The wealth of Africa
The Slave Trade
Presentation
Supported by
The CarAf Centre
www.britishmuseum.org
How did attitudes towards
enslavement change over time?
Front cover image: Romuald Hazoumé, La Bouche du Roi (detail).
© 1997–2005 Romuald Hazoumé. Photo: Benedict Johnson. British Museum.
A JUG
What do you notice about this jug?
Source 1: Jug, 1793
British Museum
A JUG
What do you notice about this jug?
A sailing ship
Source 1: Jug, 1793
British Museum
A JUG
What do you notice about this jug?
A sailing ship
British ensign
Source 1: Jug, 1793
British Museum
A JUG
What do you notice about this jug?
A sailing ship
British ensign
Good wishes
(‘Success’)
Source 1: Jug, 1793
British Museum
A JUG
What do you notice about this jug?
A sailing ship
British ensign
Good wishes
(‘Success’)
The name of the ship
Source 1: Jug, 1793
British Museum
A JUG
What do you notice about this jug?
A sailing ship
British ensign
Good wishes
(‘Success’)
The name of the ship
The name of the
captain
Source 1: Jug, 1793
British Museum
A JUG
What do you notice about this jug?
A sailing ship
British ensign
Good wishes
(‘Success’)
The name of the ship
The name of the
captain
Flower decoration
Source 1: Jug, 1793
British Museum
A JUG
What do you notice about this jug?
A sailing ship
Why do you think this jug was made?
British ensign
Good wishes
(‘Success’)
The name of the ship
The name of the
captain
Flower decoration
Source 1: Jug, 1793
British Museum
A PRINT OF A SLAVE SHIP
This is the same ship as the one on the jug.
Why does it look so different here?
Source 2: A print of slave ship, the Brookes, 1789
British Museum
A PRINT OF A SLAVE SHIP
This is the same ship as the one on the jug.
Why does it look so different here?
What different messages are the
print and the jug giving about the
Brookes and about the slave trade?
Source 2: A print of slave ship, the Brookes, 1789
British Museum
Source 3: Detail of a print of slave ship, the Brookes, 1789
British Museum
LA BOUCHE DU ROI
(THE MOUTH OF THE KING)
This sculpture is made of petrol cans.
What does its shape remind you of?
Source 4: La Bouche du Roi
Romuald Hazoumé, 2005
British Museum
LA BOUCHE DU ROI
(THE MOUTH OF THE KING)
This sculpture is made of petrol cans.
What does its shape remind you of?
What do the cans remind you of?
Source 4: La Bouche du Roi
Romuald Hazoumé, 2005
British Museum
Source 5: La Bouche du Roi (detail)
Romuald Hazoumé, 2005
British Museum
LA BOUCHE DU ROI
(THE MOUTH OF THE KING)
This sculpture is made of petrol cans.
What does its shape remind you of?
What do the cans remind you of?
How does this help?
La Bouche du Roi is a place in Benin, West Africa,
from where enslaved Africans were transported.
Romuald Hazoumé, the artist, is from Benin.
Source 4: La Bouche du Roi
Romuald Hazoumé, 2005
British Museum
Source 5: La Bouche du Roi (detail)
Romuald Hazoumé, 2005
British Museum
Source 6: Detail of a print of
slave ship, the Brookes, 1789
British Museum
LA BOUCHE DU ROI
(THE MOUTH OF THE KING)
This sculpture is made of petrol cans.
What does its shape remind you of?
What do the cans remind you of?
How does this help?
La Bouche du Roi is a place in Benin, West Africa,
from where enslaved Africans were transported.
Romuald Hazoumé, the artist, is from Benin.
Source 4: La Bouche du Roi
Romuald Hazoumé, 2005
British Museum
What is artist Romuald Hazoumé
saying about Africa and the
slave trade?
Source 5: La Bouche du Roi (detail)
Romuald Hazoumé, 2005
British Museum
Source 6: Detail of a print of
slave ship, the Brookes, 1789
British Museum
THE TRANSATLANTIC TRADE
What can you see going on in this
picture?
Source 7: Slave Trade, print by John Raphael Smith, 1791,
from a painting by George Morland
British Museum
THE TRANSATLANTIC TRADE
What can you see going on in this
picture?
Slave ship
Source 7: Slave Trade, print by John Raphael Smith, 1791,
from a painting by George Morland
British Museum
THE TRANSATLANTIC TRADE
What can you see going on in this
picture?
Slave ship
Enslaved Africans
Source 7: Slave Trade, print by John Raphael Smith, 1791,
from a painting by George Morland
British Museum
THE TRANSATLANTIC TRADE
What can you see going on in this
picture?
Slave ship
Enslaved Africans
Neck rings
Source 7: Slave Trade, print by John Raphael Smith, 1791,
from a painting by George Morland
British Museum
THE TRANSATLANTIC TRADE
What can you see going on in this
picture?
Slave ship
Enslaved Africans
Neck rings
Mother and child
Source 7: Slave Trade, print by John Raphael Smith, 1791,
from a painting by George Morland
British Museum
THE TRANSATLANTIC TRADE
What can you see going on in this
picture?
What is the attitude of the artist
towards enslavement?
Slave ship
Enslaved Africans
Neck rings
Mother and child
Source 7: Slave Trade, print by John Raphael Smith, 1791,
from a painting by George Morland
British Museum
WHAT WERE THE EFFECTS OF THE
TRANSATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE
ON AFRICA?
Source 8
a. World population (millions)
1750
1800
1850
World
791
978
1262
Africa
106
107
111
18
31
64
Americas
b. Share of the world population (%)
1750
1800
1850
World
100
100
100
Africa
13.4
10.9
8.8
2.3
3.2
5.1
Americas
United Nations, Population Division, 1999: 6
What were the effects on the
population of Africa?
Source 9: Cape Coast Castle, Ghana – a slave trade fort
© Christopher De Corse, at www.slaveryimages.org
WHAT WERE THE EFFECTS OF THE
TRANSATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE
ON AFRICA?
Source 10
The slave trade for most regions and most periods
was not a critically important influence over the
course of African history.
D Eltis, quoted in Lovejoy 1989: 366
Source 11
Throughout West Africa, evidence of wholesale
flight and destruction caused by the slave trade
can still be seen, People fleeing slave raiders left
massive stretches of empty land in fertile areas
behind them. There is still a great “empty belt”
of land running through the sub-Saharan zones
of Ghana, Togo, Dahomey and Nigeria, in other
words through the main slave-raiding areas.
Beckles 2002:153
Source 12
The Kingdom of the Kongo, for example, had a
relatively highly developed political and economic
system when the Portuguese arrived in 1482.
However, by the 1560s, if not before, it had been
wrecked by the interference of slave traders.
Beckles 2002: 154
How much effect did the slave
trade have on Africa?
Source 9: Cape Coast Castle, Ghana – a slave trade fort
© Christopher De Corse, at www.slaveryimages.org
A PUZZLE
This chain was found in the palace of the
Asantehene, the ruler of Asante (Ghana).
It was made in Europe.
Slavery had continued in Asante up to the end
of the 19th century.
What was it doing there?
Who was responsible for the
suffering this object caused?
How is our attitude towards this
object different from the people
who used it?
Source 13: Neck rings, made in Europe and used in Africa
British Museum
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