The Later Trans-Saharan Slave Trade

EARLY MODERN AFRICA and the WIDER WORLD HIST 1301 | History The Later Trans-Saharan Slave Trade The eighteenth century saw significant changes in Africa. During this time, expansionist new governments like Dahomey and Segou emerged in West Africa, whose conquests resulted in the capture of slaves for European agribusiness companies. Along with a steep increase in interstate fighting, it also saw a surge in the trafficking of captives for enslavement. The old trans-Saharan commerce network was interrupted and reoriented to prioritise the traffic in captive human cargo intended for coastal slave markets, which came at the price of this expansion. During the eighteenth century, there was a general trend of increasing numbers of captives being transferred along the trans-Saharan routes, however the exact numbers varied by region. This commerce benefited more than just merchants; it frequently helped companies involved in the slave trade that were situated in trans-Saharan commercial hubs. However, neither the enslaved individuals nor the civilizations as a whole benefited. Due to this changed situation, the extent of the trans-Saharan slave trade quadrupled during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, reaching an estimated 900,000 slaves. The evolution of Whydah as a trade state offers a special perspective into these processes. Whydah, which is located in the Gulf of Guinea's Bight of Benin, along the region that became known as the Slave Coast, saw a transformation in the fifteenth century when European settlers arrived in West Africa. Whydah became one of the most significant slave ports in the area by the seventeenth century, second only to Luanda in Angola, when the French West India Company relocated its principal trade centre there. The Portuguese, English Royal African Company, and Dutch West India Company all relocated their slave markets to Whydah before century's end. Thereafter, a number of major European nations built coastal commercial forts. The number of captives taken to Whydah in caravans grew considerably between 1650 and 1690, from around one thousand to over ten thousand each year. Roughly 378,000 captives, or onethird of all African captives acquired during the 25 years between 1700 and 1725, are thought to have left Whydah. Whydah's thriving slave trade was a result of its placement at the terminus of trade routes between rival groups rather than conflicts fought by its own kings. The old Mali Empire was the starting point of one route. There were hostages there who had travelled for three months before reaching Whydah, and they were dressed in Muslim garb. An alternative path began in the Yoruba realm of Oyo, which was embroiled in many conflicts with the adjacent kingdoms of Nupe and Borgu. The state, which was entitled to customs charges and taxes, as well as the African slave traders profited from the slave trade, which placed a high value on the enslaved captives travelling through Whydah. Local enterprises gained from the selling of slaves in a number of ways, including by offering porterage services and supplying food and other essentials that allowed the transaction to take place. Similar to other places, the sale and transportation of captives into slavery resulted in a prosperous economy for almost all parties, with the exception of the slaves themselves. The kingdom of Whydah was subjugated and annexed by King Agaja of Dahomey in 1727. The region, which at the time was home to various minor Aja kingdoms, notably Dahomey, was under Agaja's wider attempt to reestablish traditional social and political rule. This campaign included the fall of Whydah. Agaja subjugated the whole Slave Coast and placed Dahomey in charge of it by 1737. Dahomey was first hesitant to carry on the custom of selling Africans to Europeans, though. The kingdom of Oyo, whose foreign trade depended on it, did not like this. By the middle of the century, Dahomey's rulers had changed their minds due to nearly continual fighting against Oyo, which hampered internal trade routes and negatively impacted both kingdoms' economies. Instead, they chose to impose stringent royal regulation over the Slave Coast commerce. Later on, Dahomey rose to prominence as one of the main exporters of slaves that the government bought and sold for weapons. Dahomey was one of the most militarised and heavily armed countries in West Africa by the end of the 20th century. The boundary of the slave trade on the West African coast was pushed farther into the African interior, past the kingdoms that spread along the Senegambia, as Agaja and his successors expanded their dominance over the Gulf of Guinea. The vast majority of the enslaved people throughout the eighteenth century are said to have originated from the interior, mostly from the Kingdom of Segou, which is situated in Mali on the Middle Niger, southwest of Djenné. Mamari Kulubali founded Segou in 1712, and it turned combat into a way of life. The Segou kingdom relied heavily on commerce, and its main commodity was enslaved persons who the state had taken over in invasions and hostilities with its neighbours. These raids extended as far north as Timbuktu, where the Segou temporarily held, and the Niger Bend. Those apprehended by the Segou soldiers had two options after being taken prisoner: either they were sold to caravan merchants who negotiated with European slave dealers on the Slave Coast, or they were sold to desert nomads as part of the trans-Saharan slave trade. The changing dynamics of the trans-Saharan traffic in enslaved persons in the eighteenth century were evident in North Africa as well, though they were perhaps most prominent in West Africa. According to scholarly estimates, between 1700 and 1799, the Maghreb—which includes Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya—received an average of 6,000 Africans who were sold into slavery annually. Ghadames and the oasis centre of the Fezzan in Libya, which were historically essential to the trans-Saharan commerce between Central Sudan and Tripoli, saw the passage of over fourteen hundred enslaved persons annually. However, by the middle of the 20th century, these hubs—which were also the final stops for several caravans from West African trading hubs like Timbuktu—were transporting bigger captive caravans to the Tripoli markets. The traffic in African slaves through Tripoli was a vital part of the region's economy by the end of the eighteenth century, when the number of enslaved people heading for the Mediterranean coast had grown by up to 25%.