Lecture : The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade

Points to be covered :
- 1. The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade as an institution
- 2. The triangular slave trade : Mechanisms and functions
- 3. The abolition of The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade
- 4 Effects of The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade

To discuss trade between Africans and Europeans in the four centuries before colonial
rule is virtually to discuss slave trade. Strictly speaking, the African only became a
slave when he reached a society where he worked as a slave. Before that, he was first a
free man and then a captive. Nevertheless, it is acceptable to talk about the trade in
slaves to refer to the shipment of captives from Africa to various other parts of the
world where they were to live and work as the property of Europeans

1. The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade as an institution

a. Definition of slavery

Slavery was one form of exploitation . Its special characteristics includes the idea that
slaves are property ; that their labor power is at the complete disposal of their masters.
They do not have the right to their own sexuality and, by extension , to their own
reproductive capacities . Notably , the slave status is inherited unless provision was
made to ameliorate that status .
b. Slavery in Africa :

Historically, many civilizations in Africa practised enslavement, which took different

forms in different places. Enslavement in African societies might have involved
criminals, prisoners of war and debtors – and it did not necessarily involve ill-
treatment, nor even hard labour. People who were unable to feed themselves in times
of famine might have voluntarily agreed to become enslaved in return for food. Their
children would also have been enslaved, but both generations might be treated as part
of the family. Owners had social obligations towards their slaves. Historians such as
James Walvin describe how slaves in African society often had a number of rights
such as the ability to marry, raise families, purchase property, or buy their freedom.
Slaves could in some cases rise to high positions – Sakura Mansa , one of the kings of
Mali, was an ex-slave. In the Hausa-Fulani Emirates slaves could be appointed Village
heads. Some slaves in Bornu occupied important governmental positions. Slaves
among the Mende of Sierra Leone could achieve high political status, sometimes that
of a chief. Slaves could rise to high political offices in the Efik Ward in Ibo, Ibibio and
Ijo lands
Slaves in pre-colonial Africa enjoyed certain rights and privileges. They had the right
to be fed, clothed, housed and granted some privileges while staying with their owners.
They had the right to marry. They could marry among themselves or marry free
people. Customary rites were performed to give such marriages legal backing. Among
the Sena of Mozambique when a female slave married into another lineage, the Patron
received the bride wealth. Among the Wolof and the Serer of Senegambia, the head of
the lineage was obliged not only to feed and clothe his slaves but also to find spouses
for his slaves. Intermarriage affected the status of Tuareg slaves. The offspring of a
marriage between a free man and a slave woman inherited the status of his/her mother,
but in practice children of free men and slave women were free. Slaves enjoyed the
privilege of an independent income.
Slaves who farmed for the their owners were also given plots of land on which to farm
and enjoy its proceeds. Slaves could inherit property as well as hold property of their
own. Slave owners did not have absolute power over their slaves, only the king or
chief had power of life and death over the slave. Indeed the king or chief had power
over every citizen of the state, including the slave owners. In Ghana for example
anyone who maltreated the slave to the point of death had to face the full rigors of the
law.
c. The Atlantic Slave Trade as an institution

