The Middle Passage
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The Middle Passage was the leg of the Atlantic slave trade that
transported people from Africa to North America, South America
and the Caribbean. It was called the Middle Passage because the
slave trade was a form of Triangular trade; boats left Europe,
went to Africa, then to America, and then returned to Europe.
They also made a stop in the West Indies for food, supplies, or
traded molasses or rum for the slaves.
Slave traders acquired slaves by purchasing them from numerous
ports in Africa. They were able to pack nearly 300 slaves and
approximately 35 crew into most slave ships. The men were normally
chained together in pairs to save space - right leg to the next
man's left leg - while the women and children may have had somewhat
more room. The captives were fed very small portions of corn,
yams, rice, and palm oil, normally just enough to sustain them.
Sometimes captives were allowed to move around during the day,
but many ships kept the shackles on throughout the journey.
It is estimated that of the 15 million that made the journey,
3 million did not survive. Disease, starvation, and the length
of the passage were the main contributors to the death toll. Many
believe that overcrowding caused this outrageously high deathrate,
but amoebic dysentery and scurvy were the main problems. Additionally,
outbreaks of smallpox, measles, and other diseases spread rapidly
in the close-quarter compartments. Slave ships might take anywhere
from one to six months to cross the Atlantic depending on the
weather conditions at sea. The death rate rose steadily with the
length of voyage, as the risk of dysentery increased with longer
stints at sea, and the quality and amount of food and water diminished
with every passing day.
Precise records are not available to provide an actual death
toll, but it is estimated that as many as 8 million slaves may
have perished to bring 4 million to the Caribbean islands. This
number does not include the slaves brought to North or South America.
The Atlantic slave trade was the purchase and transport of Africans
into bondage and servitude in the New World. It is sometimes called
the Maafa by African Americans. This term means holocaust or great
disaster in kiSwahili. The slaves were one element of a three-part
economic cycle-the Triangular Trade and its infamous Middle Passage-which
ultimately involved four continents, four centuries and the lives
and fortunes of millions of people.
Research published in 2006  reports the earliest known presence
of slaves in the New World. A burial ground in Campeche, Mexico
suggests slaves had been brought there not long after Hernán
Cortés completed the subjugation of Mexico. Contemporary
historians estimate some 12 million individuals were taken from
west Africa to North, Central and South America and the Caribbean
Islands by European colonial/imperialist powers.
The slave trade originated in a shortage of labour in the new
world. The first slaves used were Aboriginal peoples, but they
were not numerous enough and were being decimated by European
cruelty and diseases. It was also difficult to get Europeans to
emigrate to the colonies, despite incentives such as indentured
servitude or even distribution of free land (mainly in the English
colonies that became the United States). Massive amounts of labour
were needed for mining, and especially for the plantations in
the labor-intensive growing, harvesting and (semi-)processing
of sugar (also for rum and molasses), cotton and other prized
tropical crops which could not be grown profitably - in some cases,
could not be grown at all - in the colder climes of Europe. (It
was cheaper to import them American colonies than to import them
from the Ottoman empire, etc.) To meet this demand for labour
European traders thus turned to Western Africa, especially Guinea
as a source of slaves.
There, Europeans tapped into the African slave trade that saw
slaves transported to the coast of Guinea where they were sold
at European trading forts in exchange for muskets, manufactured
goods, and cloth. As a rule , they were not stolen
by the Europeans but captured in tribal wars, in many cases even
started with a view to the capture of fellow Africans- given the
modest prices they asked, African labor was clearly considered
abundant, not very valuable.
The principal areas of the slave trade in Africa were Senegambia
(present day Senegal, Gambia, Guinea and Guinea Bissau), Sierra
Leone (including the area that later became Liberia), Windward
Coast (modern Ivory Coast), Gold Coast (Ghana), Bight of Benin
(Togo, Benin and western Nigeria), Bight of Biafra (Nigeria south
of the Benue River, Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea), Central Africa
(Gabon, Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo) and Southeast
Africa (Mozambique and Madagascar).
The number of slaves sold to the new world varied throughout
the slave trade. The most widely accepted statistics [citation
needed] claim Senegambia provided about 5.8%, Sierra Leone 3.4%,
Windward Coast 12.1%, Gold Coast 14.4%, Bight of Benin 14.5%,
Bight of Biafra 25%, Central Africa 23% and Southeast Africa 1.8%.
African slaves were usually sold to European traders by powerful
coastal or interior states in exchange for European goods, such
as textiles and firearms. Africans were rarely kidnapped by Europeans,
except as the opportunity presented itself, because they did not
know the lay of the land.
As coastal and near-coastal nation states in Africa expanded
through military conflicts, the captives of these wars, usually
civilians but sometimes defeated warriors, were enslaved and sold.
