Africa before the Transatlantic Slave Trade
Racist views of Africa
In the last 50 years much has been done to combat the entirely false and negative views about the history of Africa and Africans, which were developed in Europe in order to justify the Transatlantic Slave Trade and European colonial rule in Africa that followed it. In the eighteenth century, such racist views were summed up by the words of the Scottish philosopher David Hume, who said, ‘I am apt to suspect the Negroes to be naturally inferior to the Whites. There scarcely ever was a civilised nation of that complexion, nor even any individual, eminent either in action or in speculation. No ingenious manufacture among them, no arts, no sciences”. In the nineteenth century the German philosopher Hegel simply declared ‘ Africa is no historical part of the world.’ This openly racist view, that Africa had no history, was repeated by Hugh Trevor-Roper, Regius Professor of History at Oxford University , as late as 1963.
Africa , the birthplace of humanity
Far from having no history, it is likely that human history actually began in Africa . The oldest evidence of human existence and that of our immediate ancestors has been found in Africa . In July 2002 further evidence of the existence of early hominids in Africa was found with the discovery of the fossilised remains of what has been called Sahelanthropus tchadensis, thought to be between 6-7 million years old, in Chad. The latest scientific research points to the fact that all human beings are likely to have African ancestors.
Trade, Cultures and Civilisations in Africa
Africa ’s great civilisations made an immense contribution to the world, which are still marvelled at by people today. Ancient Egypt , which first developed over 5000 years ago. is one of the most notable of these civilisations and one of the first monarchies anywhere in the world. However even before the rise of this civilisation, the earlier monarchy of Ta Seti was founded in Nubia , in what is today the Sudan . Egypt of the pharaohs is best known for its great monuments and feats of engineering (such as the Pyramids), but it also made great advances in many other fields too. The Egyptians produced early forms of paper and a written script. They developed the calendar too and made important contributions in various branches of mathematics, such as geometry and algebra, and it seems likely that they understood and perhaps invented the use of zero. They made important contributions in mechanics, philosophy, irrigation and architecture. In medicine, the Egyptians understood the body’s dependence on the brain over 1000 years before the Greek scholar Democritus. Some historians now believe that ancient Egypt had an important influence on ancient Greece , and they point to the fact that Greek scholars such as Pythagoras and Archimedes studied in Egypt , and that the work of Aristotle and Plato was largely based on earlier scholarship in Egypt . For example, what is commonly known as Pythagoras’ theorem, was known to the ancient Egyptians hundreds of years before Pythagoras’ birth.
How Europe learned from Africa
Some of the world’s other great civilisations, such as Kush, Axum , Ghana , Mali , and Great Zimbabwe, also flourished in Africa and some major scientific advances were known in Africa long before they were known in Europe . Towards the middle of the 12th century, the north African scientist, Al Idrisi, wrote, ‘What results from the opinion of philosophers, learned men and those skilled in observation of the heavenly bodies, is that the world is as round as a sphere, of which the waters are adherent and maintained upon its surface by natural equilibrium.’ Africans were certainly involved in trans-oceanic travel long before Europeans and there is some evidence to suggest that Africans crossed the Atlantic and reached the American continent, perhaps even north America , as early as 500 BC. In the 14th century, the Syrian writer, al-Umari, wrote about the voyage of the Emperor of Mali who crossed the Atlantic with 2000 ships but failed to return. Africans in east and south-eastern Africa also set up great civilisations that established important trading links with the kingdoms and empires of India and China long before Europeans had learned how to navigate the Atlantic ocean . When Europeans first sailed to Africa in the 15th century, African pilots and navigators shared with them their knowledge of trans-oceanic travel.
It was gold from the great empires of West Africa , Ghana , Mali and Songhay, which provided the means for the economic take off of Europe in the 13th and 14th centuries and aroused the interest of Europeans in western Africa . An early historian in the 9th century wrote ‘the king of Ghana is a great king. In his territory are mines of gold.’ When the famous historian of Muslim Spain, al-Bakri wrote about Ghana in the 11th century, he reported that its king ‘rules an enormous kingdom and has great power’. The king of Ghana was said to have an army of 200,000 men and to rule over an extremely wealthy trading empire. In the 14th century, the west African empire of Mali was larger than western Europe and reputed to be one of the largest, richest and most powerful states in the world. The Moroccan traveller Ibn Batuta wrote about his very favourable impressions of this empire and said that he found ‘complete and general safety’ there.
When the famous emperor of Mali , Mansa Musa visited Cairo in 1324, it was said that he brought so much gold with him that its price fell dramatically and had not recovered its value even 12 years later. The empire of Songhay was known, amongst other things, for the famous university of Sankore based in Timbuctu. Aristotle was studied at Sankore and also subjects such as law, various branches of philosophy, dialectic, grammar, rhetoric and astronomy. In the 16th century one of its most famous scholars, Ahmed Baba, is said to have written more than 40 major books on subjects such as astronomy, history and theology and he had his own private library that held over 1500 volumes. One of the first reports of Timbuctu to reach Europe was by Leo Africanus. In his book, published in 1550, he says of the town: ‘There you will find many judges, professors and devout men, all handsomely maintained by the king, who holds scholars in much honour. There too they sell many handwritten north African books, and more profit is to be made there from the sale of books than from any other branch of trade.’
African knowledge and that of the ancient world, was transmitted to Europe as a result of the North African or Moorish conquest of the Iberian peninsular in the 8th century. There were in fact several such conquests including two by the Berber dynasties in the 11th and 12th centuries. The Muslim invasion of Europe, and the founding of the state of Cordoba , re-introduced all the learning of the ancient world as well as the various contributions made by Islamic scholars and linked Europe much more closely with north and West Africa . Arabic numerals based on those used in India were introduced and they helped simplify mathematical calculations. Europe was also introduced to the learning of ancient world mainly through translations in Arabic of works in medicine, chemistry, astronomy, mathematics and philosophy. So important was the knowledge found in Muslim Spain, that one Christian monk - Adelard of Bath - disguised himself as a Muslim in order to study at the university at Cordoba . Many historians believe that it was this knowledge, brought to Europe through Muslim Spain, which not only created the conditions for the Renaissance but also for the eventual expansion of Europe overseas in the 15th century.
European views of Africa before the Slave Trade
Before the devastation of the Transatlantic Slave Trade important diplomatic and trading partnerships had developed between the rulers of European countries and those of Africa who saw each other as equals. Some of the earliest European visitors to Africa recognised that many African societies were as advanced or even more advanced than their own.
In the early 16th century, the Portuguese trader Duarte Barboosa said of the east African city Kilwa: There were many fair houses of stone and mortar, well arranged in streets. Around it were streams and orchards with many channels of sweet water.’ Of the inhabitants of Kilwa he reported, ‘They were finely clad in many rich garments of gold and silk, and cotton, and the women as well; also with much gold and silver in chains and bracelets, which they wore on their legs and arms, and many jewelled earrings in their ears.’