Various features of the trans-Atlantic trade made it very different from any other type
of slave trade or slavery in history. The major difference between slavery in Africa and
the America had to do with the way slaves were used. In Africa, slaves typically had
difficult demanding and degrading work, and they were often mistreated by
exploitative western masters who were anxious to maximize profits . With the nearly
insatiable demand of labor that grew with European conquest of the America and the
development of staple agricultural crops , sugar for example, Europeans turned to
Africa to provide large numbers of salves . Europeans wanted to make money out of
their American colonies , and they used slaves like machines . Gradually, slavery
became a permanent , racially exclusive caste, but more importantly an economic
institution based on accumulating wealth out of the slave power . More accurately, the
slave trade as an institution would mean that it was a well regulated practice
arranged primarily around the creation of commercial wealth based on mass shipment
of black slaves from Africa to The New World . It was regarded as a branch of trade
conducive to the economic development of the metropolitan countries, as it emerged
as a major factor in the primary accumulation of capital . Within a comprehensive
theory of capitalism, Karl Marx defines the slave trade as one form of primitive
accumulation, as a traffic in human beings which has specific characteristics and
which, at a particular point in history, yields a maximum rate of return
Accordingly, central of the premise of the slave trade in Africa is this commercial
element which come to particularize it from other enslavements practiced in the world.
As an illustration , slavery in the middle east was not a self perpetuating institution ,
and those born into slavery formed a relatively small propotion of the slave
population . the export of slaves from sub-Saharan Africa was linked to the expansion
of the Muslim Arab empire across north Africa in the centuries after the death of
Prophet Muhammed peace upon him in 632CE. Muslims used their religion to justify
the enslavement of nonbelieving Africans .The majority of African slaves were
destined for domestic service . Women and children were wanted in greater numbers
than men . Boys were trained for military or domestic service . Females became
domestics , and the prettiest were placed in harems . Under strict Islamic law, a
converted slave became a free fellow Muslim. The children of a slave concubine or
wife were free members of the household Most children of slaves were assimilated
into Muslim society . This explains the absence today of an easily recognizable ,
socially distinct black population in the Middle East

d. The Atlantic Slave Trade: Mechanisms and functions

The Atlantic slave trade took place across the Atlantic Ocean, predominantly from the
16th to the 19th centuries. The vast majority of slaves transported to the New World
were Africans from the central and western parts of the continent, sold by native
African tribes to European slave traders who then transported them to the colonies in
North and South America. Various African tribes played a fundamental role in the
slave trade by selling their captives or prisoners of war to European buyers, which was
a common practice on the continent. The prisoners and captives who were sold to the
Europeans were usually from neighboring or enemy ethnic groups, and therefore not
considered part of the African group dealing with the European slavers. Sometimes,
African kings sold criminals into slavery as a form of punishment. The majority of
African slaves, however, were foreign tribe members obtained from kidnappings,
raids, or tribal wars.
An Atlantic trade in African slaves began in the 15th century , when the Portuguese and
the Spanish began to ship slaves from West Africa to Europe. In the early sixteenth
century, the Spanish established a huge colonial empire in the West Indies and
America. The discovery of the N e w World gave a tremendous impetus to slavery and
the slave trade . In the process of seizing new lands they massacred nearly all of the
native Indian population. To obtain cheap manpower they began to bring African
slaves, who had proved their worth in Europe as capable and handy workers, to the
New World.

While the Portuguese traded enslaved people themselves, the Spanish empire relied on
the Asiento system, (licence) awarding merchants (mostly from other countries) the
license to trade enslaved people to their colonies. During the First Atlantic system,
most of these traders were Portuguese, giving them a near monopoly during the era,
although some Dutch, English, and French traders also participated in the slave trade.
In the second half of the sixteenth century, Portugal began to lose its monopoly in
Africa, and Spain in the N e w World. Having considerably squeezed out Portugal,
European countries settled on Africa's western coast where they built forts and
established settlements. In the West Indies, Holland seized Curaçao and Aruba; Great
Britain, Barbados and Jamaica; France, Guadeloupe, Martinique and, in the late
seventeenth century, Santo Domingo, etc. Brazil, Cayenne, Surinam, N e w
Amsterdam (New York) and Virginia were among the colonies that emerged in
America at the time. The development of capitalism in Europe prompted an active
colonial policy. Holland, Great Britain and then France began conquests in America,
Asia and Africa, where they built up their colonial empires.
After exterminating the American Indians, the British and the French began to employ
white slaves to work their plantations. At that time political prisoners and criminals
were exiled to the West Indies. The system of indentured servants was also
widespread. In Europe, particularly in London and Bristol, people were kidnapped and
sold into slavery to the N e w World. In the 1640s, when sugar-cane was introduced on
a wide scale in the West Indies, and crop areas were extended. Many American crops
(cotton, sugar, and rice) were not growing in Europe, and importing crops and goods
from the New World often proved to be more profitable than producing them on the
European mainland. However, a vast amount of labor was needed to create and sustain
plantations that required intensive labor to harvest and process tropical commodities
the number of white slaves fell short of the demand for manpower.
Some historians resort to the climate theory to explain this deficiency when arguing
that the slave labor was unbearable to Europeans and prevented them from working
their plantations It was claimed that the plantations of European colonists would
inevitably fall into decline without the import of Africans, who were used to the
tropical climate and, moreover, proved to be splendid agricultural workers. As such,
Western Africa (and later, Central Africa), became the Europeans' only source for
acquiring enslaved peoples to meet the demand for labor in the American colonies in
order to produce a steady supply of crops
By the mid-seventeenth century the import of African slaves into the colonies of the
New World rose sharply. For many historians, the rapid development of the West
Indies and the American colonies would have been impossible in that period without
the mass employment of cheap manpower. Whilst metropolitan economy grew rapidly,
enslaved Africans were considered to be property, not people. By stripping them of
their own names and forcing them to adopt new ones, sometimes those of their owners
or their trading links (Bristol and Liverpool are names given to slaves found on some
documents) enslaved Africans were dehumanised and the renaming underlined their
status as chattels belonging to their owner.

