick Manning, for instance, used demographic modeling to examine the impact of the slave trade on African societies. 59 Philip Curtin compiled quantitative archival sources to analyze the evolution of the economy of Senegambia in the era of the slave trade. 60 Jan Hogendorn and Marion Johnson traced the circulation of cowries, the shell money of the slave trade, noting that “of all the goods from overseas exchanged for slaves, the shell money touched individuals most widely and often in their day-to-day activities.” 61

In many ways, the gap between quantitative and social and cultural approaches to slavery and the slave trade that opened in the 1970s has continued to divide the field. Concerned that cliometrics sucked the dynamism out of interpretations of the slave community and reduced captives to figures on a spreadsheet, some scholars responded by deploying a variety of new tools to reclaim the humanity and individuality of enslaved actors. Microhistory, an approach that early modern Europeanists developed to recover peasant and other everyday people’s stories, offered one such opportunity. 62 Biography provided another. By reducing its scale of observation and focusing on individuals, families, households, or other small-scale units of analysis, such research underscored the messiness of lived experiences and the creative and often unexpected ways that slaves fashioned worlds for themselves. 63 But such approaches raised a separate set of questions: do biographical accounts reveal typical experiences? In an era when few slaves were literate and even fewer committed their stories to paper, any captives whose accounts survived—in full or in fragments, published or unpublished—were by definition exceptional. Moreover, given the clear overarching framework that decades of quantitative work on the slave trade had developed, one would be hard-pressed to ignore completely the cliometric turn. As two quantitatively minded scholars noted, “it is difficult to assess the significance or representativity of personal narratives or collective biographies, however detailed, without an understanding of the overall movements of slaves of which these individuals’ lives were a part.” 64 While an emphasis on what might be described as the quantitative “big picture” is not by nature antagonistic toward social and cultural historians’ concerns with enslaved people’s lived experiences, the two approaches offer different visions of slavery’s past and often feel as if they sit on opposite ends of the analytical spectrum.

Women, Gender, and Slavery

In the roughly two and a half decades that followed the major interpretive shifts that Kenneth Stampp and Stanley Elkins introduced into scholarship on slavery, the field remained an almost exclusively male one. With rare exceptions, men continued to dominate the profession during this period; their work rarely probed with any degree of sophistication the experiences of women in plantation societies. While second-wave feminism inspired women to enter graduate programs in history in larger numbers beginning in the 1960s, it took time for published work on women’s history, at least as it related to slavery, to appear in earnest. Revealingly, it was not until 1985 that the Library of Congress created a unique catalog heading for “women slaves.” Yet in the three decades since then, women’s (and later gendered) histories of slavery have been published at an ever-increasing pace. Scholars in the 21st century would struggle to take seriously books written about slavery that fail to show an appreciation for the distinctive experiences of men and women in captivity or more generally across plantation societies.

Several forces worked against the production of studies on enslaved women. If sources detailing slaves’ lives are in general sparse, evidence on women slaves is particularly spotty. Deborah Gray White’s pioneering work, Aren’t I a Woman: Female Slaves in the Plantation South , the first book-length study of enslaved women, triumphantly pieced together fragments of information from Federal Writers’ Project interviews with scattered plantation records to breathe life into the historiography of black women. It revealed the powerful structures that served to constrain enslaved women’s lives in the 19th century United States. As White famously concluded: “Black in a white society, slave in a free society, women in a society ruled by men, female slaves had the least formal power and were perhaps the most vulnerable group of Antebellum Americans.” 65 Yet publishers and academic peers did not immediately take seriously work focused on women slaves. White noted, for example, how colleagues in her department warned her that she would be unlikely to earn tenure writing about such a topic. This environment was hardly the type of nurturing one required for sustained research. 66

Though it was an uphill struggle, an influential group of scholars gradually developed a framework for understanding slavery’s realities for women. Early work focused on the foundational tasks of recovering female voices and using them to challenge standard narratives of the plantation system. It made clear the complex and multifaceted roles of women captives—as mothers, wives, fieldworkers, and domestics—and in the process reshaped scholarly understanding of the dynamics of the plantation enterprise. Social relations within plantation households commanded particular attention. Some scholars emphasized bonds between black and white women whose lives, they argued, were conditioned by a shared and oppressive patriarchal culture. Catherine Clinton, for example, characterized white mistresses as “trapped” within plantation society. “Cotton was King, white men ruled, and both white women and slaves served the same master,” she argued. 67 While she sympathized with the plight of plantation mistresses, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, another leading figure of American women’s history, offered a contrary view of gendered relations within Southern households, one that highlighted division. Far from sharing common interests with enslaved women, mistresses clearly benefitted from slavery’s continuation. Their status as white and elite took priority over the bonds of womanhood. 68

The first sustained studies of women’s resistance to slavery also appeared in the 1980s. The historiographical pivot toward day-to-day resistance, which more effectively revealed the sophisticated ways that enslaved Africans and their descendants challenged their captivity, also opened a window of opportunity to view women as disruptors of the slave system in their own right. No longer dismissed as, at most, timid supporters of male-led revolts, women were in this period redefined as “natural rebels” who exploited white perceptions of female docility for their own benefit. Enslaved women, for example, were not generally chained onboard slave vessels, which gave them greater opportunities to organize revolts. Those few women who worked in privileged positions within plantation households took on responsibilities that gave them unique access to white families and exposed them to white vulnerabilities. Cooks could theoretically poison their owners, a threat that seemed all too real given the world of violence that underpinned the plantation. And while the coercive realities of slavery rooted every sexual relationship between white men and black women in violence, some scholars pointed to the possibility that women slaves who endured such abuse saw marginal improvements in their material circumstances or the prospects for their children. 69

Within a decade of the publication of Deborah White’s book, scholarship began to shift away from analyses of women and toward investigations of the worlds that men and women made together under slavery. Scholars of Africa brought valuable insights into this issue, drawing on decades of careful research into local constructions of gender and, in particular, the gendered division of labor within Africa. Women, Africanists illustrated, performed many of the most important tasks in agricultural regimes across the continent. 70 Some historians argued that it was their physical rather than biological roles that led slave owners in Africa to prefer and retain female captives, challenging earlier rigid emphases on women’s childbearing capacities. 71 These polarized debates eventually gave way to local and more nuanced analyses that revealed the complex range of contributions that enslaved women made to African societies: Women had children that increased the sizes of households; they cultivated and marketed crops that fed and enriched kingdoms and other less centralized societies; they served as bodyguards to local elites; and they even bought, retained, and traded their own captives. 72 If slavery in Africa was widespread, it was precisely because women had such wide-ranging productive and reproductive value.

These insights had wider implications for the study of the slave trade and the Atlantic World. African conceptions of gender conditioned the supply to Europeans of men and women captives along the coast, illustrating the close relationship between gender issues and economic concerns. 73 Gendered identities that emerged in Africa were adapted and transformed in the Americas depending on demographic, economic, or cultural concerns. 74 Whereas in low-density slave systems, African women and their descendants might follow work regimes that resembled those of their homelands, the gendered division of labor in large slave societies often more closely reflected European attitudes toward women and work. 75 Grappling with such complex realities required historians to dig into local records across a staggering variety of geographic settings. It was in that context that scholars began to broaden their horizons and embrace an increasingly Atlantic orientation—a trend that mirrored broader changes in studies on slavery and the slave trade in the 1990s. 76

The Atlanticization of Slavery Studies

It may seem redundant to identify a shift toward the Atlanticization of slavery studies. Enslaved Africans, after all, were brought to the Americas from across the Atlantic. How, then, could these studies be anything but Atlantic? The reality is that historians have generally looked at the institution through rather parochial eyes, as something limited by regional, national, or cultural boundaries. There were several early and noteworthy exceptions to this trend. Indeed, calls for studies to look at the societies surrounding the ocean as an integral unit of analysis date as far back as the late 1910s. Several scholars took up that call, the most notable perhaps being Fernand Braudel in his 1949 masterpiece, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II . 77 However, in an increasingly polarized world, the idea faced significant resistance and obstacles. Following World War II, Atlanticization could be easily read as a stand-in for imperialism or westernization. It was only toward the end of the Cold War that historians were able to move past these ideological barriers and understand the value of looking at the Atlantic as “the scene of a vast interaction rather than merely the transfer of Europeans onto American shores,” an interaction that was the result of “a sudden and harsh encounter between two old worlds that transformed both and integrated them into a single New World.” 78

This realization deeply shaped subsequent studies of the history of slavery and the slave trade, some of them reviving earlier debates about cultural continuity and change in the African diaspora. One of the most successful examples to focus on the influence of Africans in shaping slavery on both sides of the ocean is John Thornton’s Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World . In it, Thornton argues that slavery was the only form of “private, revenue-producing property recognized in African law.” 79 Consequently, African political and economic elites had significant leverage over the institution, giving them some control over the transatlantic traffic. Thornton’s argument offered a new logic for African participation in the slave trade while also providing a new interpretation of African culture in Africa and the Americas. Although enslaved Africans came from several different regions and societies, Thornton stresses the similarities between their cultures and languages. Based on research on the traffic’s organization, he notes that slave ships rarely purchased captives in more than one port and that they normally sailed along very specific routes. 80 Such an organization favored the transmission of some of the cultural practices enslaved Africans brought with them to the Americas. Nevertheless, Thornton points out, “slaves were not militant cultural nationalists who sought to preserve everything African but rather showed great flexibility in adapting and changing their culture.” 81 His approach thus emphasized the systematic linkages that the transatlantic slave trade forged while leaving space for creolization within slave communities.

Another important contribution that emphasized cultural transformation was Ira Berlin’s Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America . 82 Looking to identify the first generations of blacks who chartered their descendants’ fate in mainland North America, Berlin located them among a group he called “Atlantic creoles,” people who traced their beginnings to the earliest encounters between Europeans and Africans on the west coast of Africa, but who ultimately emerged from the world that Europe, Africa, and the Americas collectively created. Cosmopolitan by experience or circumstance, familiar with the commerce of the Atlantic, and fluent in its languages and cultures, these individuals laid down the foundations for black life in the New World. 83 They arrived not as Africans desperate to replicate their culture, or flexible to adapt, but rather as profoundly changed individuals. Although they permeated most of the colonial societies of the Americas, Berlin claims that in mainland North America at least they were soon swept away by subsequent generations born under the expansion of large-scale commodity production, which ended the porous slave system of the early years of European and African settlement. 84

Although these were important contributions, the Atlanticization of slavery studies opened many more avenues to understand the experiences of Africans and their descendants during the years of bondage. It allowed for comparisons between Africans’ trajectories with those of other players in the formation of the Atlantic world. Paul Gilroy’s well-known Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness is in a way a precursor, expressing “a desire to transcend both the structures of the nation state and the constraints of ethnicity and national particularity.” 85 Jack P. Greene and Philip D. Morgan’s edited volume, Atlantic History: A Critical Appraisal , views a handful of European nations—Spain, Portugal, Britain, France, and the Netherlands—as creating this new world centered around the Atlantic, but it also places Africans as well as the indigenous populations of the Americas in comparative perspective. 86 One immediate problem with this approach is that it conflates several hundreds of groups, nations, or peoples into a single category, “Africans,” a term that gained traction only as the slave trade expanded and, consequently, recognized by just a fraction of the people it intended to describe.

A more adequate approach, favored by the Atlantic framework of analysis, would focus on specific African regions or peoples. Here historians have made some progress, mainly in the form of edited volumes. Linda M. Heywood’s edited book, Central Africans and Cultural Transformations in the American Diaspora , looks at how Kikongo and Mbundu speakers, often times grouped under designations such as Angola, Benguela, or Congo in places in the Americas as distant from one another as Havana, Montevideo, New Orleans, Recife, and Port au Prince, culturally shaped the African diaspora. 87 Rebecca Shumway and Trevor R. Getz’s volume attempts a similar approach, centered on the societies of precolonial Ghana, mainly the Asante and Fante. 88 Toyin Falola and Matt D. Childs’s book, by contrast, focuses on a single African people, the Yoruba. 89 Not only were they a sizable group forced into the Atlantic, but they also left an indelible mark in several regions of the Americas. Interestingly, the Yoruba started calling themselves as such, that is, through their language name, only years after the transatlantic slave trade had ended, probably as a result of religious encounters leading up to the colonization of Nigeria. 90 During the period of the slave trade, the Yoruba lived divided into a number of states like Oyo, Egba, Egbado, Ijebu, and Ijesa, located in Southwest Nigeria, and were called outside the region by different terms, such as Nagô in Bahia, Lucumí in Cuba, and Aku in Sierra Leone. 91

Not only did the Atlantic approach contribute to the development of new historical frameworks and perspectives, it also encouraged historians to use traditional sources and methods in more creative and interesting ways. In Freedom Papers: An Atlantic Odyssey in the Age of Emancipation , Rebecca J. Scott and Jean Hébrard trace the paper trail that members of the Tinchant family left behind to reconstruct over multiple generations the saga of an African woman and her family from slavery to freedom. 92 In addition to tracing individuals and families, historians have also paid greater attention to cultural practices embedded in traditions of agriculture, healing, and warfare, which were disseminated around the Atlantic during the period of the slave trade. Judith A. Carney, for example, looked at the African origins of rice cultivation in the Americas, connecting particular rice growing regions in Upper Guinea to their counterparts in places like South Carolina in the United States and Maranhão in Bazil; James H. Sweet examined the intellectual history of the Atlantic world by following the uses and appropriations of African healing practices from Dahomey to Bahia and Portugal; and Manuel Barcia explored the similarities and differences between warfare techniques employed by West African captives, especially from Oyo, in Bahia, and Cuba. 93 Although urban history has a long tradition among historians, most studies have focused on cities and ports in Europe and the Americas. 94 Historians, including Robin Law, Kristin Mann, Mariana Cândido, and Randy Sparks, however, are redressing that imbalance with studies focused on African ports—Ouidah, Lagos, Benguela, and Anomabu—that emerged or expanded during the slave trade era. 95

Finally, although removed from the Atlantic, the very effort of looking at slavery and the slave trade from a broader perspective has influenced studies on these issues in other parts of the world or even within a global framework. Research on the intra-American slave trade has gained a renewed interest with publications like Greg O’Malley’s Final Passages: The Intercolonial Slave Trade of British America, 1619–1807 . 96 The same could be said of the slave trade in the Indian Ocean with works like Richard Allen’s European Slave Trading in the Indian Ocean, 1500–1850 . 97 One central debate that has recently been revived concerns the relationship between capitalism and slavery. 98 Inspired by Eric Williams’s path-breaking work and, more recently, by Dale Tomich’s concept of “second slavery,” which highlights the creation of new zones of slavery in the United States and other parts of the continent during the 19th century , historians, including Sven Beckert, Edward Baptist, and Seth Rockman, are now enthusiastically assessing the connections between the expansion of slavery in that period and the formation of global financial markets and industrial economies in Europe and North America. 99 Clearly, the scholarly potential occasioned by the Atlanticization of slavery studies is still unfolding and should not be underestimated.