A Dutch traveller to the kingdom of Benin in the early 17th century sent home this report of the capital.
‘It looks very big when you enter it for you go into a great broad street, which, though not paved, seems to be seven or eight times broader than the Warmoes Street in Amsterdam. This street continues for about four miles and has no bend in it. At the gate where I went in on horseback, I saw a big wall, very thick and made of earth, with a deep ditch outside. Outside the gate there is a large suburb. Inside as you go along the main street, you can see other broad streets on either side, and these are also straight. The houses in this town stand in good order, one close to the other and evenly placed beside the next, like our houses in Holland.’
Africans and the African continent have made enormous contributions to human history just as other peoples and continents have. It is the development of Eurocentric and racist views in Europe that have denied this fact and sought to negate the history of Africa and its peoples.
A TRICKLE
In the early days of Europe and Africa, trade flourished in a small way in the estuaries of Senegal at the mouth of the Gambia. The kingdom of the Muslim Joloffs stretched as far as Sierra Leon and the Guinea coast, they traded their prisoners, gold, ivory, fine cotton for horses, silver and articles of silk made in Granada. Within 50 years the trade had trebled, but still the slavering component of the trade was not the main interest, for gold was the glory of the enterprise.
This was the era of mutual respect where Europeans held Afrikans in high regard. They were treated as noble civilized equals with very honorable and sophisticated trading systems. African ambassadors frequented Lisbon, Portuguese soldiers even fought in the armies of the Oba.
In the 16th century Britain and the rest of Europe including France had no real interest in slaving-it was really a Portuguese and Spanish occupation. In 1561 Queen Elizabeth engaged royal money in funding trade expeditions with the Guinea coast but here again the focus was more on gold, palm-oil, ivory and pepper. Interestingly France in these early days condemned slavery and in 1571 declared that (French accent), “France mother of liberty permits no slaves.” The overall picture was one of mutual trade, which furnished the European maritime nations and African coastal kingdoms with profit, development and technological exchanges.
But this was not meant to last, the pendulum of time started to take a low dark swing out of sync with Africa. Events 2000 miles away in a place they called the New World were unfolding that would cast dark clouds over mother Africa. The ball was set in motion, and as the taste in the demand-driven trade changed from gold and ivory to Black Bodies, demand from the Americas consumed and set the scales out of balance, like a virus the trade shifted from mutual to unilateral.
COLUMBUS’S NEW WORLD
Cristóbal Colón, a Spanish elite posing as an impoverished Italian, discovered that the land he discovered had been discovered around 30,000 years prior to his arrival. This New World would never be the same again. How one single event could changes the course of history for so many people is hard to comprehend. The New World that was discovered was rich with new opportunities for expansion and trade, but the daunting reality was that to build a new kingdom it would require a work force.
The local Native Caribbean peoples were the first to suffer enslavement. In 1503 Queen Isabella ruled that only cannibals could be taken as slaves legally, which encouraged Europeans to identify various Native Caribbean groups as cannibals. However, these people were not suited for plantation life. They were susceptible to European diseases and were not physically adapted to the intense demands. The Native American holocaust saw them fall in their millions, some like the Taíno, so-called Arawak Indians, were forced into extinction. Europeans then sold their fellow countrymen into slavery to fill the ranks of the dying Native Caribbean, however they called it indentured servitude.
THE FLOOD
Slavery was a royal enterprise; the kings sponsored slavery and issued assientos, royal slaving permits. These were sold to the elite merchants of the day and become items of value like stocks and shares today. Ovando, the Spanish governor of Hispaniola complained not to export anymore Afrikans as they were aggressive and reinforcing the ranks of resistance among the Native-Americans. These early imported Muslim Afrikans were proving hard to handle but as labor shortage got critical due to the waning of the indigenous population, Ovando reassessed the situation and demanded that Afrikans be sent. Royal decree targeted the Guinea coast in a mandate which was to avoid the Islamic African influence. However, over the duration of the trade approximately 30% of those sent to the New World were Muslims.
Europe’s sweet tooth placed an increasing demand for slave labor. In the late 1400’s the Atlantic islands of Madeira and São Tomé, became leading centres of world sugar production and plantation slavery. By 1530 Portugal had established settlements in Brazil where over 40% of all enslaved Afrikans ended up.
Now that the trade was in full swing and nothing could stop it. It was the backbone of the Spanish-American enterprise. The Spanish King was in receipt of export tax in addition to the licenses which were per head of enslaved person. This heavy taxation lead to wholesale smuggling and distortion of records of Afrikans actually exported from the continent.
Slaving was the most profitable commodity in the 18th century, and Senegambia exported an average of 2,000 to 3,500 s laves each year. The largest market for enslaved people was in the French empire especially in the colony of Haiti. Over nearly 400 hundred years Spain, Portugal, Prussia, France, Holland, Denmark, United States, Brazil and Sweden, would descend like vultures to ripe Africa apart.
BRITAIN AND THE TRIANGLE TRADE
John Hawkins a devout Christian, while stationed in the Cape Verde Islands pondered upon the growing prosperity that was to be had from slave trading. He saw the Afrikans as goods at the first stage of a triangle trade, which procured Afrikans from Africa. This trade then took them to the New World in exchange for sugar, pearls. The trade then voyaged from the New World and terminated in England, where goods for trade with Africa were loaded. Spain and Portugal had a head start to a lethargic Britain who initially opposed slaving. However, Queen Elizabeth the II gradually came around to the prospect of building an empire on the backs of Blacks. English Parliament passed an Act legalising the purchase of slaves in 1545. 100 years prior to this, the Pope declared that possession of slaves was the right of all Christians. In one hand they bore a gun and in the other a Bible. The grand entry into slavery was triumphed as saving heathen souls. In a nutshell God had made Europeans his vicegerents on Earth and the land they took, and the people they traded like cargo was done in the name of Jesus. And ironically the first ship to bring Afrikans to the Americas was called the “Good Ship Jesus.”
THE TRADE
As the trade progressed the items traded with Africa were of no sustainable value, while Europe’s wealth increase African merchant toyed with silly trinkets, images of a white god, inferior cloth, cheap alcohol, damp gunpowder, old pots and pans and all forms of assorted garbage not generally fit for European consumption. If Europe and Africa began their ill-fated relationship as near equals, the influx of European goods, particularly of firearms and alcohol, slowly disrupted the equilibrium of West African cultures. To Europe the enslaved workforce brought power and wealth, but to Africa the so-call trade only brought more efficient means to capture their neighbors and alcohol to corrode societies.
