History: Grade 7
The Transatlantic Slave Trade: Introduction to the Slave Trade
INTRODUCTION TO THE SLAVE TRADE
The New World
The term ‘New World’ was used from the 16th century to describe the countries discovered by
European explorers in particular the Americas, i.e. North America, South America and the
Caribbean Islands, as well as Australia.
Map Showing the Old World (Africa, Europe and Asia) and the New World (Oceania and Americas)
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Background to the Slave Trade
Up until the mid-15th century, the Muslim North Africans had a monopoly on the trade with
West Africa. Then Portuguese ships started sailing down the West African Coast.
For around 150 years, a small number of Africans were captured and transported to Europe
and other islands off the African coast, including Madeira, Cape Verde and Sao Tome. The
Africans were used as slave labour in the sugar plantations. Some slaves were sent as far
away as India, the Middle East and Russia.
The British and Dutch then started to trade along the African coast, in particular, in
Senegambia and Mali.
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The Transatlantic Slave Trade: Introduction to the Slave Trade
Major Slave Trading Regions of West Africa
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The first African slaves were taken by the Spanish to the Americas around 1503. In 1518,
the first slaves were transported directly from Africa to America.
By the 17th century, the slave trade was in full swing and reached its peak in the
18thcentury. Around 3% of the slave trade took place from 1450 to 1600, 16% in the
17thcentury and over 50% in the 18th century. By the 1690s, the British were shipping the
most slaves from West Africa.
Europeans built trading posts along the West African coast. They exchanged rum, cloth, guns
and other goods for slaves who were transported on ships across the Atlantic Ocean, then sold
to the New World slave owners. These slave traders included the British, the French, the
Spanish, the Dutch and the Portuguese.
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The Transatlantic Slave Trade: Introduction to the Slave Trade
The slaves were obtained from African slave traders who captured slaves from the interior to
trade. These slaves were shackled and forced to walk for hundreds of kilometres to the
trading posts to be sold. About one in five died along the way.
Slaves Being Marched to the Coast
Wikimedia Public Domain
Once they arrived at a trading post, the slaves were placed in barracoons, waiting to wait for
a ship to take them across the Atlantic. Sometimes they were kept imprisoned for up to a
year.
Africans became slaves if they committed a crime, to pay off a debt and most commonly as
prisoners of war. Wars and conflicts broke out, with the sole purpose of capturing slaves and
trading them for guns.
After 1700, the import of guns into West Africa increased the conflicts and resulted in a
greater number of slaves. The Europeans would capture Africans in battle or be given slaves
as rewards for supporting the winning side.
During the early 1700s, Africans were sometimes kidnapped to be sold into slavery, although
this was considered a crime. By the mid-17th century, the demand for slaves to work in the
sugar plantations was so great, that raiding, wars and kidnapping Africans to meet the
demand was common.
A few African leaders opposed the slave trade, although most supported it and benefitted
from it. Slavery had existed in many African societies for centuries, and so many African
states were willing to trade people for goods with the Europeans.
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The Transatlantic Slave Trade: Introduction to the Slave Trade
The Triangular Trade Route
The slave trade route was known as the Triangular Trading Route, as the passage made was
in a roughly triangular shape, as shown on the map below.
The first leg of the voyage was the delivery of goods from Europe to West Africa. These
goods were exchanged for slaves. This leg was known as The Outward Passage.
The middle leg of the journey was to fill the empty holds with slaves and to transport them to
the Americas. This leg was known as The Middle Passage.
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The Transatlantic Slave Trade: Introduction to the Slave Trade
The slaves were sold in the Americas and raw materials such as cotton, sugar, tobacco, rice
and cotton, were purchased for the return journey to Europe, where they were manufactured.
This leg was known as The Return Passage.
It is estimated that the Europeans made over 50,000 trips on this route to buy and sell slaves.
Slave Ship Model
Wikimedia Creative Commons
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Why Were Slaves Needed?
The demand for labourers to work in European colonies was high. At the time, the Americas
were colonies, and labour was needed for the sugar, rice, cotton and tobacco plantations.
Many indigenous Americans had died of disease and conflict, so cheap labour from Africa
was needed. Africans were hard working, experienced in agriculture and were used to a hot
tropical climate, so they were preferred as workers over the locals.
The African slaves made it possible and profitable for the Europeans to mine and harvest
crops in their colonies.
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The Transatlantic Slave Trade: Introduction to the Slave Trade
Slaves Working on a Plantation
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Where Did the Slaves Come From?