Into the Digital Era

The digital revolution sparked a radical change across the historical profession that has had particularly important ramifications for the study of slavery and the slave trade. Despite the major theoretical, methodological, and interpretive differences that divided scholars throughout the 20th century , the means of scholarly communication and dissemination of research during that period remained virtually unchanged: books, journal articles, and very occasionally interviews, opinion pieces, and documentary films enabled scholars to explain their work to each other and, to a much lesser extent, a wider public. The emergence of the internet and its rapid infiltration of academic and everyday life has disrupted this landscape, opening new and once inconceivable opportunities to engage in open-ended inquiry unencumbered by publication deadlines, and to share the fruits of that labor with anyone who has access to the web. The digital turn has also inspired scholars to offer creative visual interpretations of the history of both slavery and the slave trade. Perhaps most importantly, the web has provided a site for the presentation and preservation of digitized archival sources that would previously have been accessible to only those people with the means to visit the repositories that hold them. While the consequences of the digital turn are being actively discussed and debated, it is clear that digital history is here to stay.

Digital projects focusing on slavery and the slave trade emerged in the 1990s and tended to be somewhat rudimentary in both their aims and scope, reflecting the limited capacity of the internet itself and, perhaps more appropriately, scholars’ limited comfort using it. These projects had as their main purpose the collection and presentation of primary sources—scanning and loading onto a web page images of captives, owners, slave ships, and forts that teachers or students had collected for pedagogical purposes. Among the first large-scale initiatives to bring together these scattered materials was Jerome Handler and Michael A. Tuite’s website, The Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas . 100 Created first as a portal to search through images that Handler had used in lectures, this website grew exponentially over time. From the roughly 200 images organized into ten categories with which the site first launched, it now provides access to 1,280 images arranged under eighteen topical headings. Other digital projects focused on the presentation of scanned archival documents. Libraries and historical societies used the web to advertise their holdings and entice interested viewers to further examine their collections. Many of these sites were free of charge, democratizing access to rare scholarly records—at least for those individuals who had access to the internet.

As the technology associated with digitization has improved, a number of organizations have dedicated vast resources to scaling up digital projects. Though its focus goes well beyond slavery and the slave trade, Google Books has been among the most prominent players in the field. 101 Beginning in the early 2000s, Google quietly began scanning published volumes held in major academic libraries. By 2015 , Google estimated that it had scanned 25 million books—nearly one-fifth of the total number of unique titles ever published. Though copyright laws limit full access to the collection, Google Books is nevertheless unparalleled in its scope and offers unrivaled access to published sources on slavery from the pre-copyright era. Other companies have taken more targeted approaches. The Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice portal, for example, offers access to original archival materials focused primarily, though not exclusively, on the Atlantic World that covers the period between 1490 and 2007 . The project enables users to interface with scans of primary sources and use keyword searches to find relevant materials. 102

As this implies, digitization initiatives have not been limited to the Western world, even if, at times controversially, Western institutions have funded the majority of them. Indeed, one of the enduring consequences of the Atlanticization of slavery scholarship has been the growing dialogue it helped generate between scholars living in or working on areas outside of the Anglo-American world. The British Library’s Endangered Archives Programme is one example: it has supported the digitization of entire archival collections in repositories situated in developing countries, where resources for preservation are extremely limited. 103 Local archivists have become valuable collaborators; young students with interests in digital preservation have gained important training and exposure to scanning methods and technologies. Since the early 2000s, major digital initiatives have been launched or completed in places as wide-ranging as Brazil, Cameroon, Cuba, The Gambia, Sierra Leone, and Saint Helena, with important implications for slavery scholarship. 104 One such example is the Slave Societies Digital Archive , directed by Jane Landers and hosted at Vanderbuilt University, which preserves endangered ecclesiastical and secular documents related to Africans and people of African descent. 105 Since 2007 or so, a truly global conversation about slavery and its long-term effects has been nurtured by more widespread access to relevant archival sources.

The growing sophistication of the internet and its users has transformed digital projects on slavery and the slave trade. Websites now go well beyond mere presentations of scanned primary sources. They tend to emphasize interactivity, encouraging site visitors to search through and manipulate data to generate new research insights. Some projects employ “crowdsourcing,” partnering with the public or soliciting data or assistance from site visitors to further a project’s reach. African Origins , for instance, provides to the public some 91,000 records of captives rescued from slave ships in the 19th century , including their indigenous African names. 106 Historians, with the help of other researchers, particularly those people familiar with African languages, have been identifying to which languages these names belong and thereby tracing the inland, linguistic origins of thousands of slaves forced into the Atlantic during the 19th century . 107 This has helped expand insights into slavery and the slave trade well beyond the limited confines of the ivory tower. Moreover, the internet has the added benefit of providing a space for individuals who are passionate about history but whose careers limit their abilities to publish books and articles to share their knowledge with a large pool of readers.

Few digital initiatives have done more for slavery scholarship than Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database . The Voyages site is the product of decades of collaborative research into the transatlantic slave trade. Building on Curtin’s Census , it now provides access to information on nearly 36,000 unique slave voyages that operated between the 1510s and 1867 . The site is made possible by the basic reality that, given the vast amount of money they laid out, owners and operators of slave vessels carefully documented many aspects of slaving excursions. Some of the details captured in written records lend themselves to coding and quantification: the names of captains and owners; the places to which slave ships went; the numbers of enslaved people loaded onto and forced off of slave ships; the ratios of males to females and adults to children among captives; and the prices paid for enslaved people. The vast amount of data to which the site provides free access has enabled scholars focused on virtually any aspect of the slave trade or slavery to benefit from and contribute to the Voyages project. Among its most important features is the site’s capacity to expand or revise its records based on contributions from users who uncover new or contradictory evidence. 108

Based in part on the Voyages model—or, in some cases, as a critical response to it—since the 2000s, historical research has witnessed the creation and expansion of important digital projects about enslaved Africans and their descendants. Slave Biographies: Atlantic Database Network , a project spearheaded by Gwendolyn M. Hall and Walter Hawthorne from Michigan State University, offers an open access data repository of information on the identities of enslaved people in the Atlantic World. 109 Liberated Africans , developed by Henry Lovejoy at the University of Colorado, Boulder, brings together information about the lives of some 250,000 Africans rescued from slave ships between 1807 and 1896 . 110 Final Passages , a project under development by Greg O’Malley and Alex Borucki at the University of California system, plans to provide a database of the intra-American slave trade to be deployed on the same platform as Slave Voyages . 111 And what to say of Enslaved: People of the Historic Slave Trade , winner of a $1.5 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation? The project seeks to bring such digital resources together by focusing on individuals who were enslaved, owned slaves, or participated in slave trading at any time between the beginning and the end of the transatlantic slave trade. 112 It is no doubt the epitome in amassing and interconnecting historical data. Conversations about long-term institutional support for these sites and the data on which they are based—a central and underappreciated aspect of digital history—have also begun to take place in earnest. That they are happening at all is indicative of the revolutionary impact that the digital turn has had on the profession.

All in all, it is no easy task to synthesize decades of research on the history of Atlantic slavery and the slave trade. Although relatively new in comparison to more established fields of Western history, it has grown quickly, amassing a significant body of literature that incorporates some of the most sophisticated methodologies available. Historians have proven so adaptable in their approaches and uses of sources that it is nearly impossible to indicate the direction in which the field is moving. Moreover, in the wake of movements such as Black Lives Matter and Rhodes Must Fall, public interest has turned again to the complex and thorny issue of reparations. Consequently, historians have had an unprecedented opportunity to engage with the public on this question and related ones concerning how societies represent and memorialize the history of slavery. In 2013 , Laurent Dubois noticed in an opinion piece in The New York Times that calls for reparations for slavery and the slave trade in the Caribbean offered an important opportunity to face the multiple ways in which the past continues to shape the present. 113 In the following year, Ta-Nehisi Coates published a cover article in The Atlantic making a powerful case for reparations in the United States. According to him, “until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole.” 114 A leading advocate for public memorializing of slavery, Ana Lúcia Araújo, has recently published a book dedicated exclusively to the issue of reparations for slavery and the slave trade. 115 While the most recent iteration of this debate draws on fresh materials and perspectives, Araújo notes that “since the eighteenth century, enslaved and freed individuals started conceptualizing the idea of reparations in correspondence, pamphlets, public speeches, slave narratives, and judicial claims, written in English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese.” 116 That such issues continue to spark passionate debates and scholarship provides a strong indication of the enduring relevance of slavery’s past to the shaping of the present.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Alex Borucki, David Eltis, Greg O’Malley, and Nicholas Radburn for their comments on earlier versions of this article. All interpretations and conclusions reached here are, of course, the authors’ responsibility.

The Transatlantic Slave Trade

16th Century–1867

The Transatlantic Slave Trade was a business in which the commodity was African men, women, and children. They were captured in Africa, transported across the Atlantic Ocean over the “Middle Passage,” and forced to work in the Americas. It was also part of the Triangular Trade System and the Mercantile System.

Transatlantic Slave Trade, 1840, Painting, Biard

Detail from The Slave Trade by Auguste François Biard, 1840. Image Source: Wikipedia.

What was the Transatlantic Slave Trade?

The Transatlantic Slave Trade was a business network built to profit from the acquisition, transfer, and distribution of African men, women, and children who were forcibly removed from their homes.

There were two major points of exchange in the network The first was in Africa; the second in the Americas. Bridging the gap between the two points of exchange was the Middle Passage — the horrific overseas route captive Africans were forced to travel as cargo, below deck in the dark holds of slave ships.

Those who survived the Middle Passage were forced to work in the Americas, primarily on plantations, growing and harvesting things like sugar, rice, and cotton. However, many were also put to work in mines and others worked as servants in homes.

The system was lucrative for just about everyone involved in it, especially those directly involved with the exchange of Africans. However, many others benefitted from the products that were produced from slave labor and the wealth it created.

Sugar Plantation, West Indies, Illustration

Important Dates in the Transatlantic Slave Trade

16th Century — The Transatlantic Slave Trade begins.

1526 — The first voyage carrying enslaved people from Africa to the Americas is believed to have sailed.

1867 — The business was outlawed, however, the slave trade continued to operate outside of the law.

1700–1850 — More than eight out of ten Africans forced into the system crossed the Atlantic Ocean over the Middle Passage.

1720–1780 — The majority of Africans carried to British North America arrived.

1821–1830 — It is believed more than 80,000 people a year left Africa in slave ships.

By 1825 — Roughly 25% of the population of the Western Hemisphere was made up of Africans who had been enslaved and their ancestors, many of whom were born into slavery.

Transatlantic Slave Trade Statistics

The Transatlantic Slave Trade lasted for approximately 366 years.

It is estimated that 12.5 million African men, women, and children were taken as captives in Africa, sold to merchants, and shipped across the Middle Passage. Roughly 11 million arrived in the Americas. The rest died in some way.

90% of the enslaved Africans were delivered to South America and the Caribbean.

6% of the enslaved Africans were delivered to the American Colonies. The largest number of them entered through Sullivan’s Island, just outside of Charleston, South Carolina.

Roughly 70% of the Africans were forced to work on plantations that produced molasses, sugar, and rum.

Brief History of the Transatlantic Slave Trade

The Transatlantic Slave Trade was started by the Portuguese and Spanish. They were followed by other European nations, including the Netherlands, England, and France.

The business increased with the establishment and expansion of plantations in South America and the Caribbean. This also led other nations and colonies to participate in the business, including the American Colonies.

Slave labor was eventually expanded to plantations that produced valuable goods, including tobacco, cotton, and rice.

The Transatlantic Slave Trade was a key component of Mercantilism, the economic theory that drove European nations to establish colonies in the New World . Cheap labor became a cornerstone of the system and carried over into the Colonial Era in America, particularly in the Southern Colonies where tobacco, rice, indigo, and cotton were vital to the economy.

Transatlantic Slave Trade Facts

The Transatlantic Slave Trade was a lucrative business and benefitted slavers, traders, merchants, plantation owners, and anyone else who was involved.

There were risks involved that could easily reduce profitability — rough weather on the seas, inexperienced crews, outbreaks of disease, uprisings organized by the Africans, and attacks by privateers and pirates.

Over time, the system was modified and streamlined.

