Africa & the African Slave Trade

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Africa is a Continent made up of 55 Countries. Some African countries have many ethnic groups and cultures. While the majority of people in Africa are Negroes, some are Caucasians and a few are Asians. There are also large numbers of mixed race people in Africa.

The African Slave Trade

A Chronology of the African Slave Trade:

Notes on the African Slave Trade

As varied as the environments of Africa, so too are the people who inhabit Africa. Pygmies, represent the smallest humans and Watusi represent the tallest humans. Every size and description of human between these two extremes inhabitant Africa. Even more varied are the racial mixtures, dialects, languages, customs, and cultures in Africa.

I strongly emphasize that the African ancestors of African Americans did not voluntarily come to North America. Over the course of three Centuries, millions of African people were taken captive by raiders, marched to slave trading ports on the West Coast of Africa and sold to European slave traders.

Slavery, in some form has existed since recorded history. Various forms of slavery are known to have been practiced by many cultures in Africa, Asia and Europe, and perhaps in North and South America.

Europeans did not invent slavery, however Europeans did invent the form of slavery that classified people as slaves based on their race and origins. The people classified by Europeans as slaves originated on the Continent of Africa and their skin was black.

African captives were sold to European slave traders, then taken out to specially equipped vessels waiting off the coast. Aboard ship male captives were packed into ships holds like sardines, secured by shackles. Female captives were genrally allowed to remain unrestrained on deck. The began the journey across the Atlantic Ocean known as the "Middle Passage" to slavery in the Americas.

For a period of over two and one half Centuries, African Americans were not citizens of the English Colonies or the United States. They were an enslaved race who were forced to perform long and ardous labor and for which they received no wages. The African captives and their descendents were also forced to suffer numerous other forms of horror and brutality.

Studies, which include DNA comparisons, indicate that most ancestors of African Americans originated from the Sub-Tropical Region in West/Central Africa known as Guinea. Guinea is divided into to parts: Upper and Lower Guinea.

The originator of the AST was Prince Henry the Navigator (Dom Henrique); son of King João of Portugal, born in 1394. He is most famous in history for the voyages of discovery that he organized and financed, which eventually led to the rounding of Africa and the establishment of sea routes to the Indies.

Prince Henry was a Crusader first and he seemed to have become an entrepreneur almost by accident. Prince Henry was very devout and was Governor of the Order of Christ from 1420 until his death in 1460.

When Henry launched his first expedition down the West African Coast in 1419 (presumably in search of Prester John), Henry’s explorers became the first Europeans to establish trade in Africa.

At the age of twenty, Henry had persuaded his father to mount a military expedition against the Muslim port of Ceuta. The chronicler Zurara wrote that Henry's main objective was to extend the Holy Faith of Jesus Christ and bring salvation to all souls who wish to find it.

To this end he sought to find a Christian Kingdom that for love of Our Lord Jesus Christ would help with the Crusade; (the implication being that Henry was seeking Prester John, the legendary Christian Priest-King, believed by Henry to be located somewhere in Africa). Around 1441 Henry began to gain reward for his financing exploration along the Coast of West Africa. Antão Gonçalves brought back as captive, a well traveled Tuareg named Adahu. Adahu was able to tell Henry a lot about the African interior, but he knew nothing about Prester John. After some months Gonçalves took Adahu back to the Rio de Ouro and ransomed him for some Negroes, a little gold dust and some ostrich eggs.

In 1443 Prince Henry sent Nuno Tristão off again to explore the hinterland behind Cabo Branco. He discovered an uninhabited island called Arguim, which later became the focus of Portuguese trade on the Guinea coast. In 1444 the first privately sponsored expedition of six ships under Prince Henry’s banner of the Order of Christ captured more than 200 natives and brought them back to Lagos to sell as slaves. This was the beginning of the AST.

Henry was at the slave-market in Lagos, to receive his fifth share of the profits, but at once offered it to the Church. His stated purpose for enslaving the Africans was to save their souls from perdition.

From Henry’s point of view his hopes were not in vain, for the enslaved Africans did become Christians and were generally well treated. In 1452, Pope Nicholas V sanctioned the AST on the grounds that Africans were infidels. Based on the AST the Order of Christ steadily grew richer.

The Portuguese continued and expanded their manufactured goods to coastal Africans in exchange for gold, ivory, spices. In regards to the AST, one of the most important items traded by the Portuguese to the coastal Africans, were guns and gunpowder.

The introduction of guns and gunpowder to coastal Africans changed the balance of power in favor of those Africans living along the coast and against those Africans living in more distant regions from the coast who did not acquire guns. Coastal Africans began to use guns to raid remote villages in the interior regions. So it was Africans living in remote farming villages who were unfortunate enough to be captured. The captives were taken to coastal enclaves and sold.

Henry died in 1460, and probably never guessed that the AST would become one of the most horrendous atrocities in human history.

In 1471, a Portuguese expedition arrived, led by Don Diego d'Azambuja. Due to the vast amounts of gold and ivory they found here, they called the area "Mina de Ouro" - The gold mine-. In no time at all, Elmina became the centre of a thriving trade in gold, ivory and slaves, which were exchanged for cloth, beads, brass, bracelets and other manufactured goods brought by the Portuguese.