Collection of slaves was sometimes a basis for warfare but more
often than not, enslavement was simply a by-product of war. Slavery
had been a staple of African political life long before the coming
of Europeans. Conviction of a crime was another way to become
a slave. Since most if not all of these nations did not have a
prison system, criminal slaves were usually sold
were over twenty-five known kingdoms or empires that participated
in the slave trade
in present day Senegal
|(1350 - 1890)
|| located in present day Senegal once part of Wolof Empire
|| located in present day northwestern Sierra Leone
|| located in border area of present day Ivory Coast and Ghana
|| located on border of Ghana and Burkina Faso
|| located in central Ghana west of Lake Volta conquered by
|| located in present day southeast Ghana
|| located in present day south central Ghana conquered by
|| conquered nearly all of present day Ghana
|| located in present day Togo
||located in present day central Benin conquered by Dahomey
|| located in present day central Benin
|| located in present day southern Benin
|| located in present day Western Nigeria
|| located in present day southwest Nigeria
|| located in present day West Central Nigeria
|| located in present day southeast Nigeria
|| located in present day west Cameroon
|| located in northern Cameroon
|| located in northeast Angola
||located in southeast Central African Republic
|| replaced the Sabhanga state in southeast Central
|| located in the southeastern present day Dem Rep Congo
|| located in south central portion of the Dem Rep Congo
|| located in southern Dem Rep Congo bordering Angola
|African slaves were loaded into extremely cramped
ships and given only minimal amounts of food and water.
It is estimated that fifteen percent of slaves died
in the voyage over the Atlantic.
The first slave traders were Portuguese who
desired workers for their mines and sugar plantations in Brazil.
When the Dutch seized much of Brazil and became the dominant trading
power in seventeenth century they became the leading traders selling
slaves to both their own colonies and to British and Spanish ones.
As Britain rose in naval power and controlled more of the Americas
they became the leading slave traders, mostly operating out of
Liverpool and Bristol. By the late 17th century, one out of every
four ships that left Liverpool harbour was a slave trading ship
. Other British cities also profited from the
slave trade. Birmingham was the largest gun producing city in
Britain at the time, and guns were traded for slaves. 75% of all
sugar produced in the plantations came to London to supply the
highly lucrative coffee houses there.
The slave trade was part of the triangular Atlantic trade, which
was probably the most important and profitable trading route in
the world. Ships from Europe would carry a cargo of manufactured
trade goods to Africa. They would exchange the trade goods for
slaves which they would transport to the Americas. In the Americas,
they would sell the slaves and pick up a cargo of agricultural
products, often produced with slave labour, for Europe. The value
of this trade route was that a ship could make a substantial profit
on each leg of the voyage. The route was also designed to take
full advantage of prevailing winds and currents. For example,
the trip from the West Indies or the southern US to Europe would
be assisted by the Gulf Stream. The outward boundtrip from Europe
to Africa would not be impeded by the same current.
Theslave trade was supported by church teachings and the introduction
of the concept of the black man's and white man's burdens. Under
this black men were expected to labour because they were not Christian
and white men were charged with the duty of imposing the conditions
of labour upon them.
Slavery was involved in some of the most profitable industries
of the time: 70% of the slaves brought to the new world were used
to produce sugar, the most labour intensive crop. The rest were
employed harvesting coffee, cotton, and tobacco, and in some cases
in mining. The West Indian colonies of the European powers were
some of their most important possessions and they went to extremes
to protect and retain them. For example, in 1763, France agreed
to giving the vast colony of New France in exchange for keeping
the minute Antillian island of Guadeloupe (still a French overseas
By far the most successful West Indian colonies in 1800 belonged
to the United Kingdom. After entering the sugar colony business
late, British naval supremacy and control over key islands such
as Jamaica, Trinidad, and Barbados and the territory of British
Guiana gave it an important edge over all competitors; while many
lost their shirt, some made enormous fortunes, even by upper class
standards. This advantage was reinforced when France lost its
most important colony, St. Dominigue (western Hispaniola, now
Haiti), to a slave revolt in 1791 and supported revolts against
its rival Britain, after the 1793 French revolution in the name
of liberty (but in fact opportunistic selectivity). The British
islands produced the most sugar, and the British people quickly
became the largest consumers of sugar. West Indian sugar became
ubiquitous as an additive to Chinese tea. Products of American
slave labour soon permeated every level of British society with
tobacco, coffee, and especially sugar all becoming indispensable
elements of daily life for all classes.
|Reproduction of a handbill advertising a slave auction
in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1769.
End of the Atlantic slave trade
In Britain, and in other parts of Europe, opposition developed
against the slave trade. Led by the Religious Society of Friends
(Quakers) and establishment Evangelicals such as William Wilberforce
the movement was joined by many and began to protest the trade.
They were opposed by the owners of the colonial holdings; despite
this Britain banned the slave trade in 1807, imposing stiff fines
for any slave found aboard a British ship. That same year the
United States banned the importation of slaves. Denmark, who had
been very active in the slave trade, was the first country to
ban the trade through legislation (1792) to take effect from 1803.
The Royal Navy, which then controlled the world's seas, moved
to stop other nations from filling Britain's place in the slave
trade and declared that slaving was equal to piracy and could
be punished by death.