Spain essentially outsourced its slave acquisition operation by creating agreements with other nations — Asiento — to supply its colonies with Africans.

Eventually, two significant companies controlled the Transatlantic Slave Trade — the Royal African Company (Britain) and the Dutch West India Company (Netherlands).

The ports where slave traders and merchants operated prospered, due to the influx of wealth. The first ports to prosper were in Europe — Liverpool, Liston, Nantes — and spread to South America — Rio de Janeiro — and North America — Boston, Newport, and Charleston.

The routes traveled by slave ships also allowed the transfer of goods and products from one region to another. This led to the development of the Triangular Trade System which was part of the English Mercantile System that the American Colonies were part of.

After American merchants became involved in the Transatlantic Slave Trade, the routes their ships sailed allowed them to trade with ports in places like the French West Indies. This violated Britain’s maritime laws, the Navigation Acts . Although Americans considered it good business, Britain considered it smuggling. However, during the time of Salutary Neglect , when Britain failed to strictly enforce the Navigation Acts, American merchants prospered.

The Role of Captains, Crews, and Ships of the Transatlantic Slave Trade

Merchants and investors hired ships to transport cargo from one location to another. The cargo could include Africans, along with raw materials, goods, and finished products that could be traded in various ports.

The goods and products that were traded were often seasonal in nature. A number of things affected the business, including growing seasons, the spread of disease, and the weather on the high seas.

Despite the dangers of the voyages, it was in the best interest of the ship’s crew to ensure the safety of the Africans on board. However, Africans were often subjected to violence and brutal conditions that led to many of them dying on the journey across the Atlantic Ocean. Some estimates say as many as 20% of Africans died.

When ships arrived at their port of destination, the captain and crew were responsible for preparing the Africans to be delivered to their owners or to be sold at auctions.

Middle Passage, Captive Africans, Illustration, NYPL

John Hawkins and the English Slave Trade

John Hawkins (c. 1532–1595) was one of the most prolific sailors and commanders of his time. He is most well-known for his role as a “Sea Dog” and for involving England in the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Born in Plymouth, England, Hawkins followed in the footsteps of his father, who was a prominent merchant.

During his early years as a merchant, Hawkins traveled to the Canary Islands, where he saw the use of enslaved Africans. Believing he could profit from the slave trade, he formed a business partnership that was responsible for funding three major slave trading expeditions.

In 1562, he captured and traded for captive Africans along the coast of Africa, and sailed to the Caribbean, where he traded them for pearls, animal hides, and sugar. The expedition was so lucrative that a coat of arms was designed for him, which included a crude drawing of an enslaved African. The first trip is considered by some to be the first implement and profit from the Triangular Trade Route.

Hawkins carried out two more slave expeditions and helped fund another. He was one of the Sea Dogs, a group of privateers who were hired by Queen Elizabeth I to attack Spanish ships.

The others were Sir Francis Drake, Sir Martin Frobisher, and Sir Walter Raleigh, all of whom had connections to the establishment of English colonies in North America. Hawkins and the others were so successful that King Philip II sent the Spanish Armada to invade England, however, most of the fleet was destroyed at the Battle of Gravelines (August 8, 1588). Hawkins served as Vice Admiral of the English Navy during the conflict.

Although Hawkins is praised for his role as a naval commander, he is also identified as the founder of Triangular Trade, which was largely based on the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

Defeat of the Spanish Armada, Painting, Loutherbourg

Trade Routes in the Transatlantic Slave Trade

The Transatlantic Slave Trade Trade consisted of three main routes along which Africans were acquired, transported, and distributed.

First Route — Acquisition in Africa

Historians indicate that slavery was practiced in Africa in various forms long before the continent was exposed to Europeans. However, the practice was not unique to Africa and was found in every inhabited continent at some time.

When Europeans started trading for captive Africans, it transformed the system of slavery and gave rise to the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

There were three distinct groups involved in the acquisition of Africans for the Transatlantic Slave Trade:

1. Local Slavers — Local slave traders were responsible for kidnapping people and subjugating tribes living in the African interior and then transferring them to the West Coast of Africa. The work of local slavers made large numbers of captives available to the kingdoms on the coast.

2. African Coast Slave Traders — Local slavers delivered their captives to the African kingdoms on the coast, who held them and then traded them to Europeans. The desire for the coastal kingdoms to acquire European goods and products incentivized them to provide more captives for trade.

3. European Slave Traders — Europeans formed business alliances with the kingdoms on the coast and then traded goods and products for the captive Africans. Europeans built forts and factories — trading posts — on the African coast, which were used to acquire and then hold people before they were loaded onto ships.

Second Route — Transportation Across the Middle Passage

The Middle Passage was the route that transported captive Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas and the West Indies, where they were sold into slavery, often to work on large tobacco and sugar plantations.

The conditions on the ships were horrible, as Africans were usually confined below deck in cramped quarters. Many were marked with brands and men were chained together. Many Africans died during the journey and many more suffered from illness or harsh treatment from the crewmembers.

From 1619 to 1860, it is believed roughly 475,000 Africans were abducted and sent to North America, where they landed in a port and were auctioned off as slaves. It is believed that 18-20 percent of the slaves that crossed the Middle Passage died during the journey.

Third Route — Distribution in the Americas

After arriving in the Americas, Africans were forced to travel to their destination, which could be to a plantation deep in the South American forests, the Carolina Backcountry, or slave auctions in large cities like New York, Charleston, and Savannah.

Enslaved Africans in the Americas

The majority of captive Africans were enslaved in the Caribbean and South America. However, enslaved Africans in the American Colonies and the practice of chattel slavery became a key point of disagreement in the United States, eventually leading to the Civil War.

The Age of Exploration led to significant growth in European exploration, as nations and merchants looked for new trade routes and sources of gold and other precious metals.

Christopher Columbus first arrived in the Caribbean in 1492, leading to a massive cultural exchange that was felt worldwide. Initially, the Spanish enslaved the indigenous populations, but eventually moved away from that, replacing them with Africans.

In the Caribbean, Africans were forced to work in mines and on plantations in various locations, including Barbados, Saint-Domingue — present-day Haiti — and Jamaica.

South America

Portuguese explorers followed in the footsteps of Columbus and other Spanish expeditions in exploring the New World and establishing colonies.

The Portuguese arrived in present-day Brazil in the early 1500s and, like the Spanish, enslaved the indigenous population and then transitioned to an African workforce.

By the middle part of the 16th Century, the Portuguese were establishing Sugar Plantations in Brazil and imported Africans to work on them.

Brazil was one area that continued to participate in the Transatlantic Slave Trade into the latter half of the 19th Century.

Sugar Cane Plantation, Enslaved Workers, Sugar Act Image

North America and the American Colonies

In North America, there was a mix of French, Spanish, and English colonies. In the interior of North America, the colonies were largely divided by major geographical landmarks, including the Mississippi River, the Appalachian Mountains, and the Great Lakes.

French colonies formed along the north of the Atlantic Coast, although French territory stretched south to Louisiana, along the Mississippi River. The entire region was known as New France.

New Spain, the Spanish colonies, were located in the Caribbean, South America, and stretched north into the present-day American Southwest, up the coast into the upper regions of present-day California.

The English Colonies developed south and east of New France, along the Atlantic Coast. They went as far south as present-day Georgia. Originally called “Virginia,” the region was eventually divided into 13 Colonies. Colonies in the Chesapeake Bay and further south enjoyed a long growing season due to the climate, which allowed certain crops, including tobacco, rice, indigo, and cotton, to flourish.

Over time, England transformed into Great Britain and a Domestic Slave Trade emerged in the British Colonies, encouraging the exchange of enslaved Africans between colonies and geographical regions.

Following Queen Anne’s War , Great Britain was granted Asiento by Spain and authorized to sell slaves to New Spain.

By the middle of the 18th century, the colonies experienced the First Great Awakening, and the seeds of abolition were planted in the minds of many Americans.

Following the American Revolution and the American Revolutionary War, the institution of slavery still drove the economy in many states. By then, production was so high — and dependent on cheap labor — that it was difficult for many merchants and plantation owners to conceive of any other way to continue their operations.

Although the Transatlantic Slave Trade was abolished in the United States in 1808, the Domestic Slave Trade continued to thrive.

In the wake of the Second Great Awakening , the Abolition movement grew, led by former slaves like Harriet Tubman , Sojourner Truth , and Federick Douglass , journalists like William Lloyd Garrison , politicians like Abraham Lincoln , and religious leaders like Henry Ward Beecher .

Impact of the Headright System on the Transatlantic Slave Trade

Several colonies, including Virginia, needed to increase their population and workforce.

The Headright System was developed to encourage settlement . In that system, wealthy landowners paid for settlers to move to America.

In return, the settler agreed to work for the landowner as an Indentured Servant. The company that ran the colony also gave the landowner more land.

However, when servants finished their contracts, they were freed, leaving the landowner with no way to replace the worker.

Eventually, landowners realized that they could use the Headright System to a greater advantage. If they paid to have captive Africans imported into their colony, they received land — and they also created a more permanent, reliable workforce for their plantations.

Tobacco Culture and Cultivation, Virginia, Headright System

Transatlantic Slave Trade Significance

The Transatlantic Slave Trade is important to United States history for the role it played in transporting captive and enslaved Africans to the American Colonies. Over time, American merchants, especially in the South, replaced indentured servants with slaves, boosting profits and ensuring a sustainable workforce. However, the institution of slavery was divisive, contributing to decades of disagreement between the North and South, eventually leading to the Civil War.

Transatlantic Slave Trade APUSH Notes and Study Guide

Use the following links and videos to study the Colonial Era, the New England Colonies, the Middle Colonies, and the Southern Colonies for the AP US History Exam. Also, be sure to look at our Guide to the AP US History Exam .

Transatlantic Slave Trade APUSH Definition and Simple Explanation

The Transatlantic Slave Trade was a system of commerce that operated for more than 350 years. It involved the forced movement of millions of Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas, where they were exploited as forced laborers in various industries, particularly the agrarian economies of the Southern Colonies.

Transatlantic Slave Trade Video for APUSH Notes

This video from Heimler’s History discusses the history of slavery in the British Colonies, including the impact of the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

Written by Randal Rust

Visiting Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion?

You must join the virtual exhibition queue when you arrive. If capacity has been reached for the day, the queue will close early.

Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History Essays

The transatlantic slave trade.

Necklace: Pendant

Figure: Seated Portuguese Male

Pipe: Rifle

Alexander Ives Bortolot Department of Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University

October 2003

From the seventeenth century on, slaves became the focus of trade between Europe and Africa. Europe’s conquest and colonization of North and South America and the Caribbean islands from the fifteenth century onward created an insatiable demand for African laborers, who were deemed more fit to work in the tropical conditions of the New World. The numbers of slaves imported across the Atlantic Ocean steadily increased, from approximately 5,000 slaves a year in the sixteenth century to over 100,000 slaves a year by the end of the eighteenth century.

Evolving political circumstances and trade alliances in Africa led to shifts in the geographic origins of slaves throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Slaves were generally the unfortunate victims of territorial expansion by imperialist African states or of raids led by predatory local strongmen, and various populations found themselves captured and sold as different regional powers came to prominence. Firearms, which were often exchanged for slaves, generally increased the level of fighting by lending military strength to previously marginal polities. A nineteenth-century tobacco pipe ( 1977.462.1 ) from the Democratic Republic of the Congo or Angola demonstrates the degree to which warfare, the slave trade, and elite arts were intertwined at this time. The pipe itself was the prerogative of wealthy and powerful individuals who could afford expensive imported tobacco, generally by trading slaves, while the rifle form makes clear how such slaves were acquired in the first place. Because of its deadly power, the rifle was added to the repertory of motifs drawn upon in many regional depictions of rulers and culture heroes as emblematic of power along with the leopard, elephant, and python.

The institution of slavery existed in Africa long before the arrival of Europeans and was widespread at the period of economic contact . Private land ownership was largely absent from precolonial African societies, and slaves were one of the few forms of wealth-producing property an individual could possess. Additionally, rulers often maintained corps of loyal, foreign-born slaves to guarantee their political security, and would encourage political centralization by appointing slaves from the imperial hinterlands to positions within the royal capital. Slaves were also exported across the desert to North Africa and to western Asia, Arabia, and India.

It would be impossible to argue, however, that transatlantic trade did not have a major effect upon the development and scale of slavery in Africa. As the demand for slaves increased with European colonial expansion in the New World, rising prices made the slave trade increasingly lucrative. African states eager to augment their treasuries in some instances even preyed upon their own peoples by manipulating their judicial systems, condemning individuals and their families to slavery in order to reap the rewards of their sale to European traders. Slave exports were responsible for the emergence of a number of large and powerful kingdoms that relied on a militaristic culture of constant warfare to generate the great numbers of human captives required for trade with the Europeans. The Yoruba kingdom of Oyo on the Guinea coast, founded sometime before 1500, expanded rapidly in the eighteenth century as a result of this commerce. Its formidable army, aided by advanced iron technology , captured immense numbers of slaves that were profitably sold to traders. In the nineteenth century, the aggressive pursuit of slaves through warfare and raiding led to the ascent of the kingdom of Dahomey, in what is now the Republic of Benin, and prompted the emergence of the Chokwe chiefdoms from under the shadow of their Lunda overlords in present-day Angola and Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Asante kingdom on the Gold Coast of West Africa also became a major slave exporter in the eighteenth century.