The majority of Africans who became enslaved had been successful subsistence farmers in the lush environment around Guinea. The climate there does not require elaborate housing beyond protection the rain. There is no "growing season" for crops grow year round. This eliminates the need to store great quantities of food. Relatively small plots of fertile land provide plenty of nutrition. The warm climate in Equitorial Africa is very different than the cold climate in Northern Europe. Due to the climatic conditions in Europe people who lived there were in constant competition for land to grow food and other resources. The competition in Europe led to warfare. By contrast, people living in Equatorial Africa had little or no competition with their neighbors over land and other resources. The pressure to wage war was simply not as great a factor in Equatorial Africa as it was in Europe.

In consiquence, cultures that evolved in Equatorial Africa generally did not wage wars as frequently or as destructively as cultures that evolved in Europe.

Peoples living in relative peace in remote villages in Guinea were taken completely by surprise when they were attacked by raiders with guns. They simply were not prepared to defend themselves with only spears agains invaders were armed with guns.

African men, women and children who were captured and enslaved were first robbed, beaten, raped or otherwise traumatized by their captors. Then collected into groups called coffles and forced to march under armed guard, in some instances for hundreds of miles, to slave trading posts like Elmina Castle.

Africans in the Americas.

Elmina Castle

Elmina was the first point of contact between the Europeans and the inhabitants of Lower Guinea. Many events took place at Elmina that literally shaped the history of the world.

In 1471 , a Portuguese expedition arrived, led by Don Diego d'Azambuja. Because of the vast amounts of gold and ivory they found here, they called the area "Mina de Ouro" -The gold mine. In no time at all, Elmina became the center of a thriving trade in gold, ivory and slaves, which were exchanged for cloth, beads, brass, bracelets and other goods brought there by the Portuguese.

In 1482, the Portuguese built St. George's Castle (Elmina Castle). This vast rectangular, 97,000 sq. ft. fortification is the earliest known European structure in the tropics. As the immensely profitable trade in gold and slaves at Elmina increased, it attracted the attention of other European nations, and a struggle for control of the Castle ensued.

In 1637, the Dutch captured Elmina Castle, and remained in control for the next 274 years. For the duration aor the AST, the damp unlit dungeons of Elmina Castle continued to serve as a horrific holding prison for African captives, brought there to the coast to be sold and transported across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas.

The AST accelerated steadily after 1492, when the European Discovery of the Americas presented a need for laborers (i.e. slaves) to develop and maintain the plantation system which was established by Europeans in the New World! Elmina Castle, the oldest and largest slave trading post in Africa, still stands in the modern nation of Ghana.

African captives were brutalized and traumatized before they were taken to slave trading ports like Elmina Castle or Goree Island.

Captured African people were stripped of their all their possessions, even their clothing. Women and children were often raped, molested or other wise traumatized. Then assembled at collection stations as shown above. African captives were then marched, often for hundreds of miles, to slave trading ports such as Elmina Castle.

Ghana

By 1471, Portuguese explorers reached the area that became known as the Gold Coast. The initial Portuguese interest in trading for gold, ivory, and pepper so increased that in 1482 the Portuguese built their first permanent trading post on the western coast of present-day Ghana.

This fortress, called Elmina Castle, http://www.blackhistorysociety.ca/Elmina.htmwas constructed to protect Portuguese trade from European competitors and hostile Africans. More African captives were sold as slaves at Elmina Castle than any other single slave port in Africa.

Elmina Castle was in fact built before Columbus discovered America. Columbus may himself have sailed as a deck-hand on one of the ships that carried the building stones used to construct Elmina Castle. It is the oldest European building in tropical Africa and one of about thirty surviving castles, forts and trading posts that still bear witness to four centuries of Europeans trading in gold, ivory and slaves.

At the height of the slave trade there were over sixty such strongholds crammed together on a stretch of coast less than 300 miles long. The remnants of about thirty can still be seen today they’ are one of Ghana's most distinctive features, a unique collective historical monument.
Elmina Castle is but one of the castles that has been rescued from crumbling into the sea, while others, some built by the Dutch, Prussians, French and British, are still variously used as police stations, prisons, post offices, lighthouses, schools and official residences.

Clearly visible from the ramparts of Elmina is the outline of another great castle in the distance, Cape Coast, built by the Swedes in 1653. Some of these competitive fortresses were almost within cannon-shot of each other. Many changed hands, and, by the end of the nineteenth century, after the abolition of Slavery, the British had either conquered or bought out the trading interests of all the other European nations and set up the Gold Coast colony. The Danish-built Fort Osu, dating from 1661, became the British seat of colonial government in 1873, and is today the official home of the president of Ghana.

Article below claims remains of early Africans discovered in Mexico!

January 31, 2006

At Burial Site, Teeth Tell Tale of Slavery.

By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD

While remodeling the central plaza in Campeche, a Mexican port city that dates back to colonial times, a construction crew stumbled on the ruins of an old church and its burial grounds. Researchers who were called in discovered the skeletal remains of at least 180 people, and four of those studied so far bear telling chemical traces that are in effect birth certificates.