75% of the slaves came from the west coast of Africa. Most were from modern day Benin,
Nigeria and Cameroon as well as Senegal, Gambia, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo and Gabon.
The rest came from Central Africa, i.e., Angola and Mozambique.
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The Transatlantic Slave Trade: Introduction to the Slave Trade
The slaves were mainly sent to work on the sugar plantations, but also to tobacco, cotton,
coffee and rice plantations, as well as to work on the mines.
Some were used in the construction industry, also for cutting timber and shipbuilding. Others
were used as domestic servants.
Plantation Slaves
Wikimedia Public Domain
The Middle Passage
It took about 1 month to reach Brazil and between 2 and 4 months to reach North America,
depending on weather conditions.
Conditions on the ships were inhumane, and slaves were treated like animals. The ships were
registered to carry about 350 people, but often had over 800 slaves on board.
Slaves were forced below deck into spaces so cramped that they could not even stand
up. They were stripped naked and branded. Men were chained or shackled together by their
wrists or ankles.
Space was often so limited that the slaves had to remain lying down in their urine and faeces
and could not even roll over.
There was very little food, and fresh water was extremely limited.
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The Transatlantic Slave Trade: Introduction to the Slave Trade
Diagram of a Slave Ship
Wikimedia Public Domain
About 14% of the slaves were children, 30% adult females and 56% males. Women were
often sexually abused on the ships by the crew.
The seasickness, heat, stale air and cramped conditions were a breeding ground for disease
and death. Diseases such as smallpox and yellow fever were rife. If slaves fell ill or died,
they were just thrown overboard.
During the voyage, beatings and whippings were common, and slaves were often tortured
with hot coals, breaking their teeth or forcing their mouth open.
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The Transatlantic Slave Trade: Introduction to the Slave Trade
Many slaves went mad and chose to jump overboard, despite not being able to swim.
In the 1500s up to half the slaves transported died during the journey. The death rate reduced
to around 5% by the 1800s when they were treated as a more valuable cargo. Overall, an
estimated 1 to 2 million slaves died during the Middle Passage.
The quote below from “An Account of the Slave Trade on the Coast of Africa” in 1788 by
Alexander Falconbridge (a surgeon on slave ships and later the governor of the British
colony), describes the conditions on board a slave ship:
“The deck, that is the floor of their rooms was so covered with the blood and mucus which
had proceeded from then in consequences of the flux that it resembled a slaughter house. It
is not in the power of the human imagination to picture a situation more dreadful or
disgusting. Numbers of the slaves having fainted were carried upon deck where several of
them died, and the rest with great difficulty were restored. It had nearly proved fatal to me
also. The climate was too warm to admit the wearing of any clothing but a shirt and that I
had pulled off before I went down … amount them for about a quarter of an hour., I was so
overcome with heat, stench and foul air that I nearly fainted; and it was only with assistance
that I could get on deck. The consequence was that I soon fell sick with the same disorder
from which I did not recover for several months.”
There were over 250 rebellions on ships, where slaves preferred to die, rather than have to
exist in such brutal conditions.
African Slave Ship Diagram Showing Cramped Conditions
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The Transatlantic Slave Trade: Introduction to the Slave Trade
The Slave Markets
Slaves were considered as goods to trade and not seen as human beings. The slaves were
traded at markets, like cattle.
The price of slaves varied over time. In the cotton boom of the late 1830s, a slave would
fetch up to £50. The price dropped to around half of this amount by the 1840s. Prices for
male slaves were 10 to 15% higher than for women, and children were valued at around half
the adult price.
Once purchased, the slaves became the property of their owners and any children born to
slaves automatically became slaves themselves.
On the plantations, most of the slaves were worked to death within seven years.
Notice of Sale of Slaves
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The Transatlantic Slave Trade: Introduction to the Slave Trade
How the Slave Trade Ended
Christian groups, as well as abolitionists and humanitarians in Europe and America, fought
against the slave trade. The Anti-Slavery Society pressurized governments to abolish slavery.
Painting of The Anti-Slavery Society by Benjamin Robert Haydon, 1840
Wikimedia Public Domain
By the 1800s, the slave trade was thought to be too costly as slaves had to be provided with
food and accommodation.
The Slavery Abolition Act was passed in Britain in 1833 and all slaves in the British Empire
were set free. However, in North America, slaves were only freed in 1865 after the
Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery following the American Civil War in the 1850s.
Celebrating the Abolition of Slavery in the British Empire
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