Ultimately, the international slave trade had lasting effects upon the African cultural landscape. Areas that were hit hardest by endemic warfare and slave raids suffered from general population decline, and it is believed that the shortage of men in particular may have changed the structure of many societies by thrusting women into roles previously occupied by their husbands and brothers. Additionally, some scholars have argued that images stemming from this era of constant violence and banditry have survived to the present day in the form of metaphysical fears and beliefs concerning witchcraft. In many cultures of West and Central Africa, witches are thought to kidnap solitary individuals to enslave or consume them. Finally, the increased exchange with Europeans and the fabulous wealth it brought enabled many states to cultivate sophisticated artistic traditions employing expensive and luxurious materials. From the fine silver- and goldwork of Dahomey and the Asante court to the virtuoso wood carving of the Chokwe chiefdoms, these treasures are a vivid testimony of this turbulent period in African history.

Bortolot, Alexander Ives. “The Transatlantic Slave Trade.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History . New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/slav/hd_slav.htm (October 2003)

Additional Essays by Alexander Ives Bortolot

Bortolot, Alexander Ives. “ Portraits of African Leadership: Living Rulers .” (October 2003)
Bortolot, Alexander Ives. “ Portraits of African Leadership: Memorials .” (October 2003)
Bortolot, Alexander Ives. “ Portraits of African Leadership: Royal Ancestors .” (October 2003)
Bortolot, Alexander Ives. “ Trade Relations among European and African Nations .” (October 2003)
Bortolot, Alexander Ives. “ Ways of Recording African History .” (October 2003)
Bortolot, Alexander Ives. “ Art of the Asante Kingdom .” (October 2003)
Bortolot, Alexander Ives. “ Asante Royal Funerary Arts .” (October 2003)
Bortolot, Alexander Ives. “ Asante Textile Arts .” (October 2003)
Bortolot, Alexander Ives. “ Gold in Asante Courtly Arts .” (October 2003)
Bortolot, Alexander Ives. “ The Bamana Ségou State .” (October 2003)
Bortolot, Alexander Ives. “ Women Leaders in African History: Ana Nzinga, Queen of Ndongo .” (October 2003)
Bortolot, Alexander Ives. “ Women Leaders in African History: Dona Beatriz, Kongo Prophet .” (October 2003)
Bortolot, Alexander Ives. “ Exchange of Art and Ideas: The Benin, Owo, and Ijebu Kingdoms .” (October 2003)
Bortolot, Alexander Ives. “ Women Leaders in African History: Idia, First Queen Mother of Benin .” (October 2003)
Bortolot, Alexander Ives. “ Kingdoms of Madagascar: Malagasy Funerary Arts .” (October 2003)
Bortolot, Alexander Ives. “ Kingdoms of Madagascar: Malagasy Textile Arts .” (October 2003)
Bortolot, Alexander Ives. “ Kingdoms of Madagascar: Maroserana and Merina .” (October 2003)
Bortolot, Alexander Ives. “ Kingdoms of the Savanna: The Kuba Kingdom .” (October 2003)
Bortolot, Alexander Ives. “ Kingdoms of the Savanna: The Luba and Lunda Empires .” (October 2003)
Bortolot, Alexander Ives. “ Women Leaders in African History, 17th–19th Century .” (October 2003)
Bortolot, Alexander Ives. “ Portraits of African Leadership .” (October 2003)

Related Essays

The Manila Galleon Trade (1565–1815)
Portraits of African Leadership
Religion and Culture in North America, 1600–1700
Trade Relations among European and African Nations
Visual Culture of the Atlantic World
Women Leaders in African History, 17th–19th Century
African Christianity in Kongo
The Age of Iron in West Africa
American Federal-Era Period Rooms
Art of the Asante Kingdom
George Washington: Man, Myth, Monument
Gold in Asante Courtly Arts
Kingdoms of the Savanna: The Luba and Lunda Empires
Kongo Ivories
The New York Dutch Room
The Portuguese in Africa, 1415–1600
Ways of Recording African History
Women Leaders in African History: Ana Nzinga, Queen of Ndongo

List of Rulers

Presidents of the United States of America
Arabian Peninsula, 1600–1800 A.D.
Central Africa, 1600–1800 A.D.
Central America and the Caribbean, 1400–1600 A.D.
Eastern and Southern Africa, 1400–1600 A.D.
Guinea Coast, 1600–1800 A.D.
Guinea Coast, 1800–1900 A.D.
Maya Area, 1400–1600 A.D.
Mexico and Central America, 1600–1800 A.D.
Mexico, 1400–1600 A.D.
South Asia, 1600–1800 A.D.
The United States, 1600–1800 A.D.
Western and Central Sudan, 1600–1800 A.D.
Western and Central Sudan, 1800–1900 A.D.
Western North Africa (The Maghrib), 1600–1800 A.D.
Arabian Peninsula
The Caribbean
Central Africa
Central America
Guinea Coast
North Africa
North America
South America

The Slave Trade and Slavery: A Founding Tragedy of our Modern World

Among the major crimes that have marked human history, the slave trade and slavery are distinguished by their magnitude, their duration and the violence that accompanied them. It is difficult to understand how a tragedy of this scale could have been ignored for so long. Historians estimate that thirty million Africans were deported from different parts of Africa and enslaved in other regions of the world. If we add the number of those who died during capture, the arduous journey towards various ports, the holding camps, and the middle passage, there were, in fact, near a hundred of millions of lives that were taken from Africa.

This massive outward forced migration had resulted in a population decline for at least four centuries. Demographers have calculated that the total number of Africans at the end of the nineteenth century should have reached two hundred million, rather than an estimated hundred million. Imagine the potential that was lost across an entire continent and the vulnerabilities created and further exploited.

Denials of Dignity and Resistance:

The slave trade and slavery had another peculiar consequence. They left in their wake the tenacious poison of racism and discrimination that plagues people of African descent today. Throughout this history, black people across the world have had to confront three kinds of denials that have served to justify and legitimize the slave trade, slavery, colonization, segregation and apartheid since the 15th century. They are:

- The denial of their humanity and dignity through numerous attempts to reduce them to the status of beasts of burden, in view of dehumanizing them.

- The denial of their history and culture through pseudo-scientific discourses aiming at minimizing their role in human history.

- The denial of their rights and citizenship through all types of policies, laws, and strategies of discrimination.

It is to fight this legacy of racial prejudices, still disseminated through the media, cinema, television, textbooks that the United Nations has proclaimed in 2014 the International Decade for People of African Descent (2015-2024) to promote the fulfilment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms of people of African descent and a greater knowledge of their contribution to humankind.

Despite the extreme violence of this system of oppression, codified by the monstrous Black Codes, the enslaved Africans never ceased to resist. Using the full potential of their culture, they not only survived the conditions of dehumanization but also contributed to transforming slave societies through their social ingenuity and artistic creavity, which produced the extraordinary cultural diversity.

Lessons from History:

Cognizant that ignoring such major historical events constitutes in itself an obstacle to peace, mutual understanding, and reconciliation, UNESCO launched in 1994 the Slave Route Project to contribute to this reflection. The ethical, political and cultural stakes of this project were clearly articulated from the very beginning. The barbarity that societies are capable of unleashing, especially those societies claiming the privilege of civilization are the stakes. Moreover, comprehension of this chapter in world history makes it possible to better grasp the genealogy that binds the slave trade to other historic crimes such as the extermination of indigenous peoples in the Americas, the Holocaust, Apartheid and more recent genocides.

The slave trade and slavery are therefore founders of our modern world. Through the capital accumulated during trade which contributed to the enrichment of Europe and America, the common heritage which is the main source of today's artistic creations, and through the combat against slavery which has profoundly redefined the very notion of liberty, dignity and universality, this history has participated in the emergence of modernity.

This tragedy concerns the whole of humanity and calls out to all of us, because of the universal silence that has surrounded it, the troubling light it sheds on the discourse used to justify it, and the psychological scars it has left in our souls.

It also challenges us to confront some of today's burning issues in post-slavery societies: cultural pluralism, mutual respect, reparations, and naonal reconciliation. It helps to better fight against new forms of servitude that continue to affect millions of people, in particular women and children, in different parts of our world.

The International Day of Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolion initiated by UNESCO offers us an opportunity to reflect on the 23rd of August on this tragic history of humanity and on the persistence of its disastrous legacy in contemporary societies.

By Ali Moussa Coordinator of UNESCO's Slave Route Project

More on this subject

Afrodescendencias Festival in Mexico City: Historical Memory and Resistance

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Launch of the Report on "Healing the Wounds of Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and Slavery"

Historical overview: from the 1600s to the present

Figure: Seated Portuguese Male, 18th century (Edo peoples, Court of Benin, Nigeria), brass, 12.7 x 5.1 x 6 cm ( The Metropolitan Museum of Art , New York)

Enslavement in the Americas

Western trade with Africa was not limited to material goods such as copper, cloth, and beads. By the 16th century, the transatlantic slave trade had already begun, forcibly bringing Africans to the newly colonized Americas. While some forms of enslavement had existed in Africa, the sheer number of enslaved people traded across the Atlantic was unprecedented, as over 11 million Africans were brought to the Americas and the Caribbean over a period of four centuries. Driven by commercial interests, the slave trade peaked in the 18th century with the expansion of American plantation production, and continued until the mid-19th century. By the late 18th century, the slave trade began to wane as the abolitionist movement grew. Those who survived the forced migration and the notorious Middle Passage brought their beliefs and cultural practices to the Americas.

Within this far-flung diaspora, certain cultures—such as the Yoruba and Igbo of today’s Nigeria and the Kongo from present-day Democratic Republic of Congo—were especially targeted. Enslaved Africans brought few, if any, personal items with them, although recent archaeological investigations have yielded early African artifacts, like the beads and shells found at the African burial grounds in New York’s lower Manhattan , which date to the 17th and 18th centuries.

The influence of Africans in the Americas can be seen in diverse forms of cultural expression, such as open-front porches and sloped hip-roofs. The religious practices of Haitian Vodou have roots in the spiritual beliefs of Dahomean, Yoruba, and Kongo peoples. Some elements of cuisine in the American South, such as gumbo and jambalaya, derive from African food traditions. Certain musical forms, such as jazz and the blues, reflect the convergence of African musical practices and European-based traditions.

Figurative Harp (Domu) , 19th–20th century (Mangbetu peoples, Democratic Republic of the Congo), wood, hide, twine, brass ring, 67.3 x 21.6 x 30.5 cm ( The Metropolitan Museum of Art , New York)

European colonization of Africa

Although the slave trade was banned entirely by the late 19th century, European involvement in Africa did not end. Instead, the desire for greater control over Africa’s resources resulted in the colonization of the majority of the continent by seven European countries. The Berlin Conference of 1884–85, attended by representatives of fourteen different European powers, resulted in the regulation of European colonization and trade in Africa. Over the next twenty years, the continent was occupied by France, Belgium, Germany, Britain, Spain, Italy, and Portugal. By 1914, the entire continent, with the exception of Ethiopia and Liberia, was colonized by European nations.

The colonial period in Africa brought radical changes, disrupting local political institutions, patterns of trade, and religious and social beliefs. The colonial era also impacted cultural practices in Africa, as artists responded to new forms of patronage and the introduction of new technologies as well as to their changing social and political situations. In some cases, European patronage of local artists resulted in stylistic change (for example this Mangbetu Figurative Harp ) or new forms of expression. At the same time, many artistic traditions were characterized as “ primitive ” by Westerners and discouraged or even banned.

Although African artifacts were brought to Europe as early as the 16th century, it was during the colonial period that such works entered Western collections in significant quantities, forming the basis of many museum collections today. African artifacts were collected as personal souvenirs or ethnographic specimens by military officers, colonial administrators, missionaries, scientists, merchants, and others to the continent.

Plaque: Equestrian Oba and Attendants , c. 1550–1680 (Edo peoples, Court of Benin, Nigeria), brass, 49.5 x 41.9 x 11.4 cm ( The Metropolitan Museum of Art , New York)

In an act of war initiated by Britain against one of its colonies, thousands of royal art objects were stolen from the kingdom of Benin following its defeat by a British military expedition in 1897. European nations with colonies in Africa established ethnographic museums with extensive collections, such as the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren, Belgium, the Völkerkunde museums in Germany, the British Museum in London, and the Musée de l’Homme in Paris (now housed at the Musée du Quai Branly). In the United States, which had no colonial ties to Africa, the nascent study of ethnography motivated the formation of collections at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and the Field Museum in Chicago. In 1923, the Brooklyn Museum became the first American museum to present African works as art.

African independence

Independence movements in Africa began with the liberation of Ghana in 1957 and ended with the dismantling of apartheid in South Africa during the 1990s. The postcolonial period has been challenging, as many countries struggle to regain stability in the aftermath of colonialism. Yet while the media often focuses on political instability, civil unrest, and economic and health crises, these represent only part of the story of Africa today.

Martin Rakotoarimanana, Mantle (Lamba Mpanjakas) , 1998 (Merina peoples, Imerina village, Antananarivo or Arivonimamo, Madagascar), silk, 274.3 x 178.1 cm ( The Metropolitan Museum of Art , New York)

Contemporary art in Africa

In spite of Africa’s political, economic, and environmental challenges, the postcolonial period has been a time of tremendous vigor in the realm of artistic production. Many tradition-based artistic practices continue to thrive or have been revitalized. In Guinea, the revival of D’mba performances in the 1990s, after decades of censorship by the Marxist government, is one example of cultural reinvention. Similarly, in recent years, Merina weavers in the highlands of Madagascar have begun to create brilliantly hued silk cloth known as akotofahana , a textile tradition abandoned a century ago.

