African and North American Slavery

FOUNDATIONS OF THE ATLANTIC WORLD HIST 1301 | History African and North American Slavery Other Africans sold the prisoners that European ship captains bought. Slavery was not brought to Africa by Europeans; it has been there for millennia prior to the start of the triangle trade. But there were significant distinctions between it and the enslavement that Africans faced over the Atlantic. different African civilizations used slavery, and there were different ways for someone to go into slavery. Slavery was used as a form of punishment for crimes in several civilizations. In other places, people can be sold into slavery or become enslaved themselves in order to pay off debts. In bad times, such as famines, parents may sell their kids to richer individuals in order to make ends meet and make sure their kids eat. Enslaved persons were captured as POWs in several civilizations. Africans mostly kept slaves in order to grow their homes, which are the fundamental economic units of society. Slavery offered a solution to the problem of families suffering when there were not enough physically fit individuals to labour in the fields or take care of herds. While some Africans held as slaves lived their whole lives with their master, others anticipated being set free. For example, those who were sold into slavery in order to pay off debt were liberated once the loan was paid off. People who were slaves for life were still able to fully engage in family or communal life. They may get married, and their kids and spouse might both be free. They may be the owners of their own slaves as well as other goods. They were frequently held in high regard by the community, particularly if they possessed valuable information or abilities. Africans did not see slavery as a sign of inferiority or distinction; rather, they saw it as a sad fate that might befall anybody. Although being a slave was not an easy or comfortable existence, it was not what most people thought of when they thought of Atlantic plantation slavery. In the Americas, slavery was distinct. It was chattel slavery, in which an individual is treated as a piece of property, much like an inanimate item, and owned by another. The status and legal rights of the slaves were nonexistent. They might be gifted to someone else, bought, sold, or inherited. They could be forced to perform any task the slaveholder desired, and they had no authority to govern their own bodies or their own labour. Their offspring may inherit their position since, in every European colony in the Americas, a child born into slavery was born into slavery. There was just one type of slavery in the Americas, chattel slavery, however it did occur in Africa as well. Africans have been involved in the trans-Saharan slave trade for generations, selling captives in North Africa and along the Swahili Coast for their transportation to countries in the Middle East or the Mediterranean. But the purpose of the African slave trade was redirected when wealthy Europeans arrived. Africans now took a great deal of other Africans and sold them into slavery with the intention of selling them to Europeans so they might cross the Atlantic. Slave traders led journeys into the heart of the continent to capture people who lived far away, and wars were started against competing peoples only with the intention of capturing prisoners. Inside their own houses, Africans were not safe. During the 18th century, Olaudah Equiano, who would go on to become an abolitionist, and his sister were abducted by slave merchants as they were playing in their home. The children were taken away by strangers who had climbed over a wall and entered their courtyard while their parents were out. Some people were duped by their own family and sold as slaves to European traffickers. After being taken prisoner, they were marched for days to a location along the shore where Europeans traded goods for prisoners. Numerous people perished on route. During the voyage, slave dealers would frequently tie their captives together and sometimes fasten devices around their necks to prevent the captives from being able to dip their heads into streams to drink, which would lead them to die of thirst even if they managed to escape. Upon arriving at the seaside, the traffickers nudely dressed them and shaved their hair to prevent lice infestation. When the buyers arrived, the traders lubricated their bodies with palm oil to appear well-groomed. From the fourteenth through the eighteenth century, a number of ports on the western coast of Africa were thriving centres of slave trade. Among them were Little Popo in Togo, Badagry in Nigeria, Ouidah (Whydah), Grand-Popo, Jaquim, and Porto-Novo in contemporary Benin. Sea captains and dealers from England, the Netherlands, France, Portugal, Spain, Denmark, and Sweden haggled with African slave traders for their captives in these ports. Rich from the slave trade, several African city-states and kingdoms only objected when their own citizens were seized. Kongo's monarch Afonso informed the Portuguese monarch that his own people were enslaving his fellow Kongolese and selling them to Portuguese traders because they were craving European goods. He just requested that the Portuguese send their prisoners to Kongo officials to ensure they were not free, without condemning the slave trade per se. Kongolese were unjustly taken. "The slave trade is the ruling principle of my people," said Benin's King Gezo. The mother soothes her kid to sleep with words of victory over an adversary who has been reduced to servitude. This is the source and the splendour of their prosperity. Both those who were seized and those who stayed in Africa suffered as a result of the transatlantic slave trade. The loss of a loved one caused emotional devastation to families. Every hamlet in West and Central Africa was plagued by fear of being the next victim of slave traffickers. Olaudah Equiano remembered how the kids in his tribe would play while someone on a tree would watch out for kidnappers while the adults departed for the fields. The economy of Africa also suffered. Men and women in their prime who were most likely to be seized had been providing the majority of the labour for their communities. Young adults who were kidnapped by slave traffickers left no one to look after the elderly and children, and fewer individuals were left to procreate. One scenario suggests that the loss of population brought about by the slave trade prevented population expansion from occurring between 1750 and 1850 north of the Limpopo River and south of the Sahara Desert. In order to make up for the loss of so many young men—the labourers that plantation owners valued most—several African ethnic groups adopted polygyny, which permits males to have many spouses. Women were forced to assume traditionally masculine economic roles as a result of the loss of men. Devastating effects on Africa resulted from the desire for the products that Europeans sold for enslaved Africans. Some historians contend that the importation of European textiles hurt African cloth manufacturers who were unable to compete on price or quantity, but instead accelerated the industrialization of the European textile industry. Weavers carried on making items for regional markets, but since Europeans already held a monopoly in the industry, there was never a chance for an African textile market to grow throughout the continent. The effects on the African metal sector were comparable. These results have persisted for a while. Despite being among the most developed during the slave trade, one researcher has shown that the regions from where the majority of Africans were brought into slavery are now the poorest. Compared to other parts of the continent, they are likewise more vulnerable to civil unrest nowadays. According to previous research, those from ethnic groups more likely than not to have experienced the slave trade are less inclined than those from less impacted groups to trust other people. This might be because the social and governmental mechanisms meant to safeguard individuals were undermined by the slave trade, at least in part.