It has been estimated that as many as one in five Africans died during the passage
across the Atlantic, on a voyage which could last between six weeks and three months.
Slave ships were built to get to their destination in the quickest time possible, and the
conditions on board were cramped and unhygienic. Disease was rife, and this,
combined with the fear of the captured Africans, who did not know where they were
being taken, made for appalling conditions on board the slave ships. Enslaved Africans
were obtained from many different areas and they would have spoken a multitude of
languages, making communication on board ship difficult. This would have added to
the fear and hardships that they would have been experienced .
e. The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and the Middle Passage

The trans-Atlantic slave trade is called the triangular trade for its three legged route
that began and end in Europe. The first leg of the triangular trade involved ships from
Europe carrying goods (e.g., iron, brandy, weapons, and gunpowder) that were traded
for slaves in Africa. The second leg, termed the Middle Passage, involved the
shipment of between 12 and 14 million enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to
America. The last leg was the transportation of goods (e.g., sugar, cotton, tobacco,
rum, and molasses) from America to Europe.

The dreadful Middle Passage could last from one to three months and epitomized the
role of violence in the trade. Based on regulations, ships could transport only about
350 people, but some carried more than 800 men, women, and children. Branded,
stripped naked for the duration of the voyage, lying down amidst filth, enduring almost
unbearable heat, compelled by the lash to dance on deck to straighten their limbs, all
captives went through a frightening, incredibly brutal and dehumanizing experience.
Men were shackled under deck, and all Africans were subjected to abuse and
punishment. Some people tried to starve themselves to death, but the crew forced them
to take food by whipping them, torturing them with hot coal, or forcing their mouths
open by using special instruments or by breaking their teeth. The personal identity of
the captives was denied. Women and boys were often used for the pleasure of the
crew. Ottobah Cugoano, who endured the Middle Passage in the eighteenth century,
recalled: "it was common for the dirty filthy sailors to take the African women and lie
upon their bodies." Mortality brought about by malnutrition, dysentery, smallpox, and
other diseases was very high. Depending on the times, upwards of 20 percent died
from various epidemics or committed suicide.