When spring water flows into the desert the desert takes it know not of giving- only of taking. The religious and political power structures of West African states were peculiarly susceptible to the corrosive effects of the slave system. In the Niger delta, the priests had traditionally imposed heavy fines on men who offended an oracle; it was relatively easy, on their part, to discover an increasing number of offenses, which could be expiated only by a payment of slaves, who could then be sold profitably to European traders. Royal and vassal, servant and master, Muslim and Ifa, Orisha and Odu Efaa -none were spared. As Europeans depleted the coast those left were faced with the daunting choice sell or be sold.
Although the slave trade made an extremely small number of chiefs wealthy, it ultimately undermined local economies and political stability as villages' vital labour forces were shipped overseas as slave raids and civil wars became commonplace. A few wicked, greedy Afrikans colluded with the Europeans, but traitors are present in all societi es. Jewish people had traitors that sent their fellowman to Nazi gas chambers. Indians, Native Americans, Europeans, all have traitors--the discontent--the maladjusted, it is a condition common to all human beings. But malicious historians seek to over emphasis this natural feature of human behaviour to justify and mitigate the horror levied on Afrikans. This is the way in which African people are blamed for their own Holocaust, alleviating the real culprit and benefactor. Africa was sent into social suicide, and as slavery evolved, their ghostly ships only had to anchor at the coast and bleed Africa, and they didn’t even have to get off the boat.
Slave Market Regions and Participation
There were eight principal areas used by Europeans to buy and ship slaves to the Western Hemisphere. The number of slaves sold to the new world varied throughout the slave trade. As for the distribution of slaves from regions of activity, certain areas produced far more slaves than others. Between 1650 and 1900, 10.24 million African slaves arrived in the Americas from the following regions in the following proportions:[32]
• Senegambia (Senegal and The Gambia): 4.8%
• Upper Guinea (Guinea-Bissau, Guinea and Sierra Leone): 4.1%
• Windward Coast (Liberia and Cote d' Ivoire): 1.8%
• Gold Coast (Ghana and east of Cote d' Ivoire): 10.4%
• Bight of Benin (Togo, Benin and Nigeria west of the Niger Delta): 20.2%
• Bight of Biafra (Nigeria east of the Niger Delta, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon): 14.6%
• West Central Africa (Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola): 39.4%
• Southeastern Africa (Mozambique and Madagascar): 4.7%
Ethnic groups
The different ethnic groups brought to the Americas closely corresponds to the regions of heaviest activity in the slave trade. Over 45 distinct ethnic groups were taken to the Americas during the trade. Of the 45, the ten most prominent according to slave documentation of the era are listed below.
1. The Gbe speakers of Togo, Ghana and Benin (Adja, Mina, Ewe, Fon)
2. The Akan of Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire
3. The Mbundu of Angola (includes Ovimbundu)
4. The BaKongo of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola
5. The Igbo of southeastern Nigeria
6. The Yoruba of southwestern Nigeria
7. The Mandé speakers of Upper Guinea
8. The Wolof of Senegal and The Gambia
9. The Chamba of Cameroon
10. The Makua of Mozambique
Legacies in Africa, Americas , Caribbean and Europe
Celebrating or Commemorating?
In 1992 many nations officially celebrated the five hundredth anniversary of Christopher Columbus' ‘discovery’ of the so-called ‘new world’. For these governments, this was something to celebrate, to be proud of, to honour and respect. But hundreds of organisations marched in the streets, held protests and demonstrations to question this celebration. For these groups, this was a time for commiseration for the indigenous Americans murdered, the Africans kidnapped and enslaved, the indentured servants tricked and manipulated. For them, 500 years of colonialism and enslavement were something to be criticised, not celebrated. These activities demonstrate the gulf that exists between those who see themselves as the beneficiaries of Columbus , and those who see themselves as his victims. Given such opposing views, where and how can we begin to evaluate the effects of the Transatlantic Slave Trade almost 200 years after its abolition? And what are the key aspects of its legacies?
Slavery led to the exploitation and oppression of Africa and Africans. Millions more were kidnapped and enslaved, African societies were ransacked, and entirely new societies built on the labour and lives of Africans. Slavery and colonialism were carried out for the economic enrichment of Europe and its descendants, with the legal and political sanction of presidents, prime ministers and the Church. It was exploitation of African labour that led to the expansion of industry across Britain , the United States and the world. Slavery and colonialism also created the circumstances, which confine Africans and African nations to some of the worst conditions experienced by any people in the world today.
In South America and the Caribbean , in areas that were exploited and abandoned by the nations which profited from the Transatlantic Slave Trade, economies remain underdeveloped and stagnant. People occupy shanty-town dwellings and there is inadequate provision for the educational and health needs of children. Across the USA , the descendants of Africans struggle to survive violent attacks, systematic racial hostility, and the continuing vilification of Africans and 'blackness'. These patterns can be traced directly back to the slave trade and slavery.
Clearly slavery has contributed in fundamental ways to shaping the USA , the Caribbean and South America . The starting point of evaluating its legacy, is the present day situations of descendants of enslaved Africans, or of masters of enslaved Africans. In the USA for example, and across the Caribbean and South America , racial poverty and powerlessness are direct results of the Transatlantic Slave Trade and the colonial system which it led to.
Different Memories
The collective memory of enslavement for Africans is very different from that of Europeans and their descendants. To many white people, slavery and colonialism are just a distant memory of a short period in history. In Britain and the United States , many whites believe that slavery did not last particularly long, its benefits went only to a small proportion of white people and the evils of slavery are overshadowed by the role played by British abolitionists.
To people of African descent though, the memory is a very different one. Slavery and colonialism affect everyday lives and evoke poignant and immediate memories of suffering, brutalisation and terror. The memories are of Britain and the USA achieving their economic prosperity on the back of African enslavement. That they may have finally ended the Transatlantic Slave Trade for economic rather than moral reasons, have discriminated against black peoples ever since, and are largely unrepentant about it. Many people believe that the racism that grew out of African enslavement is the reason for today’s racial inequalities. And it is these different interpretations of the effects of slavery that resulted in many groups celebrating Columbus , while so many others condemned him. But why are there such different memories?
Economic Systems
As the most advanced industrial capitalist societies in the world, countries like the United States , Britain , France , Spain , Portugal and the Netherlands have all achieved substantial economic development through conquest, slavery and the exploitation of African labour. This labour fed financial accumulation, economic expansion and was the base for the development of capitalism. And after the countries exploited during slavery were abandoned, many of their populations, the descendants of the enslaved, were forced to migrate to the countries of their former colonial masters, to find work.
