I. THE TRANS-ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE

A). DURATION

The trans-Atlantic slave trade is what we think of as slavery, namely Africans being captured and kidnapped from Africa and carried into slavery in the New World. This is also called Negro chattel slavery. This so-called slave trade became regularized about 1450, and initially slaves were taken to Europe. The slave trade continued for 420 years, until at least 1870. Brazil, Cuba and Puerto Rico were among the last countries to shut down the slave trade.

B). THE DEBATE OVER THE NUMBERS

Historians debate furiously over how many Africans were enslaved over this time period. It is not as if we have all the records of how many people were on all of the ships. So we do not know exactly how many people it was, nor can we ever know. So we estimate on the basis of the manifests or logs of the ships that we know about, and the figures from ports of entry, and so forth. But no one knows or ever can know exactly how many people it was.

More conservative historians say it was 9.5 or 10 million Africans who were enslaved. More liberal and leftist historians argue that it was 20 million. Some people even say 50 million. In the article that you are reading from Newsweek magazine, it says 10 million.

Almost all historians agree that it was at least 10 million. In my class I teach that historians debate about a range between 10 and 20 million people. Part of what historians fight over is the death rate. Of the people who were put on a ship in Africa, how many made it to the New World? Of course this would vary from ship to ship. But if you assume that 10 million made it to the New World, how many died on the way? If you assume that half of those who left Africa died on the way, or a 50% death rate, then you would need to double the figure of 10 million. If you assume a 25% death rate, that 1 in 4 died on the way, you would get something like 12.5 million. In my view the fairest and most balanced answer is simply to state that our best guess is a range somewhere between 10-20 million people. But I emphasize again that no responsible or reasonable person would deny that it was at least 10 million people.

C). DESTINATION

Half of the slaves, at least 5 million, went to the Caribbean or the West Indies, to Jamaica, Haiti, Cuba and so on. In fact more Africans went to the Caribbean than to anywhere else.

One third, or at least 3-4 million, went to Brazil.

Between 400,000 and 1 million came to the United States. In fact the United States was a backwater in the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

The slave trade was enormously profitable. A slaver might buy 5 pounds sterling in rum or iron bars and trade it for slaves in Africa, and then sell the slave for 30 or even 80 sterling. So he pays 5 and gets a slave who sells for between 30 and 80 pounds sterling.

D). TIGHTPACKING

To maximize profits, slavers resorts to tightpacking. Literally, this meant packing or cramming as many bodies as possible into the hold of the ship. The theory was the more bodies you put into the ship the more you could sell and get profit from.

E). MIDDLE PASSAGE

The trip from Africa to the New World is 3,000 miles. In the 1500s and 1600s the voyage could take 12-15 weeks. In the 1700s, as ships became faster, the voyage from Africa to the New World lasted between 6 and 8 weeks (60 days). It was called Middle Passage. And it was absolutely horrendous.

The slaves were chained together, two to two. The space between the decks was often only 3 feet, 3 inches high. This was so small that the slaves could not sit upright. They were chained lying down. They were packed so closely together that basically they were like spoons, with each person fitting into the curves and contours of the body of the person next to them. Some people were put on shelves along the side of the wall, and here the space might be only 2 feet, 7 inches between shelves. If the person next to you got sick, or vomited, or was incontinent, they got sick on you or were incontinent on you, and there was no escape. If you had to urinate or defecate, you might not be able to get to the "necessary bucket," and if there wasn't anyplace to "go" except right there where you were chained then that is where you urinated or defecated. If the person chained to you died, you were just chained to a corpse.

Once or twice a day the slaves would be brought above deck to be given food (usually rice or cornmeal) and water, and were made to dance.

A healthy slave, with good muscle tone, would fetch a higher price than one who was sickly or emaciated or atrophied. It was in the financial or pecuniary interest of the slavetraders to keep the human cargo in good condition, to have them exercise so that they would have good muscle tone, and be physically fit, etc. Slavers also believed dancing would lift the spirits of the slaves, because otherwise they might become depressed and develop melancholia. They thought melancholia would produce either suicide or desperation. And desperate slaves were dangerous because they would revolt regardless of the consequences.

It was also the case that British and other European insurance campanies "insured" the cargo. The ships and the shippers had insurance to cover the possibility that the slaves might die or be "lost", just as today one would get insurance on any valuable  item that one was shipping through the mail or by airplane. Later on, after 1776, American insurance companies would get a share of this depraved "business." The profits from the slave trade created much of the wealth that Britain and other European countrieswould later use to finance the Industrial Revolution and diversification into textiles and railroads.