3. Effects of the slave trade on Africa

Africa had been damaged severely, first by the slave trade, then by the colonialism
which grew out of the slave trade. Wole Soyinka averred that Africa’s
underdevelopment is the outcome of “the twin evils of slavery and colonialism
inflicted by the Western world”. According to him, slavery and colonialism are two
monumental historical events that dislocated Africa and aborted the continent’s social,
political, economic and technological development.
The Atlantic slave trade increased the propensity for violence and warfare in West
Africa, which in turn gave rise to a general state of insecurity. As the entire process of
enslavement boarded on violence, communities prone to the slave raiding enterprise
usually became suspicious of their neighbours and vice-versa. Prolonged raiding for
slaves disrupted normal community life and engendered insecurity. Because of the
general environment of uncertainty and insecurity at the time, individuals required
weapons, such as iron knives, spears, swords or firearms, to defend themselves. These
weapons could be obtained from Europeans in exchange for slaves, which were often
obtained through local kidnappings. This further perpetuated the slave trade and the
insecurity that it caused, which in turn further increased the need to enslave others to
protect oneself (Mahadi, 1992; Hawthorne, 1999, pp. 108–109). Historians have
named this vicious cycle the ‘gunslave cycle’ (e.g., Lovejoy, 2000) or the ‘iron-slave
cycle’ (e.g., Hawthorne, 2003). The result of this vicious cycle was that communities
not only raided other communities for slaves, but also members of a community raided
and kidnapped others within the community. Well-documented examples come from
the Balanta, of modern day Guinea-Bissau, who “became involved in slaving, often
preying on other Balanta communities” and the Minyanka, of modern day Mali, who
were forced by rival states “into participation in slave-raiding and bitter conflict
between [other] Minyanka villages” (Klein, 2001, pp. 56–57). The most extreme
example is the Kabre of Northern Togo, who during the nineteenth century developed
the custom of selling their own kin to slavery (Piot, 1996).

Europeans played a role in promoting political instability. Because those involved in

the buying and selling of slaves benefited from a larger supply of slaves, when
possible they intervened in the political process to promote internal conflict and
instability (Barry, 1992; Inikori, 2003). Slave merchants and raiders formed strategic
alliances with key groups inside villages or states in order to extract slaves. Typically,
the alliances were with the younger men of the community who were frustrated by the
control of power by the male elders. This exploitative commerce influenced the
African political and religious aristocracies, the warrior classes and the biracial elite,
who made small gains from the slave trade, to participate in the oppression of their
own people. The consequence of this was increased internal conflict and political
instability (Klein, 2003).

In the end, the consequences of internal conflict and insecurity were increased political
instability, and in many cases the collapse of pre-existing forms of government
(Lovejoy, 2000, pp. 68–70). Historians have documented numerous examples of this.
The most dramatic example of the weakening of domestic political institutions is the
Kongo Kingdom of West Central Africa. As early as 1514, the kidnapping of local
Kongo citizens for sale to the Portuguese had become rampant, threatening social
order and the King’s authority. In 1526, Affonso, King of Kongo, wrote to Portugal
complaining that “there are many traders in all corners of the country. They bring ruin
to the country. Every day people are enslaved and kidnapped, even nobles, even
members of the king’s own family.” (Vansina, 1966, p. 52). This break-down of law
and order resulted in the weakening and eventual fall of the once powerful state
(Inikori, 2003). For many of the other Bantu speaking ethnicities, stable states also
existed in earlier periods, but by the time the slave trades were brought to an end few
ancient states remained (Colson, 1969, pp. 36–37).

Closely related to the above, the Atlantic slave trade retarded the growth of African
societies. It is perhaps worth nothing that there could never be development without
peace and security. The escalation of violence and insecurity brought about by the
slave trade undoubtedly increased the incapacity of Africa to develop . The loss of
people and the following effects prevented the continent from developing markets and
extending general commercialization of economic activities. For instance, both
agriculture and industry were seriously affected by the slave trade, when they were
deprived of their vital labor force. The black Africans deported to the New World were
mostly in their ages of 15 and 35 who would have contributed to the development of
their societies. Besides being the most highly productive part of their various societies,
biologically, people of this age bracket are also known to constitute the highest
reproductive component of every society. In other words, the population of West
African societies prone to enslavement was largely depleted, thereby leaving such
societies with either relatively too young or too old to positively contributed to the
development of their respective societies.
One other profound impact of the slave trade on Africa is depopulation. Although,
while the general destructiveness of the slave trade on Africa’s socio-economic and
political structures and institutions remain clear, the question of the number of
Africans transported across the Atlantic remains a subject of speculation and debate
with estimates ranging from a few millions to over a hundred million.19 . Paul
Lovejoy estimates that about 11,863,000 Africans landed alive in the Americas and
elsewhere during the slave trade. This was in addition to the several millions who died
in the ‘Middle Passage’ as well as those who died between the time of capture and
embarkation most especially in cases where slaves had to travel hundreds of miles to
the coast. For every 100 slaves who reached the New World, another 40 had probably
died in Africa or during the infamous Middle Passage.
The slave trade remains the most plausible explanation for this stagnated population
growth. Indeed, the above population estimates corroborate the view expressed that
“by 1850, Africa’s population was only half of what it would have been had the slave
trades not taken place”.