Racialisation and Racism
'Racialisation' simply means the process by which Africans and Europeans came to be defined as races, beginning during enslavement. Then, racist theories were developed by some of the most distinguished and respected members of European and American societies, who used science to 'justify' oppression, exploitation and injustice. During and after slavery, racist practices decided who was human and who was not, who could be a citizen and who could not, and who could enjoy the inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Today, different types of racisms exist, but most of them draw on ideas that were developed during enslavement. And despite their so called ideals of freedom, equality, democracy and fairness, countries like Britain and the USA have systematically excluded, and continue to exclude, Africans and their descendants from the benefits of such ideals.
Responsibility of Western Governments
Governments during and since slavery have played a central role in defining ideas around race. For example Western governments promoted racist ideas and practices under apartheid in South Africa . They have been responsible for forced labour of indigenous populations in their African colonies, and more recently for racist immigration legislation and policies in Britain and France . Governments in Brazil and the Caribbean used more subtle means of racism, claiming to be protecting its multi-racial and multi cultural populations, while in practise the laws clearly favour whites and those closest to them in colour and culture (the so called ‘mixed race’). Brazil in particular, encouraged the settlement of hundreds of thousands of whites from Europe , so as to prevent the nation from having a Black majority.
Communities of Resistance
The legacy of slavery has created cultures and communities of resistance everywhere, based on ideas about autonomy and self-determination for people of African descent. From national and international movements such as black nationalism, Pan-Africanism and Negritude, to black organizations and groups. In the Caribbean , from Paul Bogle and George William Gordon to Franz Fanon and Marcus Garvey; from Michael Manley and Maurice Bishop to C.L.R. James. In the United States, from the Negro Academy and the National Association of Colored Women to the Urban League, the Nation of Islam, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Black Panther Party. From Sojourner Truth and Ida B. Wells to Mary Mcloud Bethune and Mary Church Terrell, and from Rosa Parks to Angela Davis. In Britain , the League of Coloured Peoples, the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination, the West Indian Standing Conference, the Race Today Collective and the Institute of Race Relations. We know the names of the famous, but we should also remember the efforts of those many thousands who struggled without reward, without credit, without fame or fortune, but who made it possible for the famous to become famous.
Reparations
During the 1990s Africans on the continent and in the Diaspora began to demand reparations for the atrocities, injustices and exploitation carried out against Africa and Africans during slavery and colonialism. An international conference took place in Abuja , Nigeria , in April 1993. It was attended by representatives of the Organization of African Unity, members of African national governments, and distinguished scholars and lawyers. Bernie Grant, then MP for Tottenham in London , put forward a motion in the House of Commons demanding that the issue of Reparations be debated.
Those calling for Reparations demand that Europe and the United States acknowledge the crimes committed during enslavement and the benefits they have enjoyed, and pay for what they have done. Reparations also calls for the return the treasures stolen from African societies and populations that are currently housed in European museums. The German government paid Reparations to Israel for the Jewish victims of the Nazi Holocaust. Reparations were also made by the United States ' government to the Japanese and Japanese Americans interned during World War II. In the late 1990s, President Clinton considered making an apology for slavery, but was against offering any financial compensation because he felt that too much time had passed. In the end, he did not make an apology either.
Like so many other areas involved in evaluating the legacy of slavery, there are many different views on Reparations. People of African descent seem to overwhelming support Reparations, while whites seem to overwhelmingly reject it. Reparations clearly are not the only way to begin to evaluate and rectify the consequences of slavery. But it is one way of opening up the debate about slavery and its legacies today.
Great African Kingdoms:
A Simple Timeline
Before Current Era
c3000 Egypt united as one Kingdom
800BCE - CE 250 Kingdom of Kush (including parts of what is now Sudan and Egypt )
500BCE - CE 250 Nok culture in West Africa
Current Era
700-800 Islam spreads into West Africa across the Sahara desert
c750 Kingdom of Ghana at its strongest
1200-1400 Kingdom of Great Zimbabwe
c1350 Kingdom of Mali
c1400 Kingdom of Ife
1440-1606 Kingdom of Benin
1464 Sonni Ali the Great becomes ruler of the Kingdom of Songhay
1486 Portugese traders make contact with Benin
1640 Beginning of civil war in Benin
1680 Asante states come under the rule of one king
1730 Oyo Kingdom at the height of its power
1818 Shaka becomes leader of the Zulu Kingdom
1874 Capital of the Asante Kingdoms captured by the British
1879 British Army first defeated by Zulu army
- Benin captured and looted by the British
Slavery Fact Sheets
Geography
1. Enslaved Africans came primarily from a region stretching from the Senegal River in northern Africa to Angola in the South.
2. Europeans divided this stretch of land into five coasts:
- Upper Guinea Coast: The area delineated by the Senegal and Gambia Rivers
- Ivory (or Kwa Kwa or Windward) Coast:Central Liberia
- Lower Guinea Coast: Divided into the Gold Coast on the west (Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana), the Slave Coast (Togo, Benin, and western Nigeria), and the Bight of Benin (Nigeria and Cameroon)
- Gabon
- Angola
3. The Angolan coast supplied nearly half the slaves sent to the Americas.
Religion
1. Unlike European religions, most indigenous African religions, with the exception of Islam, were not based on sacred texts or scriptures, but rather on continuous revelation.
2. Most areas did not create a religious orthodoxy or have an entrenched priesthood.
3. Most African religions recognized a variety of supernatural beings who expressed both good and bad virtues. Reverence for nature features highly in these systems.
4. Religious practice focused on contact between this world and the other world, typically through augury, divination, prophecy, and spirit mediumship.
Organization
1. The notion of ethnic groups, combing a common language and customs with a political structure is mistaken. Atlantic Africa was divided into states (political units) and nations (cultural units). Slavery was a royal enterprise; the kings sponsored slavery and issued assientos, royal slaving permits. These were sold to the elite merchants of the day and become items of value like stocks and shares today. Ovando, the Spanish governor of Hispaniola complained not to export anymore Africans as they were aggressive and reinforcing the ranks of resistance among the Native-Americans. These early imported Muslim Africans were proving hard to handle but as labor shortage got critical due to the waning of the indigenous population, Ovando reassessed the situation and demanded that Africans be sent. Royal decree targeted the Guinea coast in a mandate, which was to avoid the Islamic African influence. However, over the duration of the trade approximately 30% of those sent to the New World were Muslims.
2. While some states were quite large, others were quite modest in size and many were tiny, consisting of a capital town of a few thousand people and a dozen villages under its control.
3. In the 17th century, 70 percent of the people lived in states with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants.
4. Private wealth usually derived from control of dependents--clients, pawns, wives in polygynous households, and indentured servants.
African Slavery
1. African law recognized slavery but respected the culture and linage of those that were enslaved. Slaves were also part of the family and often the line between slave and non-slave was blurred.
2. A relatively low population density existed in Africa as compared to Europe and Asia. This low density had profound impact on Africa’s development potential after slavery became a economic mainstay of Europe.
