" N e w " D a twww.uwec.edu/Academic/Geography/Ivogeler/Papers/Slavery/slavery.htm
a , " O l d " P a t t e r n s : I m p o r t a n t P l a c e s i n t h e Tr a n s - A t l a n t i c S l a v e Tr a d e
Ingolf Vogeler ([email protected])
Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire 54702-4004
DATA ANALYSIS FOR GEOGRAPHICAL PATTERNS
The slave-voyage CD-ROM data were sorted with SPSS into three sub-sets by locations:
1) London, a major port for the original departure and, particularly, the ownership of slave ships;
2) Gold Coast, West Africa, the most important region source for slaves for the Americas; and
3) Charleston, SC, the single largest slave port in the USA.
These three sample places represent the most significant sides of the trans-Atlantic slave-trading
triangle.
Images of people, places, and buildings that were associated with the slave trade are also included.
The landscapes of slavery persist throughout much of the world.
London: Slave Trade Investors
In 1713, the Treaty of Utrecht gave the British government a contract to import 4,800 slaves to
the Spanish Indies for 30 years with the Spanish king receiving 33.5 pesos for each slave
delivered safe and sound. The government of Britain sold the new privilege for 7.5 million
pounds to the South Sea Company, which extended over the Pacific and the Atlantic face of
South America. The company was located in London, at Threadneedle Street and Bishopsgate.
A quarter of their slave ships went to the Gold Coast and slightly fewer to neighboring Benin.
H u m p h r e y
Morice, Governor
of the Bank of
England,
MP,
London's major
slave trader (c.
1730).
Charles II of
England, who
backed
the
Royal Africa
Company, on a
golden guinea.
Landscape of Slavery
in Charleston, SC
Charleston was the single most important slave port in the United States. The large
number of slaves in the city created the urban landscapes of the historic South. In
1848, 72 percent of slaves working in Charleston were used as house servants, and 46
percent of the laboring slaves were female domestics. Altough the vast majority of
slaveowners were white, some free blacks also owned slaves.Many black slaveowners
hired out their slaves to white households, which may or may not have owned slaves
themselves.
Occupations of black slaveholders in Charleston 1850:
19 percent of colored tailors owned slaves
26 percent of Negro barbers owned slaves
27 percent of black butchers owned slaves
Many slaves were skilled workers whose skills have been passed on to present day blacks, such
as Phillip Simmons who has created hundreds of iron gates in Charleston and one for the
Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC. An example of a slave-made iron fence and gate is
shown in the photo of a slave merchant in Charleston.
Mulattos dominated the slaveowning class of blacks. Although the free mulatto community
represented 49 percent of the free black population, they composed 83 percent of the AfroAmerican slaveowners from South Carolina in 1850. Dark-skinned masters accounted for only15
percent of all black slaveowners. Many of the mulattos were the offsprings of white planters and
merchants who provided them with slaves when they freed them. These lighter-colored blacks
held a privileged status, higher than dark-colored freed slaves and dark slaves, but lower than
whites, slaveowners or not. Most of the mulattos earned enough money to purchase their own
slaves. Whites preferred to deal with lighted-colored mulattos which allowed them to accumulate
more wealth than dark-colored free blacks.
Landscape of Slavery
in Elmina, Ghana
Slave markets
In 1856, a city ordinance prohibited the selling of slaves on the north side of the U.S. Customs
House. Thereafter, slaves were sold in "sales rooms," "yards," or "marts," in many places in the
city. The Ryan Mart was established in 1852: the offices faced the street, and the yard contained
the barracoons (Portugese for "jail") and the auction block. Slave graves (identified by the use of
the first name only) can still be seen in the city.
Many of Charleston's finest homes were not only built by slaves but also by the wealth the slave
trade produced for these slave merchants.
Source: Personal tour by Alphonso Brown, Gullah Tours, Charleston. Phone: (803) 763-7551.
Folk art along the coast
of Ghana.
Looking
across the Atlantic
Ocean. What does it
mean? The home of a
sea
captain,
the
removal of slaves?
European slave traders brought African
people and crops to the "New World."
A slave merchant built this mansion
in Charleston with the wealth from
the slave trade using slave labor.
The Elmina fortress was built by the
Portugese from 1482-1483, bringing stone from
Europe as ship ballast. It was the keystone of
Portugese slave activities in Africa. In 1628,
about 218 different types of goods were used
to trade for slaves.
In 1637 a Dutch naval force surprised the
Portugese at Elmina and it fell easliy.
Portugese domination of 160 years had come
to an end.
Until the 17th century, few slaves were shipped
from the Gold Coast, for European traders were
mostly interested in gold and ivory. More slaves
were imported than exported during this era.
The former slave market in
Charleston, now a musem of slavery.
In the 18th century, 100 European trading posts
and fortresses were found along the Gold
Coast. The most important being the Dutch
fortress at Elmina.
In Elmina the Portuguse built a stone
castle, later taken by the British, and on
the oppopsite shore of the river, the
Dutch built a fort on the hill. Elmina
means "the mine" in Portugese; they
were looking for gold but extracted "black
gold" instead. For 350 years along the
Gold Coast (now West Africa) African
kings organized the capture of Africans
who were sold to European slave traders.
Present-day chiefs
in Ghana are heirs
to their own slave
trade and the
E u r o p e a n organized
slave
trade from villages
like the one shown.
The Dutch-built Fort
Conradsburg replace the
Portugese fort on the
other side of the river.
King Tegesibu of Dahomey made
250,000 pounds a year from
selling Africans, far more than any
English duke received as income.
The scene is from about 1750.
DATA SOURCES
1) Data for the maps come from David Eltis, Stephen D. Behrendt, David Richardson, and Herbert S. Klein, The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade: A Database on CD-ROM. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
This CD-ROM contains the records of 27,233 trans-Atlantic slave ship voyages from 1595 to 1866. The authors estimate that these records account for 70 percent of the Atlantic slave trade. Potentially, 226 fields of information are possible for each voyage; but, actually, most of the voyages have very limited information. Data coverage is particularly complete for British -- the second largest
national slave trader group -- French, and Dutch ports. On the other hand, Portuguese, Danish, nineteenth-century Spanish, and seventeenth-century French are missing or underrepresented. The records are incomplete and inconsistent. Of the estimated 35,561 slave voyages arriving in the Americas, information on only 25,076 voyages indicates that slaves were or could have been
landed in the Americas. Reports of voyages made several thousand miles and months apart, often in different languages and under different bureaucracies, each with their own procedures, created inconsistencies. For example, 147 voyages in this data set arrived in the Americas with more slaves on board than when they left Africa! Ships often left the last African port several times,
changed tonnage, and even rig, in the course of the voyage.
2) The colored maps are based on historic census data from the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/census).
3) The black-and-white images come from Hugh Thomas, The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade: 1440-1870. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1997.
4) The color photos come from Ingolf Vogeler's fieldwork in Elmina, Ghana in 1975 and Charleston, NC in 1996.