The particular mix of strontium in the teeth of the four, the researchers concluded, showed that they were born and spent their early years in West Africa. Some of their teeth were filed and chipped to sharp edges in a decorative practice characteristic of Africa. Because other evidence indicated that the cemetery was in use starting around 1550, the archaeologists believe they have found the earliest remains of African slaves brought to the New World.

In a report to be published in The American Journal of Physical Anthropology, the archaeology team led by T. Douglas Price of the University of Wisconsin concluded, "Thus these individuals are likely to be among the earliest representatives of the African diaspora in the Americas, substantially earlier than the subsequent, intensive slave trade in the 18th century."

Dr. Price said last week that a more precise dating would be attempted soon with radiocarbon analysis of the excavated bones. Maps and other records of Campeche, on the Yucatán Peninsula,indicate that the burial ground was used from the mid-16th century into the 17th. A pre-1550 medallion was found in a grave.

Other archaeologists and historians who were not involved in the research said they knew of no earlier skeletal remains of African-born slaves that had been found in the Americas. Dr. Price said that a colleague in the research, Vera Tiesler of the Autonomous University of the Yucatán, who is a historian of the colonial period, thought the slave burials occurred in the cemetery's first years. She directed the excavations.

The fact that the burials were found in ruins of a colonial church could mean "that they had some kind of status or were converted to Christianity," said Richard H. Steckel, a professor at Ohio State University who studies health and nutrition of pre-Columbian American Indians.

Although ample records attest to the presence of African slaves in the New World at this time, Dr. Steckel, who had no part in the discovery, said: "Much less is known about their health. So, if researchers can document the stature, degenerative joint disease, dental decay, trauma and so forth, then it could be quite interesting."

William D. Phillips, a University of Minnesota professor who is a historian of Old World and New World slavery and who was not involved in this research, said it was not surprising to find African remains in the Yucatán at this time.

Dr. Phillips and other historians said colonial Campeche was an important Spanish gateway to the Americas and would have had substantial traffic in slaves. Within a few years of the first voyage of Columbus, in 1492, they noted, Africans were shipped to the Caribbean and then the mainland. Their numbers increased steadily as sugar plantations were established by the Spanish on the islands, then in Mexico and coastal Peru.

"Some experts suggest that more Africans than Europeans went to Spanish America in the period up to 1600," Dr. Phillips said. Herbert S. Klein, a historian of Latin America at Stanford and an author of studies on slavery in the region, said, "The slave trade was in full development by the mid-16th century and would have brought African slaves to Mexico, though the primary work force remained Amerindians."

In time, as European diseases reduced Indian populations, the demand for labor from Africa increased. Over a span of four centuries after Columbus, it is estimated, as many as 12 million Africans were placed in bondage and brought across the Atlantic to ports throughout the Americas.

If any older slave burials have been excavated, Dr. Klein has not seen reports of them in the professional literature, he said. The most likely places for any earlier finds, he added, would be in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic or in Cuba, where African slaves were first introduced.

The site in Campeche was discovered in 2000. As researchers examined the remains, theydetermined that some belonged to Europeans and Indians. Then they were drawn to a few with the distinctive dental mutilations, their first clue that these were probably people born in Africa. Upon further examination, James Burton, the third member of the team, said four of the individuals "were like something we'd never seen."

Dr. Burton and Dr. Price, who are colleagues at the Laboratory of Archaeological Chemistry at Wisconsin, and Dr. Tiesler embarked on the strontium studies, supported by the National Science Foundation. Such strontium research, often applied in physical anthropology, is a part of their broader investigation of social mobility — where people were born and how near or far from home they eventually settled — in ancient Mexico and Central America, known as Mesoamerica.

At least 10 skeletons appeared to be African, the researchers reported, and four had teeth with "unusually high" combinations of two isotopes of the element strontium. An isotope is a slight variation of a chemical element, with a different mass but otherwise the same as the basic element.

In this case, the ratios of the isotopes strontium 87 and strontium 86 were consistent with those in the teeth and bones of people who were born and grew up in West Africa. A comparison with strontium measurements of people born in Mesoamerica showed no similarities with the four specimens.

These strontium signatures enter the body through the food chain as nutrients pass from bedrock through soil and water to plants and animals. Different geologies yield different isotopic strontium ratios. This is locked permanently in tooth enamel from birth and infancy, an important tool to trace the migration of individuals.

The researchers said the findings showed that these four appeared to be original migrants to the New World, not their children. Five other individuals thought to be African slaves had isotope ratios expected for people born around Campeche, hence from a later generation. "In a community occupied for several generations, only a relatively small proportion of the individuals in a cemetery would be expected to come from the first generation," they wrote in the report. The four individuals, the researchers said, appeared to have come from the area around Elmina, Ghana, a major West African port in the slave trade.

This was also the region of origin of some of the slaves found in the 17^th and 18^th CenturyAfrican Burial Ground, uncovered in 1991 in Lower Manhattan.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company--

Johann Hassan

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