3. Slavery had existed in the medieval empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai, and slave exports had supplemented the export of gold. Most of those enslaved where prisoners of war or debt criminals. Large prisons were not a concept and hence slavery was a system to deal with undesirables.
4. Although African slavery was generally domestic slavery akin to indentured servitude. In Africa the enslaved were used in a wider variety of ways than in the New World: they were employed as agricultural workers, soldiers, scribes, servants, and government officials.
5. The great majority of slaves sold to Europeans were not slaves in Africa; they were usually recent war captives or victims of banditry and judicial proceedings.
6. Chattel slavery, manumission and social ascension were very rare.
7. Multi-generational slavery was uncommon in Africa; in part this reflected the fact that most African slaves were women.
8. During the early years of enslavement, African slaves usually worked under supervision. Then many became "allotment slaves," who worked five or six days until about 2 p.m. on the master's lands, and in the evenings and on their days off, worked their own plots. In the third stage settled slaves spent most of their time working their land in exchange for a fixed obligation, usually what it took to feed an adult male for a year.
Slave Trade
1. During the era of the Atlantic slave trade, 90% of those enslaved, were sent to the Caribbean and the South America.
2. The Atlantic slave trade carried about two to three men for every woman.
3. The slave trade reduced the adult male population by about 20 percent, dramatically altering the ratio of working adults to dependents and of adult men to adult women.
4. One result of unbalanced sex ratios was to further encourage polygyny.
5. Another result was to reduce traditional male forms of work, such as hunting, fishing, livestock rearing, the clearing of fields, the chopping down of trees, and the digging up of roots. The result was a less protein rich diet and a reduction in agricultural productivity.
6. About 14 percent of slaves sent to the New World were children under 14; 56 percent were male adults; and 30 percent were female adults.
Myths and Misconceptions and the Slave Trade and Slavery
Myth: Slavery is a product of capitalism.
Fact: The transatlantic slave trade is in direct relationship with modern concepts of exploitive capitalism. Capitalism was the driver behind the transatlantic slave trade (see Eric Williams)
Myth: Slavery is a product of Western Civilization.
Fact: Slavery is virtually a universal institution. However the industrialized chattel slavery the race base nature and the duration are peculiar to the transatlantic slave trade.
Myth: Slavery in the non-western world was a mild, benign, and non-economic institution.
Fact: Slaves were always subject to torture, sexual exploitation, and arbitrary death. However the scale of the brutality and the institutionalization of people as chattel was unique in type and proliferation in the Western slave models.
Myth: Slavery was an economically backward and inefficient institution.
Fact: Many of the most progressive societies in the world had slaves. Forms of slavery allowed the building of many of the world’s empires. Today the low wage lower classes and machines fill the roles slaves traditionally did in society. So still the wealthy today exist because of some form of exploitation of the majority.
Myth: Slavery was always based on race.
Fact: Not until the 15th century was slavery associated primarily with people of African descent. Race became a factor which justified enslavement once it became the mainstay of Western economies. (see Black Codes)
Enslavement and the Slave Trade
Myth: New World slaves came exclusively from West Africa.
Fact: Half of all New World slaves came from central Africa.
Myth: Europeans physically enslaved Africans or hired mercenaries who captured people for export or that African rulers were "Holocaust abettors" who were themselves to blame for the slave trade.
Fact: Europeans did engage in some slave raiding; the majority of people who were transported to the Americas were enslaved by Africans in Africa. Europeans politically created anarchy in Africa feeding greed and putting others in a dilemma “sell or be sold.” With the destruction of the economy and the absences of the most virile in African societies slavery became a mono-economy feeding the cycle of destruction. Europeans created mechanisms which ensured conflict and the push-pull demand for slaves.
Myth: Many slaves were captured with nets.
Fact: There is no evidence that slaves were captured with nets; war was the most important source of enslavement.
Myth: Kidnapping was the usual means of enslavement.
Fact: War was the most important source of enslavement; it would be incorrect to reduce all of these wars to slave raids.
Myth: The Middle Passage stripped enslaved Africans of their cultural heritage and transformed them into docile, passive figures wholly receptive to the cultural inputs of their masters.
Fact: Slaves engaged in at least 250 documented shipboard rebellions. The destruction of African culture happen not on the slave ships but via the plantation system where Christianity and terror were used to mentally enslave African people. Evidence shows that in areas where new African slaves were constantly being introduced (such as Jamaica) had more incidences of rebellion due to the resistance of the new arrivals.
Slavery in the Americas
Myth: Most slaves were imported into what is now the United States
Fact: Well over 90 percent of slaves from Africa were imported into the Caribbean and South America
Myth: Slavery played a marginal role in the history of the Americas
Fact: African slaves were the only remedy for the labor shortages that plagued Europe's New World dominions. Fact: Slave labor made it profitable to mine for precious metal and to harvest sugar, indigo, and tobacco; slaves taught whites how to raise such crops as rice and indigo.
Myth: Europeans arrived in the New World in far larger numbers than did Africans.
Fact: Before 1820, the number of Africans outstripped the combined total of European immigrants by a ratio of 3, 4, or 5 to 1.
Myth: The first slaves arrived in what is now the U.S. in 1619
Fact: Slaves arrived in Spanish Florida at least a century before 1619 and a recently uncovered census shows that blacks were present in Virginia before 1619.
Slave Culture
Myth: The slave trade permanently broke slaves' bonds with Africa.
Fact: Slaves were able to draw upon their African cultural background and experiences and use them as a basis for life in the New World. The drum and the Griot tradition are still alive in the music of the Diaspora. The food and elements of the language, the social structure, the “cool” still are defining characteristics of the African Diaspora. The greatest disconnection with Africa may have actually happened post-emancipation where being American or being more integrated allowed cultural drift into a more Eurocentric identity.
Myth: Plantation life with its harsh labor, unstable families, and high mortality, made it difficult for Africans to construct social ties
Fact: African nations persisted in America well into the 18th century and even the early 19th century despite the overt destruction of the family the denouncement of religious and marital values.
Myth: Masters assigned names to slaves or slaves imitated masters' systems of naming.
Fact: In fact, slaves were rarely named for owners. Naming patterns appear to have reflected African practices, such as the custom of giving children "day names" (after the day they were born) and "name-saking," such as naming children after grandparents.
Myth: Slaveholders sought to deculturate slaves by forbidding African names and languages and obliterating African culture.
Fact: While deculturation was part of the "project" of slavery, in fact African music, dance, decoration, design, cuisine, and religion exerted a profound, ongoing influence on American culture.
Fact: Slaves adapted religious rites and perpetuated a rich tradition of folklore.