Photography, introduced on the continent in the late 19th century, has become a popular medium, particularly in urban areas. Artists like Seydou Keïta , who operated a portrait studio in Bamako, Mali, in the colonial period, set the stage for later generations of photographers who captured the faces of newly independent African countries. It is also important to mention developments in modern and contemporary African art. During the colonial period, art schools were established that provided training, often based on Western models, to local artists. Many schools were initiated by Europeans, such as the Congolese Académie des Arts, established by Pierre Romain-Desfossé in 1944 in Elisabethville, whose program was based on those of art schools in Europe. Less frequently, the teaching of modern art was initiated by Indigenous Africans, such as Chief Aina Onabolu, who is credited with introducing modern art in Nigeria beginning in the 1920s. Since the mid-20th century, increasing numbers of African artists have engaged local traditions in new ways or embraced a national identity through their visual expression.

Magdalene Anyango N. Odundo, Untitled , 1997, red clay, 50.2 x 33 x 26.7 cm ( The Metropolitan Museum of Art , New York) © Magdalene A.N. Odundo

Artists in today’s Africa are the products of diverse forms of artistic training, work in a variety of mediums, and engage local as well as global audiences with their work. In recent decades, contemporary artists from Africa, both self-taught and academically trained, have received international recognition. Kenyan-born Magdalene Odundo , for example, was trained as an artist in schools in Kenya and in England, where she now lives. The burnished ceramic vessels she creates, which are purely artistic, embody her diverse sources, including traditional Nigerian and Kenyan vessels as well as Puebloan pottery traditions of New Mexico. The work of contemporary African artists like Odundo reveals the complex realities of artistic practice in today’s increasingly global society.

Bibliography

Read a Reframing Art History textbook chapter, The arts of Africa, c. 18th–20th century

The Transatlantic Slave Trade on the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History

Trade Relations among European and African Nations on the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History

Frederick Lamp, “ Art of the Baga: A Drama of Cultural Reinvention ,” African Arts , volume 29, number 4 (1996), pp. 20–33.

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The New York Times

Magazine | the 1619 project, the 1619 project.

AUG. 14, 2019

In August of 1619, a ship appeared on this horizon, near Point Comfort, a coastal port in the English colony of Virginia. It carried more than 20 enslaved Africans, who were sold to the colonists. No aspect of the country that would be formed here has been untouched by the years of slavery that followed. On the 400th anniversary of this fateful moment, it is finally time to tell our story truthfully.

Our democracy’s founding ideals were false when they were written. black americans have fought to make them true., if you want to understand the brutality of american capitalism, you have to start on the plantation., myths about physical racial differences were used to justify slavery — and are still believed by doctors today., america holds onto an undemocratic assumption from its founding: that some people deserve more power than others., for centuries, black music has been the sound of artistic freedom. no wonder everybody’s always stealing it., ‘i slide my ring finger from senegal to south carolina & feel the ocean separate a million families.’, what does a traffic jam in atlanta have to do with segregation quite a lot., why doesn’t the united states have universal health care the answer begins with policies enacted after the civil war., slavery gave america a fear of black people and a taste for violent punishment. both still define our prison system., the sugar that saturates the american diet has a barbaric history as the ‘white gold’ that fueled slavery., a vast wealth gap, driven by segregation, redlining, evictions and exclusion, separates black and white america., a re-education is necessary., most americans still don’t know the full story of slavery. this is the history you didn’t learn in school., ‘we are committing educational malpractice’: why slavery is mistaught — and worse — in american schools., the 1619 project continues, the 1619 podcast.

An audio series from The Times observing the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery.

Live at the Smithsonian

Watch highlights of a symposium about how history is defined — and redefined — featuring historians, journalists and policymakers.

Reader Responses

We asked you to share photographs and stories of your enslaved ancestors. The images and stories helped paint a picture of a too-often-erased American history.

We asked you how you learned about slavery in school. You told us about degrading role play, flawed lessons and teachers who played down its horrors.

Race/Related

The 1619 Project was conceived by Nikole Hannah-Jones. In this interview, she talks about the project and the reaction to it.

In the N.B.A., the very term “owner” has come under fire, as players, most of whom are black, assert self-determination.

Behind the Scenes of 1619

Since January, The Times Magazine has been working on an issue to mark the 400th anniversary of the first enslaved people arriving in America.

For teachers

Looking for ways to use this issue in your classroom? You can find curriculums, guides and activities for students developed by the Pulitzer Center at 1619 education.org. And it’s all free!

Origins of the Slave Trade

Written by: mark christensen, assumption college, by the end of this section, you will:.

Explain how the growth of the Spanish Empire in North America shaped the development of social and economic structures over time

Suggested Sequencing

This Narrative can be assigned to students after the Life in the Spanish Colonies Narrative. Connections can be drawn between this Narrative and the Las Casas on the Destruction of the Indies, 1552 .

In 1734, British sea captain William Snelgrave stated that Africans had been trafficking in slaves long before the Europeans arrived and explained the various ways Africans could become enslaved in their native country. Slavery could result from crimes committed or unpaid debts; parents could also sell their children into slavery. Yet the most common source of slavery was the taking of war captives by an enemy tribe or state. Snelgrave argued that the slave trade between Europeans and Africans was moral and just and, in fact, benefitted the African slaves. According to him, Europeans had an economic incentive to treat slaves better than their African counterparts because of the expense incurred in their purchase. Furthermore, European slavers would introduce African slaves to Christianity, thus saving their souls for eternity. Many Europeans shared Snelgrave’s opinions, as did the Catholic Church and its popes, who issued several decrees concerning Africa beginning in the mid-fifteenth century and authorizing the enslavement of non-Christians.

Although grossly exaggerating the improved treatment of slaves by Europeans, Snelgrave was right in that the slave trade was just that: a trade. Contrary to popular understanding, Europeans were generally prevented by disease and Africans wielding metal weapons from raiding the African continent and stealing away people they then enslaved. These limitations forced them to deal with Africans as equal business partners. After all, the business of slavery had existed in Africa and been controlled by the African elite since the seventh century. Some historians estimate that, before the arrival of the Europeans in the fifteenth century, Africans had sold upward of eleven million slaves to the Islamic world. When the Portuguese arrived on the coast of Africa, African merchants and rulers were more than happy to exchange enslaved Africans for various commodities. In other words, Europeans simply accessed the preexisting systems of slave trading and provided a new means of transport across the Atlantic to the Americas.

It is important to view slavery and its deep history not as a “white” versus “black” racial issue, but as a longstanding example of “us” versus “them” exploitation. Slavery has existed in various forms since at least ancient times and throughout many world cultures. Before the Industrial Revolution, the invention of advanced labor-saving technology, and the development of markets for free labor, forced or coerced human labor was used by civilizations from Sumeria, Egypt, and Greece to Rome, and eventually African and European nations. Cultures and nations routinely used other cultures and nations deemed different or inferior as sources of slaves. In other words, European and African involvement in a slave trade was just one link in an already long chain of examples.

In Africa, slaves served in a variety of roles. Some worked on the agricultural estates of nobles and kings; some served in domestic roles or as indicators of wealth and prestige; some performed hard labor in gold mines or as soldiers; and others served as artisans, concubines, tutors, and in many other roles. Slaves in Africa were seen as a form of property, and slave markets abounded throughout west and central Africa. The all-too-real danger of becoming enslaved due to violent raids by other Africans prompted many African communities to use the natural geography of cliffs, lakes, mountains, and caves, and the construction of walls around communities, towns, and cities to protect themselves from aggressive neighbors.

The discovery of the Americas and the increased demand for the labor-intensive production of sugar led to an increased European demand for slaves, and Africa provided the perfect solution. Not only was it close to the trade routes going west to the Americas but it had a preexisting system of slavery that facilitated the trade. Business-savvy African merchants and rulers knew they held a product highly valued by Europeans and adjusted their price accordingly. Some demanded cowry shells for their slaves; others requested European goods such as rum, tobacco, guns, iron bars, axes, knives, and textiles. These goods enhanced the prestige of their African owners while also providing a military advantage over their rivals.

A typical slave-trading venture might begin with a European ship captain, before his departure, obtaining from his government the necessary permissions and paying the necessary fees to trade in slaves. He would hire a crew and check the local ports for men returning from Africa to ascertain the current value of slaves and the goods African traders sought. After purchasing supplies and desired trade items, he would set sail for the African coast. For their part, African rulers and merchants would acquire slaves, often through violent raids, and bring them to coastal forts, such as the one shown in, to be held until they were purchased by Europeans.

A painting shows Elmina Castle, which is flying the Dutch flag.

In 1482, Portuguese traders built Elmina Castle (also called São Jorge da Mina, or Saint George’s of the Mine) in present-day Ghana, on the west coast of Africa. Originally the fort was used to trade gold, but by the sixteenth century it was serving as a holding pen for enslaved Africans waiting to board ships that would take them to the Americas. This image of the Elmina dates from the 1660s, when the fort had been seized by Dutch traders.

Having arrived, the European captain would likely offer “gifts” or pay “dues” to the local African traders and kings in exchange for the opportunity to trade with them. The captain would then purchase as many slaves as the African merchants had available and continue this process all along the coastline as he sailed to various vendors until he had purchased his desired number of slaves. A trip could last weeks or even months, depending on the number of enslaved people available at each stop.

During the purchasing process, the crew outfitted the boat for its trans-Atlantic voyage. They installed planks in the storage hold on which to keep the slaves, and nets around the deck to prevent escape or suicide. Enslaved people spent the hellish voyage across the Atlantic Ocean shackled together in the cramped, dark, and foul confines below deck. Approximately 10 to 15 percent of the 12 million Africans in the slave trade – more than one million people – died on the voyage of disease, mistreatment, or suicide.

An image shows a drawing of the sections of a slave ship: from the top and a longitudinal section, as well as the dimensions.

What does this cross-section of a slave ship reveal about the treatment of Africans during the Middle Passage?

Known as the “Middle Passage” of the triangular trade between Europe, Africa, and the Americas, the ordeal took one to two months. After arriving in the Americas, the captain would sell his slaves for local goods including cotton, rum, sugar, dyes, and logwood. These goods would then be transported back to Europe for sale. Although European and African slavers saw the slave trade as beneficial and lucrative, the Africans who had been kidnapped and enslaved suffered inhumane exploitation, mistreatment, and denial of the fundamental individual rights to life, liberty, and ownership of their labor and themselves.

Before 1820, four of every five people bound for North or South America arrived in chains. Once purchased and transported from Africa, slaves ended up in a variety of places. A small portion was taken to Europe. Nearly one-third of slaves were sent to Brazil, which received more than four million slaves to work on its numerous sugar plantations, to mine and pan for gold, and eventually to grow coffee. Caribbean islands owned by the British, French, and Dutch likewise received millions of slaves, as did Spanish America, where enslaved people commonly worked in the mines, in artisan trades, and around ports as laborers and sailors. Contrary to popular belief, British North America received only about six percent of the captives transported in the slave trade. Demand was greater in the sugar islands of the Caribbean, whereas North American labor needs were met, in part, by white indentured servants and a naturally reproducing slave population. In the end, however, Africa and Europe worked together to supply the Americas with their primary source of immigrants in the colonial period: African slaves.

A map shows the routes that were used in the course of the slave trade and the number of enslaved people who traveled each route. Slaves traveled from Africa to South and Central America and well as to the Middle East and within Africa itself.

This map shows the routes that were used in the Atlantic slave trade. The majority of slaves were sent to the plantations and mines of Brazil. (attribution: Copyright Rice University, OpenStax, under CC BY 4.0 license)

Review Questions

1. What was the final destination for most slaves coming to the New World?

North America
The Caribbean

2. Before 1820, approximately how many people coming to the Americas were enslaved?

3. The Atlantic slave trade

brought more slaves to the sugar-producing colonies than to any other area
was supported in part by freed slaves who became slave owners themselves
brought more slaves to the British colonies than to the Caribbean
reached its height in the early 1600s

4. The first European country to participate in the slave trade was

5. African rulers and merchants participated in the Atlantic slave trade by

raiding rival groups for captives to sell to European traders
protesting the conditions of the Middle Passage
partnering with Europeans to ensure slaves’ conversion to Christianity
refusing to cooperate with European slave traders

6. Historians looking to study the role of African rulers and merchants in the Atlantic slave trade would likely consult

a map indicating the origins and ultimate destination of slaves in the New World
a treaty signed between an African ruler and a European trader
a first-hand account of the Middle Passage
a graph showing the growth of the slave trade over time

7. Which statement best describes the interaction between Europeans and Africans in capturing slaves on the African continent?

Europeans directly raided the African continent and captured slaves with the permission of African rulers.
Europeans relied on Africans as business partners to capture and provide them with slaves for payment.
Europeans sought the advice of African rulers and merchants on the best places to purchase slaves within the continent.
Europeans and African rulers and merchants had little to no interaction during the Atlantic slave trade.

8. Before European involvement in the Atlantic slave trade, what was the most common form of slavery in Africa?

Children sold into slavery by their parents
Debtors sold into slavery for nonpayment of their debts
Captives taken during war
Soldiers serving in the military

Free Response Questions

Explain how the Europeans viewed the African slave trade.
Explain Africa’s role in the international slave trade.
Explain how the New World economy determined where most slaves were eventually brought.

AP Practice Questions

“The inhabitants of . . . the sugar colonies, are composed of Whites and Blacks, or in other words of British subjects and African slaves. It is from the skill and industry of the former, supported by the painful and indefatigable labour of the latter, that not sugar only, but various other commodities . . . are raised in those countries, and exported to different parts of the world. It is to the cheapness of the labor of these poor people . . . that those costly and extensive works, which are necessary in a sugar plantation, are derived, as well as . . . the affluence of our countrymen in these isles, who are their masters.”