The most enduring consequences of the slave trade is the creation of the African
Diaspora which has had an enormous effect on the history of black people, and made a
lasting influence on the countries to which Africans were transported. The African
Diaspora has been defined by the noted historian Joseph Harris as the voluntary and
involuntary dispersion of Africans globally throughout history; the emergence of a
cultural identity based on origin and social condition; and the psychological and
physical return of those in the Diaspora to Africa

The formation of the black societies and cultures in the Americas that trace their
beginnings to this unfortunate period in world history represent a socio-historical
phenomenon in which enslaved Africans and their descendants persevered to create a
vibrant cultural legacy owing much to both Africa and the Americas, despite the
systematic pressures of slave owners and overseers to erase the memory of Africa from
the hearts and minds of the population. The legacy is reflected in music and art, with a
significant influence on religion, cuisine, and language.

In areas such as the Caribbean and Latin America, particularly Brazil and Cuba,
clearly discernible African influences persist well into the twenty-first century due to
the short life span of enslaved labor on sugar plantations in the region and therefore,
the continuous importation of Africans into these areas legally and later clandestinely
well into the nineteenth century

The establishment of the maroon communities of Palmares in Brazil, San Basilio de

Palenque in Colombia, the Haitian Revolution and countless other rebellions were
overly represented by Africans originating from West Central Africa. In Louisiana,
informal musical gatherings of West African slaves at Congo Square, named for the
largest African ethnicity imported into Louisiana at the time, provided the early
foundations for what would become jazz.
The Congo peoples had a profound impact on the philosophical and religious world
view of the African Diaspora in the Americas.
Generally, the Congo people believe in a divided cosmos comprised of the natural
world and the land of the ancestors. The worlds are often divided by a body of water.
Adherents believe that life is a cyclical movement between the natural and ancestral
world. Life does not end at death, with the latter serving only as a transition into
another reality. For many of the enslaved Africans of Congo origin, to die in the
struggle for freedom meant only that their bodies would return to the land of the
ancestors. As a result, death in many ways offered relief from the horrors of the
plantation.
Those Africans from the Bight of Benin consisted overwhelmingly of the Fon, Ewe,
and Yoruba ethnicities.  Their impact is alsoevident in many of the religious traditions
of the African Diaspora. The African-American Baptist ritual of water baptism,
Haitian Vodun, Louisiana Voodoo, Cuban santería, Brazilian candomble, and
numerous other religious traditions of the Diaspora trace their origins to these groups
from the areas that now constitute the southwestern corner of modern Nigeria.
The Yoruba concept of orí proved a particularly enduring legacy among the enslaved
population. In traditional Yoruba philosophy, orí refers to the bearer of a person’s
destiny as well as the determinant of personality. The term literally means “head” and
represents the spiritual and physical duality within human beings.
There is a common belief among the Yoruba that an individual can be healed both
spiritually and physically by aligning themselves with the orishas to achieve balance or
inner peace. It is this desire for balance that rests at the heart of plantation culture in
the Americas in which Africans and their descendants struggled to retain their African
character while being bombarded by the traditions of Europeans.