For the British to end the slave trade, significant obstacles
had to be overcome. In the 18th century, the slave trade was an
integral part of the Atlantic economy. The economies of the European
colonies in the Caribbean, the American colonies, and Brazil required
vast amounts of man power to harvest the bountiful agricultural
goods. In 1790 the British West Indies, islands such as Jamaica
and Barbados had a slave population of 524 000, while the French
had 643 000 in their West Indian possessions. Other powers such
as Spain, the Netherlands, and Denmark had large numbers of slaves
as well. Despite these high populations more slaves were always
required. Harsh conditions and demographic imbalances left the
slave population with well below replacement fertility levels.
Between 1600 and 1800 the English imported around 1.7 million
slaves to their West Indian possessions. The fact that there were
well over a million fewer slaves in the British colonies than
had been imported to them illustrates the conditions in which
How did the abolition of the slave trade occur if it was so economically
important and successful? The historiography of answers to this
question is a long and interesting one. Before the Second World
War the study of the abolition movement was performed primarily
by British scholars who believed that the anti-slavery movement
was probably "among the three or four perfectly virtuous
pages ... in the history of nations" (Lecky ).
This opinion was controverted in 1944 by the West Indian historian,
Eric Williams, who argued that the end of the slave trade was
a result of economic transitions totally unconnected to any morality.
Williams' thesis was soon brought into question as well, however.
Williams based his argument upon the idea that the West Indian
colonies were in decline at the early point of 19th century and
were losing their political and economic importance to Britain.
This decline turned the slave system into an economic burden that
the British were only too willing to do away with.
The main difficulty with this argument is that the decline only
began to manifest itself after slave trading was banned in 1807.
Before then slavery was flourishing economically. The decline
in the West Indies is more likely to be an effect of the suppression
of the slave trade than the cause. Falling prices for the commodities
produced by slave labour such as sugar and coffee can be easily
discounted as evidence shows that a fall in price leads to great
increases in demand and actually increases total profits for the
importers. Profits for the slave trade remained at around ten
percent of investment and showed no evidence of being on the decline.
Land prices in the West Indies, an important tool for analyzing
the economy of the area did not begin to decrease until after
the slave trade was discontinued. The sugar colonies were not
in decline at all, in fact they were at the peak of their economic
influence in 1807.
Williams also had reason to be biased. He was heavily involved
in the movements for independence of the Caribbean colonies and
had a motive to try to extinguish the idea of such a munificent
action by the colonial overlord. A third generation of scholars
lead by the likes of Seymour Drescher and Roger Anstey have discounted
most of Williams' arguments, but still acknowledge that morality
had to be combined with the forces of politics and economic theory
to bring about the end of the slave trade.
The movements that played the greatest role in actually convincing
Westminster to outlaw the slave trade were religious. Evangelical
Protestant groups arose who agreed with the Quakers in viewing
slavery as a blight upon humanity. These people were certainly
a minority, but they were a fervent one with many dedicated individuals.
These groups also had a strong parliamentary presence, controlling
35-40 seats at their height. Their numbers were magnified by the
precarious position of the government. Known as the "saints"
this group was led by William Wilberforce, the most important
of the anti-slave campaigners. These parliamentarians were extremely
dedicated and often saw their personal battle against slavery
as a divinely ordained crusade.
After the British ended their own slave trade, they were forced
by economics to press other nations into placing themselves in
the same economic straitjacket, or else the British colonies would
become uncompetitive with those of other nations. The British
campaign against the slave trade by other nations was an unprecedented
foreign policy effort. Denmark, a small player in the international
slave trade, and the United States banned the trade during the
same period as Great Britain. Other small trading nations that
did not have a great deal to give up such as Sweden quickly followed
suit, as did the Dutch, who were also by then a minor player.
Four nations objected strongly to surrendering their rights to
trade slaves: Spain, Portugal, Brazil (after its independence),
and France. Britain used every tool at its disposal to try to
induce these nations to follow its lead. Portugal and Spain, which
were indebted to Britain after the Napoleonic Wars, slowly agreed
to accept large cash payments to first reduce and then eliminate
the slave trade. By 1853 the British government had paid Portugal
over three million pounds, and Spain over one million in order
to end the slave trade. Brazil, however, did not agree to stop
trading in slaves until Britain took military action against its
coastal areas and threatened a permanent blockade of the nation's
ports in 1852.
For France, the British first tried to impose a solution during
the negotiations at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, but Russia
and Austria did not agree. The French people and government had
deep misgivings about conceding to Britain's demands. Not only
did Britain demand that other nations ban the slave trade, but
also demanded the right to police the ban. The Royal Navy had
to be granted permission to search any suspicious ships and seize
any found to be carrying slaves, or equipped for doing so. It
is especially these conditions that kept France involved in the
slave trade for so long. While France formally agreed to ban the
trading of slaves in 1815, they did not allow Britain to police
the ban, nor did they do much to enforce it themselves. Thus a
large black market in slaves continued for many years. While the
French people had originally been as opposed to the slave trade
as the British, it became a matter of national pride that they
not allow their policies to be dictated to them by Britain. Also
such a reformist movement was viewed as tainted by the conservative
backlash after the revolution. The French slave trade thus did
not come to a complete halt until 1848.