John Campbell, Candid and Impartial Considerations on the Nature of the Sugar Trade; the Comparative Importance of the British and French Islands in the West Indies, 1763

1. According to this source, what was the main motivation for the origins of slavery?

An economic need for cheap labor in industrial processes
A religious motive to convert non-Christians
A racial motive rooted in the belief in European superiority
An economic need for cheap labor on large-scale plantations

2. Which piece of evidence would best support this source’s argument for the motivations of slavery?

A chart showing an increase in European sugar consumption over time
A missionary lamenting the treatment of enslaved workers
A first-hand account of the Middle Passage
A ledger showing prices paid for slaves on a plantation

Primary Sources

Nzinga Mbemba’s Letter to the King of Portugal: http://www.classzone.com/books/wh_05_shared/pdf/WHS05_020_568_PS.pdf

Suggested Resources

Benjamin, Thomas. The Atlantic World: Europeans, Africans, Indians, and Their Shared History, 1400-1900 . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Curtain, Philip D. The African Slave Trade: A Census . Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1972.

Klein, Herbert S. The Atlantic Slave Trade . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Thomas, Hugh. The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1440-1870 . New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997.

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness

In our resource history is presented through a series of narratives, primary sources, and point-counterpoint debates that invites students to participate in the ongoing conversation about the American experiment.

Transatlantic Slave Trade Essay

To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
As a template for you assignment

The infamous Transatlantic Slave Trade “took place from the 15 th to the 19 th century” (Bush 19). This trade resulted in massive human migration. Many Africans came to America during the period. According to historians, many Europeans wanted to support their colonies in order to achieve their goals. During the period, many “colonies were producing various cash crops such as cotton, sugar, and tobacco” (Bush 27).

Most of the paid laborers were becoming extremely expensive. The indigenous populations were also dying due to poverty, conflicts, and diseases. The colonialists wanted to get new sources of cheap labor. The best solution to this problem was to acquire different slaves from Africa. Some African societies collaborated with different Europeans in order support this illegal trade. Some merchants also wanted to benefit from the Slave Trade. This fact explains why different African leaders and merchants supported the trade.

The Slave Trade also affected many societies across the world. For example, the trade supported the economic needs of different colonies. The practice also supported the economic positions of different countries. A large number of individuals lost their original lands. According to many scholars, the trade introduced new diseases and socio-cultural practices in these colonies. The trade also resulted in environmental destruction.

The Slave Trade “left many societies underdeveloped and disorganized” (Bush 62). This development also weakened several communities in Africa and Asia. The Slave Trade affected the economic stability of every targeted society. This situation made such societies more vulnerable to colonialism. This slave trade produced different racial groups in many countries across the globe. The trade also produced long-term effects such as poverty, inequality, and discrimination. Many descendants of these slaves are currently facing most of these challenges. The Slave Trade presented numerous lessons to different societies. Many societies enacted new laws in order to safeguard the rights of every minority group.

Imperialism

The word imperialism “refers to a policy aimed at expanding a nation’s influence and capability through military force, colonization, or assimilation” (Thomas 38). Many countries such as the United States “pursued aggressive policies in an attempt to extend their economic and political influences across the word” (Thomas 47). Some historians have presented numerous arguments regarding the major causes of imperialism.

For example, many nations wanted to acquire new territories in order to emerge powerful. This expectation encouraged some countries such as Britain, France, and Italy to colonize different societies. The second factor that contributed to imperialism was “the desire to govern and develop different societies” (Thomas 49). Some countries also used the policy to acquire different uninhabited lands. This argument explains why different countries wanted to support their economies.

Imperialism transformed the economic strengths of different countries. Colonialism was one of the strategies aimed at promoting this policy. The approach resulted in new ideas such as globalization. The development supported the economic positions of different nations. This situation also made it easier for many nations to achieve the best goals. A “multi-polar world also developed because of imperialism” (Thomas 84). This development also produced different empires. The evolution of these empires reshaped the economic policies and political systems of many countries. Many governments and societies have borrowed their leadership ideas from the wave of imperialism. Historians and scholars have gained numerous political and economic ideas from the wave of imperialism.

Works Cited

Bush, Barbara. Imperialism and Post-colonialism History: Concepts, Theories and Practice . New York, Longmans, 2006. Print.

Thomas, Hugh. The Slave Trade: The History of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1440-1870. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Print.

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IvyPanda . 2021. "Transatlantic Slave Trade." March 3, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/transatlantic-slave-trade/.

1. IvyPanda . "Transatlantic Slave Trade." March 3, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/transatlantic-slave-trade/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Transatlantic Slave Trade." March 3, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/transatlantic-slave-trade/.

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Transatlantic Slave Trade Causes and Effects

Atlantic Worlds: Enslavement and Resistance

Part of the fascinating Atlantic gallery

The history of the transatlantic slave trade

Find out about the slave trade, resistance and eventual abolition at the Atlantic gallery.

Africa and Enslavement

Ivory, gold and other trade resources attracted Europeans to West Africa. As demand for cheap labour to work on plantations in the Americas grew, people enslaved in West Africa became the most valuable ‘commodity’ for European traders.

Slavery existed in Africa before Europeans arrived. However, their demand for slave labour was so great that traders and their agents searched far inland, devastating the region. Powerful African leaders fuelled the practice by exchanging enslaved people for goods such as alcohol, beads and cloth.

Britain became the world’s leading slave-trading country. Transatlantic slavery was especially lucrative because ships could sail with full holds on every stage of their voyage, making large profits for merchants in London, Bristol and Liverpool.

Around 12 million Africans were enslaved in the course of the transatlantic slave trade. Between 1640 and 1807, British ships transported about 3.4 million Africans across the Atlantic.

The Middle Passage

The ‘Middle Passage’ was the harrowing voyage experienced by the millions of African captives transported across the Atlantic in European ships, to work as slaves in the Americas. Conditions on board slave ships were appalling: huge numbers of people were crammed into very small spaces. Men, women and children were separated, families being torn apart.

Overcrowding, poor diet, dehydration and disease led to high death rates. 450,000 of the 3.4 million Africans transported in British ships died on the Atlantic crossing. Those who resisted by refusing food and water were beaten and force-fed. Attempts at more violent, organised rebellion were even more savagely punished. Some people preferred death to slavery and committed suicide during the voyage or later.

Visions of the Caribbean: plantation conditions

By the 16th century, Europeans had started to develop and cultivate regions in the Caribbean, North and South America. As demand for labour grew, Europeans turned to West Africa to supply an enslaved workforce.

These people were defined in law as ‘chattels’ – the personal property of their ‘owners’ – and were denied the right to live and move as they chose. Their forced labour produced commodities like tobacco, cotton and sugar, for which there was a huge European demand.

Nearly two-thirds of all enslaved people cut cane on sugar plantations. These were places of hard labour and cruel treatment with very high mortality rates. Despite this, African music, dance and religious ceremonies flourished, evolving into new hybrid cultures and traditions.

Visions of the Caribbean: resistance

Enslaved people fought to retain their families, cultures, customs and dignity. Resistance took many forms: from keeping aspects of their identity and traditions alive to escaping and plotting uprisings.

On the plantations they broke tools, damaged crops and feigned injury or illness in order to frustrate plantation owners and their ambitions for greater profits. At other times, they made bids for freedom by escaping. Sometimes these ‘runaways’ grouped together and built their own independent, self-sufficient communities of resistance, often known as ‘maroons’.

Large-scale organised uprisings were a common reaction to the cruelties of the slave system. Potential and actual armed resistance also contributed to the ending of the slave trade and eventually slavery itself.

How did the slave trade develop in Britain?

Elizabeth I believed that capturing Africans against their will 'would be detestable and call down the vengeance of Heaven upon the undertakers', yet after seeing the huge profits available she lent Royal Ships to two slaving expeditions of John Hawkins – the first English trader of enslaved people from West Africa to the Americas.

No English settlements were established in North America or in the West Indies during the reign of Elizabeth, but in the 17th century the English began to acquire territory in the New World. The English colonies expanded rapidly and the development of a plantation system and the growth of the Atlantic economy brought further demands for African labour. This increased the scale of the trade in enslaved people.

In the first third of the 18th century, Britain’s involvement in the slave trade grew enormously. In the 1710s and 1720s, nearly 200,000 enslaved Africans were transported across the Atlantic in British ships.

Abolitionism in Britain

Abolitionism was one of Britain’s first lobbying movements. The first meeting of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade took place in London in May 1787. African writers and activists such as Olaudah Equiano spoke out against the trade and its inhumane treatment of Africans. High-profile figures such as William Wilberforce MP, and Thomas Clarkson also used their influence to effect its abolition.

Abolitionists argued that, in addition to stopping an immoral practice, ending the slave trade would save the lives of thousands of European sailors and open new markets for British goods. But their pro-slavery opponents pointed out how important Caribbean plantations were to Britain’s economy.

Parliament finally passed an Act to abolish the slave trade in 1807. It stated that all slave trading by British subjects was ‘utterly abolished, prohibited and declared to be unlawful’. But it did not end the institution of slavery itself and nearly 750,000 people remained enslaved in British colonies across the Caribbean.

Mobilizing public support

Abolitionists succeeded in mobilizing unprecedented public support. Through a campaign of information they demonstrated what lay behind the sugar, tobacco and coffee enjoyed by Britons. People signed petitions, attended lectures and abstained from eating West Indian sugar.

Many people who signed petitions could not vote and this was their only means of expressing their opinion to Parliament. Over 100 petitions against the slave trade were submitted to Parliament in 1788, rising to 519 in 1792. For the first time in a public political campaign, women were extensively involved, adding their voices to the calls for abolition.

The continuation of slavery

Although the British Parliament outlawed slavery in 1807, a quarter of all Africans who were enslaved were transported across the Atlantic after this date. In British colonies, the institution of slavery carried on as before, until Parliament passed an Emancipation Act in 1833. This was achieved by a combination of active resistance in the Caribbean and campaigning in Britain. Even then, full emancipation was not realized until 1838 when a period of unpaid labour ended and 800,000 people were freed across the British Caribbean. But Parliament also voted to pay the plantation owners £20 million in compensation. No payment was made to the ex-slaves.

After 1807: the Royal Navy and suppression of the slave trade

In 1808, the British West Africa Squadron was established to suppress illegal slave trading. Between 1820 and 1870, Royal Navy patrols seized over 1500 ships and freed 150,000 Africans destined for slavery in the Americas.

Many people believed that the only way to eradicate slavery was to promote ‘legitimate’ trade and European forms of religion and government in Africa. This paved the way for colonial rule later in the 19th century.

Understand more about the history of slavery

Hear stories told from diverse perspectives

African Slave Trade, Slavery in Africa : African Slave Trade and Slavery in Africa, Part One

African Slave Trade and Slavery in Africa, Part One

1619 Project - New York Times In 1619 "a ship arrived at Point Comfort in the British colony of Virginia, bearing a cargo of 20 to 30 enslaved Africans." "The goal of The 1619 Project is to reframe American history by considering what it would mean to regard 1619 as our nation’s birth year. Doing so requires us to place the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of the story we tell ourselves about who we are as a country." https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/1619-america-slavery.html

1619 Project Curriculum - Pulitzer Center "the year when the first enslaved Africans arrived on Virginia soil as our nation's foundational date." Resources for law school professors, Lesson plans for schools. Based in Washington, D.C. https://pulitzercenter.org/projects/1619-project-pulitzer-center-education-programming

An Account of the Congo Independent State, by Henry Phillips, Jr. Full text on-line. In Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. Vol. 26, No. 130 (Jul., 1889), pp. 459-476. From Google Books. http://books.google.com/books?id=IAkDAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA459&dq=account+of+the+congo+independent+state

Africa, the Cradle of Human Diversity: Cultural and Biological Approaches to Uncover African Diversity Editors: Cesar Fortes-Lima, Ezekia Mtetwa, and Carina Schlebusch Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2021 Series: Africa-Europe Group for Interdisciplinary Studies, Vol. 26 Free open access book. https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/52526 Chapter 5. Diversity and Variability in the Preindustrial Iron-Smelting Technologies of Great Zimbabwe, Southern Africa. By Ezekia Mtetwa Chapter 10. Disentangling the Impact of the Transatlantic Slave Trade in African Diaspora Populations from a Genomic Perspective. By Cesar A. Fortes-Lima

African Diaspora Archeology Network Full text issues of its ADAN newsletter . Operates a discussion forum. Maintained by Dr. Christopher C. Fennell , Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. [KF] http://www.diaspora.uiuc.edu/

African Studies Center, Leiden. Library - Indian Ocean Slave Trade Essay by Rijksmuseum (Amstrdam, Netherlands) Curator Maria Holtrop, extensive list of publications and web sites. https://www.ascleiden.nl/content/webdossiers/indian-ocean-slave-trade

African Studies Quarterly - A Roundtable on Reparations Includes "From Slave Ship to Space Ship: Africa Between Marginalization and Globalization" by Ali Mazrui, "Political Versus Legal Strategies for the African Slavery Reparations Movement" by Ricardo Laremont, "The Debt Has Not Been Paid; the Accounts Have Not Been Settled" by Dudley Thompson. Volume 2, Issue 4, [1998]. Electronic journal published by the Univ. of Florida, Center for African Studies. https://asq.africa.ufl.edu/previous-issues/volume-2/issue-4/

Africans in America - October 19-22, 1998 "...a companion to Africans in America, a six-hour public television series. The Web site chronicles the history of racial slavery in the United States -- from the start of the Atlantic slave trade in the 16th century to the end of the American Civil War in 1865 -- " Covers People & Events, Historical Documents; has a Teacher's Guide . http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/