The abolition of slavery

In the late eighteenth century, the slave trade from West Central Africa entered a new
age of social, political, economic, and ultimately ideological change. Economic growth
and industrialization in Europe, particularly in Britain, increased the demand for
primary commodities imported from the Americas, such as sugar, cotton, rice, and
tobacco. These were produced with slave labor brought from Africa and, as the
demand for these items increased, so did the demand for slaves carried across the
Atlantic. The trafficking of Africans was the business of the rich and powerful from
the outset. The monarchy was a zealous supporter and beneficiary, as was the Church
of England. The slave trade was Britain’s trade in the 18th century. The British Prime
Minister William Pitt declared that 80 per cent of all British foreign trade was
associated with it. It contributed to the development of banking and insurance,
shipbuilding and several manufacturing industries. Most of the inhabitants of
Manchester were engaged in producing goods to be exchanged for enslaved Africans.
Their trafficking led to the development of major ports of London, Bristol and
Liverpool Ironically, although slavery was widespread in the Americas, some people
began to look critically at this institution , contributing to the spread of the abolitionist
movement in the Atlantic world. As a consequence, at the beginning of the nineteenth
century, the slave trade declined as some nations began to retreat from the business. In
1807, both the US Congress and the British Parliament prohibited their citizens from
participating in the trade and, soon after, the British initiated a campaign to suppress
the entire trade from Africa, which continued throughout the balance of the nineteenth
century. It might be wondered therefore why an enterprise that was so economically
important to the rich and powerful in Britain in the 18th century should have been so
abruptly ended in the first decade of the 19th century . There are many reasons that led
these countries abolished the transatlantic slave trade . The development of capitalist
relations in European countries and America in general ; changes in Great Britain’s
economic policy _ the result of the breaking off of its Continental colonies ; the impact
of the French Revolution with its idea of liberation ; the revolution of the African
slaves in Santo Domingo ; the growing number of slave uprising in the West Indian
colonies as the result of the revolutionary events in France and Santo Domingo ; the
upsurge of the Abolitionist movement in nearly all the European countries are all
reasons that motivated and shaped this change .

a. New capitalist system : new economic legacy

Beginning about 1750, new inventions in England made it possible to make cloth by
machine. The period that followed is known as the Industrial Revolution. Before the
Industrial Revolution, most people made goods in their own homes with simple tools.
Afterward, most goods were made in large factories with complicated machinery.
Cities grew rapidly, and Great Britain became the leading industrial country in
the world. The slave trade did not cause the Industrial Revolution, but the slave
colonies gave the British economy a major push. However, the Industrial Revolution
also led to the decline of the slave trade. Wealthy people began to invest their money
in factories. The slave trade no longer seemed like such a good investment and many
industrialists started to admit that . Some Europeans and Americans believed that
industrialization and capital investment were the best way to organize society. From
another angle, Slaves are no more seen as profitable as they would contribute little in
the development of the new economy .Understandably, not only their labor force
could be replaced easily by the machines , but also they could not be good consumers
of the industrialized products and services destined to boost the new economy. Others
in Britain became more interested in developing direct trade links with India, Brazil
and other Spanish American colonies. The trafficking of Africans to Britain’s colonies
was no longer so important and was seen as by some as being an impediment to
important trading links elsewhere. By the 1800s , many people started to think that
slavery is outdated as an economic system for it fails to meet the needs of the
capitalist economy . This shift led many European, powers to look for a new force
overseas that would promote their business agendas . More accurately, instead of
shipping the Black slaves from Africa , it would be more profitable to ship the raw
materials judged primordial for the expansion of the new economy . This gave birth to
an important era in the history of European presence in Africa, predominantly
marked by greedy exploitation of the continent’s wealth
b. The slave uprising in Saint Domingue