These ships were in fact prison-ships. They were death-ships. And the black historian Vincent Harding makes the point that for Africans, the New World was a prison-state. Captives who died were thrown overboard, and sharks followed the ships because of the scent of blood.

Women and young children were usually kept in a separate location, sometimes above deck. If there were only a few of them, they might even be allowed to remain unchained above deck. By conservative estimates, there was a 25% death rate on the ships, and 1 in 4 people died on the way to the New World.

Males were considered more valuable than females because they could perform heavy labor. Females, however, faced the danger of sexual assault which males usually did not face.

IV. INVOLVEMENT OF THE EUROPEAN NATIONS IN THE SLAVE TRADE

1. The European exploration of Africa, and European involvement in the trans-Atlantic slave trade began with the Portuguese. They desired trade with India and China. This involved spices from India such as pepper and cinnamon, and porcelain and silk from China. But the Arabs and the Ottoman Turks stood between Europe and India and China. Therefore the Europeans sought to eliminate the Arab and Turkish middlemen by finding a direct route to India, around the Arabs and Turks. It was for this reason that the Portuguese ventured down the coast of Africa. They would go around Africa to reach India, and in this way bypass the Arabs and Turks in the Middle East. The Portuguese also desired direct contact with the sources of gold in Africa, and wanted to bypass the Moors and the Moroccans in the Sahara. In 1441 a Portuguese ship returned from West Africa with gold, pepper and slaves. In 1471 they reached the Ashanti region, today called Ghana. In 1483 they reached the Congo River and the Kingdom of Kongo. In 1488 Bartolmeu Diaz rounded the southern tip of Africa, and in 1497 a fleet under Vasco de Gama sailed around Africa and across the Indian Ocean to India. After 1500 the Portuguese began raiding Congo for slaves and this spread into Angola as well. From 1500 to 1870 the Portuguese abducted untold millions of Africans from Congo and Angola, sending them to the Portuguese colony of Brazil.

2. The second group of Europeans to enter the trans-Atlantic slave trade were the Spaniards. This dates from about 1500, and was accelerated in 1580 when Philip II of Spain invaded and took over Portugal.

3. The Spanish were followed by the Dutch (Holland). They established the Dutch West India Company in 1621. The Dutch attacked the Spanish and Portuguese colonies, and in 1617 attacked the Portuguese trading center of Goree in West Africa. In 1652 a Dutch squadron landed at Table Bay, and established the beginnings of what would become a European colony in South Africa.

4. Britain officially entered the slave trade in 1660 when King Charles II chartered a royal monopoly called the Royal African Company. Thereafter the British monarchy received a cut from the sale of all slaves, usually one-fifth. However, even before the official entry of Britain into the slave trade there was sporadic involvement by private individuals, called privateers. The first record of West Africans in Britain dates from 1554. Before that time the British had never seen a truly dark-skinned person.

5. Not to be left behind, in 1664 the finance minister of France, Colbert, established the French West Indies Company.

In the 1660s Sweden, Denmark, the German kingdom of Brandenburg and the Baltic Duchy of Courland also participated in the slave trade. The European nations attacked each other and seized one another's forts along the coast of Africa. Hundreds of fortified warehouses called baracoons were built along the coast of Africa. Captives would be held there, like prisoners, until a ship arrived to carry them to the New World. Along the Gold Coast, today's Ghana, there were 18 of these fortified warehouses. Someone will ask, how could the Europeans just establish these forts on the coast. There are two answers. I). The Europeans had guns, or firearms, and the Africans did not. "Might makes right." If you have guns and the other guy doesn't, you can do whatever you want. 2). In some cases the Europeans paid the local tribes a tax or tribute to be allowed to build and remain in forts along the coast. They also paid tolls to be allowed to transport captives across the territory of African rulers. Among the more famous of these forts are St. Louis, in Senegal, built by the French, and Elmina in Ghana and Cape Coast Castle. But by 1700 the English, or British, had moved in on the Spanish and Dutch and pushed them aside. After 1700 the British dominated the slave trade in West Africa, while the Portuguese continued to dominate in Angola and the Congo.

In the 1700s the good Puritan shipbuilders of New England, as citizens of the British Empire, also participated in the slave trade, and towns like Boston, Plymouth, Providence and New Haven grew rich from slaving.

THE VOLUME INCREASES OVER TIME

With more Europeans participating in the slave trade, and more ships coming to Africa to get Africans, the volume increased over time. Thus, in the 1500s, it is estimated that 2000 Africans were brought to the New World each year. During the 1700s the figure rose to 55,000 per year. The peak of the slave trade was in the 1780s, with 75,000 captives per year being brought across the ocean. As the volume increase, the frequency and incidence of tightpacking also increased. Thus this aspect may have increased and gotten worse over time.