AfriGeneas, African Ancestored Genealogy Has an beginners' guide, discussion list, surnames database, U.S. censuses, a description of the Louisiana Slave Database, 1719-1820, ny Gwendolyn Midlo Hall , and other databases, transcripts of America On Line interviews in the Genealogy Forum with Professor Gwendolyn Midlo Hall and others, newspaper / journal articles, related sites. [KF] http://www.afrigeneas.com

Afro-Louisiana History and Genealogy, 1719-1820 Dr. Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, New Orleans writer and historian, assembled over 15 years a database of 100,000 slaves brought to Louisiana in the 18th and 19th centuries. Information was gathered from courthouses in Louisiana, and archives in France, Spain and Texas. Dr. Hall's database contains information about African slave names, gender, ages, occupations, illnesses, family relationships, ethnicity, places of origin , prices paid by slave owners, and slaves' testimony and emancipations. Through the free online database " locate individual slaves who lived in Louisiana between the years of 1718 and 1820..." Search by name, origin of the slaves, gender, racial designation, or plantation location. Includes a listing of slaves with African names, slaves involved in a conspiracy or a revolt against slavery , charts of characteristics, etc. One can download the slave database. http://www.ibiblio.org/laslave/

Ajayi, J. F. Ade - Unfinished Business: Confronting the Legacies of Slavery and Colonialism in Africa 18 p. in PD F . By Professor J. F. Ade Ajayi. "development remains elusive in Africa, not merely because of the misrule and warped personalities of many African leaders, but because Africa had been damaged severely, first by the slave trade, then by the colonialism which grew out of the slave trade." https://www.cssscal.org/pdf/publication/ade_ajayi.pdf

Alpers, Edward A. - Sailing Into the Past. The African Experience in India Article in Samar 13: Winter/Spring, 2000 ." "an overview of the history of Africans in India within the wider context of the African diaspora, and ........their presence in other regions of the Indian Ocean." " the meaningful presence of Africans in India probably dates from the rise of Islam in the seventh century c.e.," "The most renowned representative of this class of African slaves in India was Malik Ambar, ruler of Ahmadnagar from 1600 to 1626." https://www.saada.org/item/20130131-1283

American Colonization Society, Library of Congress Exhibit The U.S. Library of Congress holds the records of the American Colonization Society which established Liberia . Exhibit descriptions provide historical background on this period. The Colonization section is part of the African-American Mosaic exhibit. http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/african/afam002.html

Amistad America Site for Freedom Schooner Amistad and Amistad America. The Freedom Schooner visits U.S. and international ports providing educational programs, interviews with the captain or crew on the history and the significance of the Amistad story, the transatlantic slave trade and present-day race relations. Recounts the story of the 1839 Amistad incident. Extensive curriculum resource center for elementary, middle school, and high school lesson plans. Based in New Haven, Connecticut. http://www.amistadamerica.org/

Atlas of Mutual Heritage (Amsterdam) A data-bank on the Dutch East India Company trading posts and settlements which will include paintings, drawings, maps ( Madagascar, South Africa ), prints and photographs ( Accra, Ghana , South Africa). "The first stage of the project involves the collation of illustrative data in the collections of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Rijksdienst voor de Monumentenzorg in Zeist and the Algemeen Rijksarchief in The Hague. Stage 2 will include the collation of illustrative data relating to Dutch East India Co. settlements in other collections in the Netherlands and abroad." "The data-bank is primarily intended for storing information relating to VOC settlements in Africa and Asia as well as illustrations of these settlements. The AMH data-bank can also be adapted for supplementary modules: for example, the Portuguese East India Company, embassies and expeditions, Dutch monuments overseas from 1800 to the present day." http://www.atlasofmutualheritage.nl/

Baquaqua, Mahommah Gardo. ; Moore, Samuel,; fl. 1854 - Biography of Mahommah G. Baquaqua a native of Zoogoo, in the interior of Africa (a convert of Christianity) With a description of that part of the world, including the manners and customs of the inhabitants. Mahommah's early life, his education, his capture and slavery in Western Africa and Brazil, his escape to the United States, from thence to Hayti, (the city of Port Au Prince,) his reception by the Baptist Missionary there, the Rev. L. Judd; his conversion to Christianity, Baptism, and return to this country, his views, objects and aims. Full text. Detroit: Geo. E. Pomeroy & Co., 1854. 66 p. Electronic version by [Chapel Hill, N.C.] :; Academic Affairs Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2001. "Includes information about Central Africa "their religious notions, form of government, laws, appearance of the country, buildings, agriculture, manufactures, shepherds and herdsmen, domestic animals, marriage ceremonials, funeral services, styles of dress, trade and commerce, modes of warfare, system of slavery, &c., &c." http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/baquaqua/menu.html

Benezet, Anthony - Some Historical Account of Guinea, Its Situation, Produce, and the General Disposition of Its Inhabitants and An Inquiry into the Rise and Progress of the Slave Trade, Its Nature and Lamentable Effects Originally published (Philadelphia, 1771. c. 200 pages). Full text. From Project Gutenberg. http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/11489

Black History Canada In English and French. Annotated online resources about Canada's Black history. Mathieu Da Costa (a free Black African translator ); Slavery in Canada; Timeline; Teachers' Section . "compiled by editors from The Canadian Encyclopedia (Historica-Dominion Institute) in consultation with Rosemary Sadlier, President of the Ontario Black History Society." https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/collection/black-history-in-canada

Breaking the Silence. The Transatlantic Slave Trade Education Project [UNESCO Digital Library] "a joint initiative between UNESCO, Anti-Slavery International, the British Council and the Norwegian Agency for Development Co-operation (NORAD)." Based in London, England. [KF] https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000137805/PDF/137805eng.pdf.multi

Brinch, Boyrereau [Benjamin F. (Benjamin Franklin) Prentiss, 1774 or 5-1817] - "The Blind African Slave, or Memoirs of Boyrereau Brinch, Nick-named Jeffrey Brace Containing an Account of the Kingdom of Bow-Woo, in the Interior of Africa; with the Climate and Natural Productions, Laws, and Customs Peculiar to That Place. With an Account of His Captivity, Sufferings, Sales, Travels, Emancipation, Conversion to the Christian Religion, Knowledge of the Scriptures, &c. Interspersed with Strictures on Slavery, Speculative Observations on the Qualities of Human Nature, with Quotation from Scripture." Imprint: St. Albans, Vt.: Printed by Harry Whitney, 1810. 204 p. Full text of the book. Part of the Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Documenting the American South , North American Slave Narratives site. http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/brinch/menu.html

Bristol and the Transatlantic Slave Trade Compiled by Dr Madge Dresser and the Bristol Museums Black History Steering Group. https://www.bristolmuseums.org.uk/stories/bristol-transatlantic-slave-trade/

British Broadcasting Company. The Story of Africa Older site, text only. "...the history of the continent from an African perspective." "from the origins of humankind to the end of South African apartheid" by major African historians (Jacob Ajayi, George Abungu, Director-General of the National Museums of Kenya and others). Each segment has a timeline, bibliography, useful links. http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/africa/features/storyofafrica/

British History Online Subscription is required for access. Covers England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales. From the Institute of Historical Research and the History of Parliament Trust . Database of primary and secondary sources, images and maps . Focus is on the period between 1300 and 1800. List of the British Secretaries of State 1794-1870 . If you register (free), you can save a personal bookshelf of links to useful resources and use a split screen feature to compare two documents simultaneously. Based in London. https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/7884590

Lists theses in Africa in History Theses 1901-1970: Historical research for higher degrees in the universities of the United Kingdom . Originally published by Institute of Historical Research, London, 1976. Full text of the House of Commons Journal. Examples:

Report from Committee on Sierra Leone , No. 661. From: 'House of Commons Journal Volume 85: 13 July 1830', Journal of the House of Commons: volume 85: 1830, pp. 640-45. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=16284&strquery=slavery%20africa
Petitions for abolition of Slavery . From: 'House of Commons Journal Volume 85: 13 July 1830', Journal of the House of Commons: volume 85: 1830, pp. 640-45. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=16284&strquery=slavery%20africa
the Slave Trade - The trade in general has suffered greatly since I have known it , both as to the difficulty of obtaining slaves, and the price at which they are purchased; in the year 1763 a male slave might be bought at about £13 sterling, which now costs £23 gold, which is become a necessary article in the purchase of a slave, is obtained by the free trader with great difficulty.

British Newspaper Archive Read newspapers online. Register with a password to see 3 free pages. $100 a year for unlimited accesses for individuals. "a partnership between the British Library and findmypast to digitise up to 40 million newspaper pages from the British Library's vast collection" https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/ Libraries subscribe to commercial databases which have newspapes. For ex. Nineteenth Century Collections has the newspapers African Mail, African World. British Citizen and Empire Worker.

British Online Archive. Slavery: supporters and abolitionists, 1675-1865 Requires a subscription. "documents concerning the African slave trade during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. The papers focus primarily on Jamaica and the West Indies, but also cover the experience of other nations and regions." Statistics, correspondence, pamphlets, memoir. Resources from the Bodleian Library, British Library, and others. Published by Microform Academic Publishers. Temporary URL for Stanford trial access - https://microform-digital.stanford.idm.oclc.org/boa/collections

Topics include: Report of the Commissioners on African Settlements: report on the slave trade', 1811; Report of the Select Committee on the West Coast of Africa, 1842; and 'Ord report on the West Coast of Africa', 1865. Formal title: Report of Colonel Ord, the Commissioner appointed to inquire into the condition of the British settlements on the West coast of Africa. The trade in people: The slave trade in Africa and the West Indies. Scottish trade with Africa and the West Indies in the early 18th century, 1694-1709. Log and journal of the Bristol ship, Black Prince, 1762-1764', these detailed records reveal both where slaves were boarded and details of slave trading which took place on-board the ship. In cursive, can be difficult to read.

Some of the above is in - U.K. parliamentary papers. Subscription database from Chadwyck-Healey,Proquest.

Bruner, Edward M. - "Tourism in Ghana: Representation of Slavery and the Return of the Black Diaspora" Article in American Anthropologist, Journal of the American Anthropological Association , Volume 98, Number 2, June 1996, 290-304. Article reprinted on the web site of Manu Herbstein. The site is about Herbstein's book, " Ama, A Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade ." http://www.ama.africatoday.com/diaspora_return.htm

Cambridge University Press - Race and Power Collection: Slavery "a quarterly updated assortment of free online book chapters and journal articles that explores the intertwining concepts of race and power, on a global scale, from an interdisciplinary perspective." h ttps://www.cambridge.org/core/what-we-publish/race-and-power

Includes

Slavery and Slaving in African History
Sean Stilwell
The Enslavement of Africans, 1600–1800
Paul E. Lovejoy, York University, Toronto
Transformations in Slavery
A History of Slavery in Africa
3rd edition
Paul E. Lovejoy Slavery and the slave trade in the Lower Senegal
James F. Searing, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Carey, Brycchan - "Ignatius Sancho: African Man of Letters" "Sancho (1729-1780) was born a slave on a ship crossing the Atlantic from Africa to the West Indies." "He composed music, appeared on the stage, and wrote a large number of letters which were collected and published in 1782, two years after his death." Has the full text of Joseph Jekyll's biography of Sancho, an annotated bibliography (including reviews, 19th c. commentary, music), selections from Sancho's Letters , biographies of those who knew him, maps and paintings of London in the mid 18th c., links to related sites, etc. Dr. Carey is a lecturer at Kingston University (Surrey, U.K.). http://www.brycchancarey.com/sancho/index.htm

Carey, Brycchan - "Olaudah Equiano, or, Gustavus Vassa, the African" "Equiano (c.1745-1797) was born in what is now Nigeria. Kidnapped and sold into slavery in childhood..." "Coming to London he became involved in the movement to abolish the slave trade, an involvement which led to him writing and publishing The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa the African (1789) a strongly abolitionist autobiography." Has a map of Equiano's travels, an annotated bibliography, extracts from The Interesting Narrative ..., arguments for and against the birthplace of Equiano, related web sites, etc. http://www.brycchancarey.com/equiano/index.htm

Carey, Brycchan - "Quobna Ottobah Cugoano" "Quobna Ottabah Cugoano was born in present-day Ghana in the 1750s. Kidnapped and taken into slavery, he worked on plantations in Granada before being brought to England, where he obtained his freedom." Site under construction. http://www.brycchancarey.com/cugoano/index.htm

Carey, Brycchan - Slavery Chronology A chronology of slavery, abolition, and emancipation, from the fifteenth century to the present day with details of the main historical and cultural events related to slavery. Dr. Carey is Lecturer in English Literature, Kingston University, U.K. [KF] http://www.brycchancarey.com/slavery/chrono1.htm

Christine's Genealogy Website - Emigrants to Liberia Links to sites with primary documents on the first Liberian emigrants. Has a Roll of Emigrants that have been sent to the colony of Liberia, Western Africa, by the American Colonization Society and its auxiliaries, to September, 1843, &c. with full text of passages from "Information relative to the operations of the United States squadron on the west coast of Africa, the condition of the American colonies there, and the commerce of the United States therewith," 28th Congress, 2d. Session, S. Doc. 150, serial 458. Includes 19th censuses, ships' passenger lists , etc. Maintained by Christine Charity, based in Pontiac, Michigan. http://ccharity.com/

Colonial Voyage Revolt of the slaves on Sao Tome, West Africa List of Portuguese colonial forts. List of Dutch colonial forts. Dutch in South Africa, Portuguese language heritage in Africa, European forts in Ghana, Madagascar, the Dutch in Mauritius, Bibliographies such as Dutch colonial history. Photographs. Maintained by Marco Ramerini from Firenze, Italy. https://www.colonialvoyage.com/

Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East (CSSAAME) Trade, Politics, and Identity in the Colonial Indian Ocean. Volume XIX, No. 2, 1999 is a special issue guest edited by Edward A. Alpers. Pub. by Duke University Press. Requires a subscription. Full text articles include:

Edward Alpers - Introduction. Trade, Politics and Identity in the Colonial Indian Ocean 2 p. in PDF . V
ijaya Teelock: The Influence of Slavery in the Formation of Creole Identity; [ Mauritius ]
Erik Gilbert: Sailing from Lamu and Back: Labor Migration and Regional Trade in Colonial East Africa
Charles Schaefer: "Selling at a Wash": Competition and the Indian Merchant Community in Aden Crown Colony
James R. Brennan: South Asian Nationalism in an East African Context: The Case of Tanganyika , 1914-1956. https://read-dukeupress-edu.stanford.idm.oclc.org/cssaame/issue/19/2

Conference 2008 - Slavery and the Slave Trades in the Indian Ocean and Arab Worlds: Global Connections and Disconnections, Yale University, November 7-8 Site has closed.