Economics of Slavery
Myth: Slavesholders lost money and were more interested in status than moneymaking; slaves did little productive work
Fact: Slaves worked longer days, more days, and more of their life. The life expectancy of enslaved Africans in places like Barbados was a few decades due to the strain of labor.
Myth: Slavery was incompatible with urban life and factory technology
Fact: Sugar mills were the first true factories in the world; slaves were widely used in cities and in various kinds of manufacturing and crafts.
Myth: Slaves engaged almost exclusively in unskilled brutish field labor.
Fact: Much of the labor performed by slaves required high skill levels and careful, painstaking effort.
Fact: Masters relied on slaves for skilled craftsmanship.
Religion
Myth: West and Central Africans received their first exposure to Christianity in the New World.
Fact: Most Africans learned about Christianity as they learned about the European trade in enslaved Africans. A few Catholic missionary activities began in the central African kingdom of Kongo half a century before Columbus's voyages of discovery and Kongo converted to Catholicism in 1491.
Myth: The Catholic Church did not tolerate the mixture of Catholicism with traditional African religions.
Fact: In Kongo and in Latin America, the Church did tolerate the mixture of Catholicism with African religions, allowing Africans to retain their old cosmology, understanding of the universe, and the place of gods and other divine beings in the universe.
Myth: Before the Civil War, the Southern churches were highly segregated.
Fact: In 1860, slave constituted about 26 percent of the Southern Baptist church membership.
Myth: Slave Christianity was essentially a "religion of docility."
Fact: Christianity was dual edged and marked by millennialist possibilities; whites could not prevent black preachers from turning Christianity into a source of self-respect and faith in deliverance.
Resistance
Myth: Slaves were brainwashed and stunned into submission and rarely resisted slavery.
Fact: Resistance took a variety of forms ranging from day-to-day resistance, economic bargaining, running away and maroonage, and outright rebellions
Slavery and World History
1. The most ancient civilizations--ancient Mesopotamia, Old Kingdom Egypt, and the budding civilization that formed in the Indus and Yangtze river valleys--all had some form of slavery present in their earliest years.
2. In none of these cultures did slaves constitute a large proportion of the population.
3. It was in classical Greece and Rome that the first true slave societies came into existence. From the 5th to the 3rd centuries b.c., perhaps a third to a half of Athens's population consisted of slaves. Slaves constituted as much as 30 percent of Rome's population.
4. England's Domesday book of 1086 indicated that 10 percent of the population was enslaved.
5. Although slavery is often stigmatized as archaic and backward, slavery has been found in many of the most progressive societies.
6. Contrary to what many think, slavery never disappeared from medieval Europe. Domestic slavery persisted in Sicily, southern Italy, Russia, southern France, Spain, and elsewhere.
Curse of Ham
The claim that Noah, the biblical father of all subsequent humanity, cursed his son Ham with both blackness and the condition of slavery for looking at him drunk and naked and exposing him to his other sons, Shem and Japheth. In fact Ham was not cursed and his association with black slavery does not appear in the Nebrew Bible.
Noah cursed Canaan--the ancestor of the Semitic Canaanites, who occupied Israel before the Hebrews--to be the "servant of servants." Why Noah was upset with Canaan we are never told according to some sources it was for a homosexual act “looking on his nakedness”. Ham's African sons were Cush (Ethiopia), Put (Libya), and Misraim (Egypt)--and they were not cursed.
Maroons
Independent communities of fugitive slaves.
Task System
One of two plantation labor systems. Under the task system, slaves were assigned several specific tasks within a day. When those tasks were finished, slaves could have time to themselves to spend however they wished. Slaves who worked in rice and long staple cotton plantations, in the naval stores industry, or in skilled labor positions worked under the task system. The benefits of this system for slaves included less supervision, more autonomy and more free time.
Gang System
Wherever tobacco, sugar or short stable cotton grew, slaves worked in large groups or gangs under the strict supervision of white overseers or black drivers from dawn to dusk. Close supervision meant less autonomy and less free time.
Trash Gangs
Many boys and girls performed light agricultural labor, sweeping yards, clearing dried cornstalks from fields, chopping cotton, carrying water to field hands, weeding, picking cotton at a slower pace, feeding work animals, and driving cows to pasture.
Slavery and the Law in Virginia
1662 |
Negro women's children to serve accounting to the condition of the mother. |
1667 |
An act declaring the baptism of slaves doth not exempt them from bondage. |
1669 |
An act about the casual killing of slaves....If any slaves resist his master (or other by his master's order correcting him) and by the extremity of the correction should chance to die, that his death shall not be attempted felony. |
1670 |
No Negroes nor Indians to buy Christian servants. |
1672 |
An act for the apprehension and suppression of runaways, Negroes and slaves....If any Negroe, mulatto, Indian slave, or servant for life, runaway and shall be pursued by the warrant or hue and cry, it shall and may be lawful for any person who shall endeavour to take them, upon the resistance of such Negro, mulatto, Indian slave, or servant for life, to kill or wound him or them so resisting....And if it happen that such Negroe, mulatto, Indian slave, or servants for life doe dye of any wound in such their resistance received the master or owner of such shall receive satisfaction from the public.... |
1680 |
An act for preventing Negroes' Insurrections. Whereas the frequent meeting of considerable numbers of Negroe slaves under pretence of feasts and burials is judged of dangerous consequence...it shall not be lawful for any Negroe or other slave to carry or arm himself with any club, staff, gun, sword, or any other weapon of defense or offense, not to goe or depart from his master's ground without a certificate from his master...and such permission not to be granted but upon particular and necessary operations; and every Negroe or slave so offending not having a certificate...[will receive] twenty lashes on his bare back well laid....If any Negroe or other slave shall absent himself from his master's service and lie hid and lurking in obscure places...it shall be lawful...to kill the said Negroe or slave.... |
1682 |
An additional act for the better preventing insurrections by Negroes....No master or overseer knowingly permit or suffer...any Negroe or slave not properly belonging to him or them, to remain or be upon his or their plantation above the space of four hours at any one time.... |
1691 |
Virginia voted to banish any white man or woman who married a African, mulatto, or Indian. Any white woman who gave birth to a mulatto child was required to pay a heavy fine or be sold for a five year term of servitude. |
African Historiography
Walter Rodney
The slave trade contributed to Africa's depopulation, to the increased use of slaves within Africa, to the development of more predatory political systems, and to a greater gap between rich and poor.
John Fage
A know racist who is one of the leading Eurocentrics who white wash slavery. He Rejected the argument that slave exports led to serious depopulation and contended that the slave trade contributed to political centralization and economic growth.
Eric Williams
Racism was the result and not the cause of slavery; slave economies were a major source of capital for the industrial revolution; abolition came when slave economies were declining in profitability; abolition was driven more by economic interests than by philanthropy.
Frank Tannenbaum
Compared to British colonists, Latin Americans were less tainted by racial prejudice, were more lenient in their treatment of slaves, and extended religious and legal protections involving families and physical cruelty.
Carl Degler
Demographic necessity led the Portuguese in Brazil to promote freedmen and mulattoes into positions of social respectability; in the U.S., poor white yeomanry supported racism to protect their position in society.
Key Controversies
| 1. |
The vast majority of New World slaves were captured, bought, traded, and employed by non-Jews. |
| 2. |
Some Jews participated in the slave trade, owned slaves, and even helped formulate and disseminate the pro-slavery ideology. Other Jews, including the Cincinnati abolitionist Max Lilianthal, Isaac Wise, and Rabbi David Einhor of Baltimore attacked slavery. |
| 3. |
The Jewish expulsion from Spain coincided with establishment of trading links between Africa, Europe, and the Americas. As a result, the Sephardim found themselves dispersed over critical nodes of the new system, transferring assets and information. |
| 4. |
The only place where Jews came close to dominating a New World plantation system was the Dutch colonies of Curacao and Surinam. |
| 5. |
In the antebellum South, about 5,000 Jews (out of 20,000) owned one or more slaves, making up 1.25 percent of Southern slaveowners. |
| 6. |
The largest Jewish slaveholders were Judah P. Benjamin owned 140 slaves near New Orleans; and Major Raphael J. Moses owned 50 slaves near Columbus, Georgia. |
| 7. |
No southern Jewish intellectual questioned the injustice of slavery. |
Major Rebellions
New York City, 1712
Like many later revolts, this one occurred during a period of social dissension among whites following Leisler's Rebellion. The rebels espoused traditional African religion.
Stono Rebellion, 1739
The Spanish empire enticed slaves of English colonies to escape to Spanish territory. In 1733 Spain issued an edict to free all runaway slaves from British territory who made their way into Spanish possessions. On September 9, 1739, about 20 slaves, mostly from Angola, gathered under the leadership of a slave called Jemmy near the Stono River, 20 miles from Charleson. 44 blacks and 21 whites lost their lives. South Carolina responded by placing import duties on slaves from abroad, strengthening patrol duties and militia training, and recommending more benign treatment of slaves.
Gabriel's Rebellion, 1800
This attempted insurrection near Richmond was organized during the Haitian Revolution and the undeclared naval war between the U.S. and France.
Denmark Vesey's Conspiracy, 1822
This failed insurrection was organized soon after the contentious debate over the admission of Missouri as a slave state. Like Gabriel, Vesey consciously looked to Haiti for inspiration and support.
Nat Turner, 1832
This insurrection took place at a time when slaves in Jamaica had staged one of the largest revolts in history, when radical abolition had arisen in the North, and Britain was debating slave emancipation.
Facts about the Slave Trade and Slavery
Slave Trade
The level of slave exports grew from about 36,000 a year during the early 18th century to almost 80,000 a year during the 1780s.
The Angolan region of west-central Africa made up slightly more than half of all Africans sent to the Americas and a quarter of imports to British North America.
Approximately 11,863,000 Africans were shipped across the Atlantic, with a death rate during the Middle Passage reducing this number by 10-20 percent.
As a result official records show 15 million Africans arrived in the Americas. This does not account for the casualties of slavery who did not arrive alive.
About 500,000 Africans were imported into what is now the U.S. between 1619 and 1807--or about 6 percent of all Africans forcibly imported into the Americas. About 70 percent arrived directly from Africa.
Well over 90 percent of African slaves were imported into the Caribbean and South America. Only about 6 percent of imports went directly to British North America. Yet by 1825, the U.S. had a quarter of Africans in the New World.
The majority of African slaves were brought to British North America between 1720 and 1780. (Average date of arrival for whites is 1890)
Comparisons
American plantations were dwarfed by those in the West Indies. About a quarter of U.S. slaves lived on farms with 15 or fewer slaves. In 1850, just 125 plantations had over 250 slaves.
In the Caribbean, Dutch Guiana and Brazil, the slave death rate was so high and the birth rate so low that they could not sustain their population without importations from Africa. Rates of natural decrease ran as high as 5 percent a year. While the death rate of U.S. slaves was about the same as that of Jamaican slaves, the fertility rate was more than 80 percent higher.
U.S. slaves were further removed from Africa than those in the Caribbean. In the 19th century, the majority of slaves in the British Caribbean and Brazil were born in Africa. In contrast, by 1850, most U.S. slaves were third-, fourth-, or fifth generation Americans.
Demography
Slavery in the U.S. was distinctive in the near-balance of the sexes and the ability of the slave population to increase its numbers by natural reproduction.
Unlike any other slave society, the U.S. had a high and sustained natural increase in the slave population for a more than a century and a half.
In 1860, 89 percent of the nation's African Americans were slaves; Africans formed 13 percent of the country's population and 33 percent of the South's population.
In 1860, less than 10 percent of the slave population was over 50 and only 3.5 percent was over 60.
The average age of first birth for slave women was around 20. Child spacing averaged about 2 years.
The average number of children born to a slave woman was 9.2--twice as many in the West Indies.
Most slaves lived in nuclear households consisting of two parents and children: 64 percent nuclear; 21 percent single parents; 15 percent non-family.
Mother-headed families were 50 percent more frequent on plantations with 15 or fewer slaves than on large ones. Smaller units also had a disproportionately large share of families in which the father and mother lived on different plantations for most of the week.
Average number of persons per household was 6.
Average age of women at birth of their first child was about 21.
Few slaves lived into old age. Between 1830 and 1860, only 10 percent of slaves in North America were over 50 years old.
Children
Most infants were weaned within three or four months
There were few instances in which slave women were released from field work for extended periods during slavery. Even during the last week before childbirth, pregnant women on average picked three-quarters or more of the amount normal for women.
Half of all slave babies died in the first year of life--twice the rate for white babies.
The average birth weight of slave infants was less than 5.5 pounds.
Slave children were tiny; their average height did not reach three feet until they were 4; they were 5.5 inches shorter than modern children and comparable to children in Bangladesh and the slums of Lagos.
At 17, slave men were shorter than 96 percent of men today and slave women shorter than 80 percent of contemporary women.
Slaves did not reach their full stature--67 inches for men and 62.5 inches for women--until their mid-20s.
Children entered the labor force as early as 3 or 4. Some were taken into the master's house to be servants while others were assigned to special children's gangs called "trash gangs," which swept yards, cleared drying cornstalks from fields, chopped cotton, carried water to field hands, weeded, picked cotton, fed work animals, and drove cows to pasture.
By age 7, over 40 percent of the boys and half the girls had entered the work force. At about 11, boys began to transfer to adult field jobs.