Conference 2005 - Legacies of Slavery: Comparative Perspectives, 11 July 2005, Centre for Cross-Cultural Research, Australian National University "...seeks to bring together scholars from history, literature, anthropology, art history and cultural studies to examine the indelible mark left by slavery on societies, ..." Site has closed.

Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online Biographies of persons who died between the years 1000 and 1930 . Has a biography of Richard Pierpoint (sold as a slave from Senegal) . A joint project of the University of Toronto and the Université Laval. [KF] http://www.biographi.ca/EN/index.html

Digital Slavery Research Lab Focuses on developing,.... archiving open-source data and multimedia related to slavery and human trafficking. ..... examines the historic Atlantic, Indian Ocean, and trans-Saharan slave trades. Based at the University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado. https://www.colorado.edu/lab/dsrl/ Included are -

the Liberated Africans Project
Accounts of freed slaves and of the international courts which freed them (including the Sierra Leone Vice-Admiralty Court and the Havana Slave Trade Commission). "Between 1808 and 1896, international authorities began to seize and detain ships suspected of participating in the slave trade. Once these ships were seized or detained, a network of international courts "decided the fates of the survivors." Essays. Photographs and documents from the British National Archives, the Sierra Leone National Archives, other African archives and missionary societies. [KF] http://liberatedafricans.org/
The Yoruba Diaspora: A Cartographically Based Interactive Digital Archive (CBIDA)
Henry B. Lovejoy, has compiled geo-referenced data that are aligned with slave voyages to visualize the process whereby inland conflict became a source of captives who boarded slave ships destined for the Americas. The geographic scope of the project reflects an area in southwestern Nigeria, as well as parts of Benin and Togo. In the past, this area was dominated by several kingdoms that engaged in trading enslaved people. " http://yorubadiaspora.org/s/yorubadiaspora/page/about
Slavery Images: A Visual Record of the African Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Early African Diaspora
Over 1,200 images. Portraits of individuals, maps, capture of slaves, pre-colonial Africa, European forts / trading posts in Africa, slave ships, slave auctions, etc. Site maintained by Professor Jerome S. Handler. http://slaveryimages.org/s/slaveryimages/page/welcome

Documenting the American South Has full text primary sources (books, monographs) including works by African-American missionaries in Africa , slaves' accounts of Africa . The Education section has Lessons Plans. From the University Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. http://docsouth.unc.edu/

Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt), 1868-1963 - The Souls of Black Folk; Essays and Sketches Project Gutenberg provides the full-text of the book. Many editions were published beginning with the first edition in 1903. http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/408

DuBois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt), 1868-1963 - Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America 1638-1870 New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1896. Project Gutenberg provides the full-text of the book. http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/17700

Enslaved. Peoples of the Historic Slave Trade A hub for web sites on the slave trade. Uses Linked Open Data (LOD) to interconnect individual projects and databases. Track slaves who appear in multiple databases and run statistical analyses across many datasets rather than only one. Supported by the Mellon Foundation, Michigan State Univ. and others. http://enslaved.org/

Journal of Slavery and Data Preservation "publishes original, peer-reviewed datasets about the lives of enslaved Africans and their descendants drawn from documents produced from the fifteenth to the early twentieth centuries." Based at Michigan State University, East Lansign, Michigan. https://jsdp.enslaved.org/

Enslaved Spaces A map illustrating the history and geography of the slave trade in West and Central Africa between 1440-1860. Sites of slavery in Africa served three systems: the domestic slave trade, the trans-Saharan slave trade, and the transatlantic slave trade. Hosted by The African Diaspora Institute of Cultural Exchange and Historical Research, Inc. (C.E.H.R.). Based in Bronx, New York. https://enslavedspaces.org/

Equiano, Olaudah b. 1745 - The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. Written by Himself Vol. I. London: Author, [1789]. Full text of the book. Electronic version by [Chapel Hill, N.C.] :; Academic Affairs Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2001. http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/equiano1/menu.html See also the site Carey, Brycchan - "Olaudah Equiano, or, Gustavus Vassa, the African."

Esclavages & Post-esclavages /Slaveries & Post~Slaveries Open access online journal began 2019. "revue internationale semestrielle. Pluridisciplinaire et multilingue, elle explore les spécificités des situations d’esclavages et de post-esclavages dans le monde, de l’Antiquité à nos jours." "éditée par le Centre international de recherches sur les esclavages et post-esclavages (CIRESC)." History, literature and the arts in relatin to slavery and post-slavery. Based in Paris. https://journals.openedition.org/slaveries/

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Triangular Slave Trade
Impact of the Atlantic Slave Trade on Societies Essay Example
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Transatlantic Slave Trade Essay

VIDEO

Part1 What was the slave trade like? #educational #africanamericanhistory #history
Did the Slave Trade Help Start the Crusades?
Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup
Schools Will Never Teach You About This In The Atlantic Slave Trade
The Untold Stories of Slavery"
Who received the most slaves during the Transatlantic Slave Trade? #slavery #slavetrade #history

COMMENTS

Slave trade
slave trade, the capturing, selling, and buying of enslaved persons. Slavery has existed throughout the world since ancient times, and trading in slaves has been equally universal. Enslaved persons were taken from the Slavs and Iranians from antiquity to the 19th century, from the sub-Saharan Africans from the 1st century ce to the mid-20th ...
Transatlantic slave trade
transatlantic slave trade, segment of the global slave trade that transported between 10 million and 12 million enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas from the 16th to the 19th century. It was the second of three stages of the so-called triangular trade, in which arms, textiles, and wine were shipped from Europe to Africa, enslaved people from Africa to the Americas, and ...
Atlantic Slavery and the Slave Trade: History and Historiography
From the 16th to the mid-19th century, approximately 12.5 million enslaved Africans were forcibly embarked on slave ships, of whom only 10.7 million survived the notorious Middle Passage. 1 Captives were transported in vessels that flew the colors of several nations, mainly Portugal, Britain, France, Spain, and the Netherlands.Ships departed from ports located in these countries or their ...
Transatlantic Slave Trade, Summary, Facts, Significance, APUSH
16th Century-1867. The Transatlantic Slave Trade was a business in which the commodity was African men, women, and children. They were captured in Africa, transported across the Atlantic Ocean over the "Middle Passage," and forced to work in the Americas. It was also part of the Triangular Trade System and the Mercantile System.
Transatlantic Slave Trade
A segment of the global slave trade, the transatlantic slave trade transported between 10 million and 12 million enslaved Black Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas from the 16th to the 19th century. The transatlantic slave trade was the second of three stages of the so-called triangular trade, in which arms, textiles, and wine ...
A Brief History of Slavery That You Didn't Learn in School
The slave trade provided political power, social standing and wealth for the church, European nation-states, New World colonies and individuals. This portrait by John Greenwood connects slavery ...
The Slave Trade
The first slave purchase is said to have taken place in 1441 when the Portuguese caught two African males while they were along the coast. The Africans in the nearby village paid them in gold for their return. Slave traders used many slave forts to protect themselves and their shipments. This was a way of guarding themselves against any ...
The Transatlantic Slave Trade
Ultimately, the international slave trade had lasting effects upon the African cultural landscape. Areas that were hit hardest by endemic warfare and slave raids suffered from general population decline, and it is believed that the shortage of men in particular may have changed the structure of many societies by thrusting women into roles ...
The Slave Trade and Slavery: A Founding Tragedy of our Modern World
The slave trade and slavery had another peculiar consequence. They left in their wake the tenacious poison of racism and discrimination that plagues people of African descent today. Throughout this history, black people across the world have had to confront three kinds of denials that have served to justify and legitimize the slave trade ...
Smarthistory
Enslavement in the Americas. Western trade with Africa was not limited to material goods such as copper, cloth, and beads. By the 16th century, the transatlantic slave trade had already begun, forcibly bringing Africans to the newly colonized Americas. While some forms of enslavement had existed in Africa, the sheer number of enslaved people traded across the Atlantic was unprecedented, as ...
271 Ideas, Essay Examples, and Topics on Slavery
Analysis of Slavery in United States. The main points highlighted in the lecture are focused on the socio-economic differences between the two systems, the actual life of slaves, and methods of blacks' rebellion. "Slavery and African Life: Occidental, Oriental, and African Slave Trades" by Patrick Manning.
The 1619 Project
The 1619 Project is an ongoing initiative from The New York Times Magazine that began in August 2019, the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe the country's ...
Origins of the Slave Trade
Known as the "Middle Passage" of the triangular trade between Europe, Africa, and the Americas, the ordeal took one to two months. After arriving in the Americas, the captain would sell his slaves for local goods including cotton, rum, sugar, dyes, and logwood. These goods would then be transported back to Europe for sale.
Transatlantic Slave Trade
Transatlantic Slave Trade Essay. Exclusively available on IvyPanda®. The infamous Transatlantic Slave Trade "took place from the 15 th to the 19 th century" (Bush 19). This trade resulted in massive human migration. Many Africans came to America during the period. According to historians, many Europeans wanted to support their colonies in ...
Atlantic slave trade
The Atlantic slave trade or transatlantic slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people to the Americas. European slave ships regularly used the triangular trade route and its Middle Passage. Europeans established a coastal slave trade in the 15th century and trade to the Americas began in the 16th century ...
Transatlantic Slave Trade
The transatlantic slave trade generated great wealth for many individuals, companies, and countries, but the brutal trafficking in human beings and the large numbers of deaths that resulted eventually sparked well-organized opposition to the trade. In 1807 the British abolished the slave trade. Another law passed in 1833 freed enslaved people ...
The Slave Trade
In discussions of the Atlantic slave trade, the term "Middle Passage" often arises. The Middle Passage was the route of sea going journeys of Africans taken from their Native land, to the shores of the Caribbean and America, where they were invariably destined to an existence of institutional slavery. The journey was one of the most horrific ...
The history of the transatlantic slave trade
After 1807: the Royal Navy and suppression of the slave trade. In 1808, the British West Africa Squadron was established to suppress illegal slave trading. Between 1820 and 1870, Royal Navy patrols seized over 1500 ships and freed 150,000 Africans destined for slavery in the Americas. Many people believed that the only way to eradicate slavery ...
Impact Of Slave Trade On Africa And Africans History Essay
The trans-Atlantic slave trade marked an important time in the history and map of the world. This essay is an attempt to examine the impact of Slave trade on Africa and Africans in the Diaspora. It begins by giving a brief background on slave trade, its impacts and concludes by bringing all the threads.
African Slave Trade, Slavery in Africa : African Slave Trade and
Disentangling the Impact of the Transatlantic Slave Trade in African Diaspora Populations from a Genomic Perspective. By Cesar A. Fortes-Lima. African Diaspora Archeology Network ... Leiden. Library - Indian Ocean Slave Trade Essay by Rijksmuseum (Amstrdam, Netherlands) Curator Maria Holtrop, extensive list of publications and web sites. https ...
Extending the Frontiers: Essays on the New Transatlantic Slave Trade
A more or less continual slave trade began here very early, probably in 1560, and ended very late, in 1851. During these three centuries, few years passed without several hundred slaves arriving. Thousands of slave voyages were organized in and left from the port, and hundreds of thousands of slaves disembarked there.
Why Did The Slave Trade Last So Long? Plus 6 More Key Questions
Europeans developed the Atlantic slave trade, and American plantation slavery, at a time when they had turned their back on slavery at home. African slavery was encountered in the early European trading missions, but it was the shortage of labour in the Americas that sealed the Africans' fate. The swift collapse of the population of native ...
The Atlantic Slave Trade: Effects on Economies, Societies and ...
Keeping Slaves in Place:: The Secret Debate on the Slavery Question in Northern Nigeria, 1900-1904 Download; XML; The Numbers, Origins, and Destinations of Slaves in the Eighteenth-Century Angolan Slave Trade Download; XML; The Slave Trade:: The Formal Demography of a Global System Download; XML

Article contents

Models of Slavery and Resistance

The Cliometric Debates

Women, Gender, and Slavery

The Atlanticization of Slavery Studies

Into the Digital Era

Acknowledgments

Further Reading

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Brief History of the Transatlantic Slave Trade

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The Role of Captains, Crews, and Ships of the Transatlantic Slave Trade

John Hawkins and the English Slave Trade

Trade Routes in the Transatlantic Slave Trade

First Route — Acquisition in Africa

Second Route — Transportation Across the Middle Passage

Third Route — Distribution in the Americas

Enslaved Africans in the Americas

South America

North America and the American Colonies

Impact of the Headright System on the Transatlantic Slave Trade

Transatlantic Slave Trade Significance

Transatlantic Slave Trade APUSH Notes and Study Guide

Transatlantic Slave Trade APUSH Definition and Simple Explanation

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Necklace: Pendant

Figure: Seated Portuguese Male

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