Labor
At the beginning of the 18th century, it was common for small groups of slaves to live and work by themselves on properties remote from their masters' homes.
Sugar field workers in Jamaica worked about 4,000 hours a year--three times that of a modern factory worker. Cotton workers toiled about 3,000 hours a year.
The median size of slaveholdings ranged from approximately 25 slaves in the tobacco regions of Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina, to 30-50 slaves in upland cotton regions. Plantations in the Sea Islands of South Carolina and Georgia and the sugar parishes of Louisiana averaged 60-80 slaves. In small areas of Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina, slaves lived on 125-175 person units.
In 1790, 44 percent of enslaved Africans lived on units of 20 or more slaves. In 1860, the figure was 53 percent (and approximately a third lived on units with 50 or more slaves).
Half of all masters owned five or fewer slaves. While most small slaveholders were farmers, a disproportionate share were artisans, shopkeepers, and public officials.
Prices of slaves varied widely over time. During the 18th century, slave prices generally rose. Though they fell somewhat before the start of the revolution, by the early 1790s, even before the onset of cotton expansion, prices had returned to earlier levels. Prices rose to a high of about $1,250 during the cotton boom of the late 1830s, fell to below half that level in the 1840s, and rose to about $1,450 in the late 1850. Males were valued 10-20 percent more than females; at age ten, children's prices were about half that of a prime male field hand.
By 1850, about 64 percent of slaves lived on cotton plantations; 12 percent raised tobacco, 5 percent sugar, 4 percent rice.
Among slaves 16-20, about 83 percent of the males and 89 percent of the females were field hands. The remainder were managers, artisans, or domestic servants.
Growing cotton required about 38 percent of the labor time of slaves; growing corn and caring for livestock 31 percent; and 31 percent improving land, constructing fences and buildings, raising other crops, and manufacturing products such as clothes.
Slaves constructed more than 9,500 miles of railroad track by 1860, a third of the nation's total and more than the mileage of Britain, France, and Germany.
About 2/3s of slaves were in the labor force, twice the proportion among free persons. Nearly a third of slave laborers were children and an eighth were elderly or crippled.
Disease
Slaves suffered a variety of maladies--such as blindness, abdominal swelling, bowed legs, skin lesions, and convulsions--that may have been caused by beriberi (caused by a deficiency of thiamine), pellagra (caused by a niacin deficiency), tetany (caused by deficiencies of calcium, magnesium, and Vitamin D), rickets (also caused by a deficiency of Vitamin D), and kwashiorkor (caused by severe protein deficiency).
Diarrhea, dysentery, whooping cough, and respiratory diseases as well as worms pushed the infant and early childhood death rate of slaves to twice that experienced by white infants and children.
Domestic Slave Trade
Between 1790 and 1860, 835,000 slaves were moved from Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas to Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas.
Between 16 and 60 percent of slaves were shipped west by traders.
Profitability
Slaveholding became more concentrated over time. The fraction of households owning slaves fell from 36 percent in 1830 to 25 percent in 1860.
The distribution of wealth in the South was much more unequal than that of the North.
Nearly 2 of 3 males with estates of $100,000 or more lived in the South in 1860.
If the North and South are treated as separate nations, the South was the fourth most prosperous nation in the world in 1860. Italy did not achieve the southern level of per capita income until the eve of World War II.
Civil War During the Civil War, 140,500 freed slaves and 38,500 free Africans served in the Union Army.
Teacher’s Notes:
This timeline only covers a small part of the history of a large and complex continent. Since the names of the Kingdoms and places cannot be found on contemporary maps, a good starting point would be to provide an old map of Africa (see pick n’ mix), for students to see where these highly advanced and successful Kingdoms were located. This can then lead onto discussions about the vast size of some of these Kingdoms and their territories, and what gave them coherence and strength.
Teachers may also want students to choose a date, and compare and contrast what was happening at the time in different parts of Africa , with their own country and/or continent they live in.
Finding Out More Yourself
Teachers may want to refer to the briefing on ‘Africa before the Transatlantic Slave Trade’ to find out more about the contributions that Africa and Africans have made to world history. Teachers may want to read the briefings, and adapt them for groups of different ages and abilities.
Structured Enquiry Task
This timeline could be used to encourage students to question information for its accuracy and whether it is telling the full story or not. For example, do we learn that civilisations in Africa were developed to a higher degree than in Europe in the 14th or 15th centuries? In school textbooks all over the world, a limited amount of information about African history is given, in some countries less than others. Why might this be? What effect does it have on our ideas and perceptions of Africa and its importance in the world?
The task and challenge for students is therefore to find out more! Teachers could set up a structured piece of research, which would be based on developing students’ knowledge and understanding, as well as research and presentation skills.
Teachers could try to provide a range of resources, for example written and visual materials from the internet (see the ‘Links’ pages for this section) or from your local library. Some museums may have good and relevant collections and it may be valuable for teachers to organise a school trip. Oral history is also a very important way of telling stories about the past that might not be written down. If it is possible, why not invite an older person from your local community in to school, to tell students about some of the ancient Kingdoms of Africa, which existed thousands of years before the Europeans arrived. Teachers should look at some of the earliest inventions and discoveries made by peoples of ancient Africa , showing tangible examples where possible.
Format:
Clearly state what students are expected to produce as evidence of their research and learning. You could ask for:
- A piece of creative writing in the form of an essay or report.
- A short presentation to their class, for example using images, a white/chalk board, or if it is possible, a projector or Microsoft PowerPoint.
- Depending on the subject, teachers may want to ask students to dramatise their findings, making them into a sketch or a play. Students could visually depict one or more aspects of an ancient African Kingdom of their choice. Or they could make a replica of a traditional African artefact with an explanation of how and what it was used for. Almost all traditional African artefacts have strong and significant meanings, so it is important that whatever students make or design, are well researched.
Timing:
Students will need a clear, realistic deadline, and adequate time to do this task well. We recommend about two hours of class time, in addition to time spent researching in the school or local library, on the internet or using other forms of research.
Tips:
- Tell local museums and libraries in advance to expect a visit from local school students. This allows them time to think about what resources they have available. They may also have a specialist on the subject who could do a short talk or answer questions that students have.
- It will take students some time to access good information, so be sure to set enough time aside, both during lessons and at home.
- Tell students that they need to be critical of the information they find and that they will need to edit and redraft it into their own style. Good researchers never copy chunks from books, and they always include a credit to acknowledge the original source.
Debriefing
At the end of the research project, provide an opportunity for students to share what they have learnt with each other, and see what others have done. Ensure that you tell students you will do this at the start of the project, because it can be a powerful motivator and help to raise confidence, expectations and achievement.
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will
- Frederick Douglass 
It takes more than a horrifying transatlantic voyage chained in the filthy hold of a slave ship to erase someone’s culture 