Saint-Domingue ( what is now Haiti ) was a French colony on the Caribbean island

of Hispaniola from 1659 to 1804. The colony was not only the most profitable
possession of the French colonial empire, but it was the wealthiest and most
prosperous colony of all the colonies in the Caribbean. Yet , under the French control,
Saint-Domingue was a society seething with hatred, with white colonists and black
slaves frequently coming into violent conflict. Added to this , the extreme exploitation
of the black slaves who were maltreated and considered as subhuman by their masters.
Against this background arose a revolution, beginning as a series of conflicts from the
early 1790s. The uprising was significantly influenced by the ideals brought by the
French Revolution . After the establishment of the French First Republic, the National
Assembly made radical changes to French laws and, on 26 August 1789, published
the Declaration of the Rights of Man, declaring all men free and equal. The
Declaration was ambiguous as to whether this equality applied to women, slaves, or
citizens of the colonies, and thus influenced the want for freedom and equality in
Saint-Domingue. The Haitian Revolution quickly became a test of the new French
republic, as it radicalized the slavery question and forced French leaders to recognize
the full meaning of their stated ideology. The spread of the emancipatory feelings
followed by the success of the rebellion caused the National Assembly in France to
realize it was facing an ominous situation. Faced with this delicate situation and the
threats of both British and Spanish invasions, the commissioners of the Convention
Assembly proclaim the general abolition of black slavery in 1793. France controlled
the entirety of Hispaniola from 1795 to 1802, when a renewed rebellion began. The
last French troops withdrew from the western portion of the island in late 1803, and
the colony later declared its independence as Haiti , the following year. With the
independence of Haiti, the French slave trade virtually collapsed, significantly
reducing the number of slaves shipped in French vessels from West Central Africa.
The revolution in Haiti contributed to, and occurred alongside, other major
insurrections across the Caribbean, in Jamaica, Grenada, St Vincent and elsewhere,
which severely threatened the entire colonial system.

c. The growth of anti-slavery sentiments and organizations

During the 1740s and 50s, anti-slavery sentiments started to spread and take a firmer
hold among American and British activists who went to question the morality of an
institution that deprived some individuals of their liberty for the benefit of others .
These activists were adamant to fully denounce slavery as both ethically and
religiously wrong and soon demanded to cut ties with any form of slave trading . The
earliest anti-slavery organization that grew in America and Britain was The Religious
Society of Friends (Quakers) which played a major role in the abolition
movement against slavery
The Quakers, also known as the Society of Friends, were a religious group that began
in England in the mid-1600s. They believed that people should follow an “inner light”
put in their own heart by God. The Quakers for instance refused to carry weapons or
fight in wars. By the mid-1700s, there were 90,000 English-speaking Quakers. In the
early 1700s, wealthy Quaker slave owners lived in the West Indies and Quaker
merchants traded slaves in London, England; Newport, Rhode Island; and
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. However, other Quakers in England and America began to
speak out against slavery. In 1758, the Philadelphia Meeting of Quakers voted to
pressure Quaker slave owners to stop participating in the slave trade. After the 1750s,
Quakers actively engaged in attempting to sway public opinion in Britain and America
against the slave trade and slavery in general . In 1772, Quaker Anthony Benezet
wrote a famous antislavery pamphlet called Some Historical Account of Guinea.
Benezet and another Quaker, John Woolman, made opposition to slavery a major part
of Quaker thinking.. In 1754, Woolman wrote Some Considerations on the
Keeping of Negroes, one of the earliest antislavery publications in America. He
visited Quakers in many colonies to encourage them to free their slaves. Woolman
wrote, “Deep-rooted customs [such as slavery], though wrong, are not easily altered;
but it is the duty of all to be firm in that which they certainly know is right for them.”
The growth of this anti-slavery thoughts led American Quakers in 1790, to petition
the U.S. Congress for an end to slavery.

African Abolitionists
A number of Africans were also involved in the abolition movement and worked
alongside British abolitionists to bring an end to the commercial trafficking of humans
They formed their own organization, the 'Sons of Africa', which campaigned for
abolition. 
Olaudah Equiano, later to be known as Gustavus Vassa, also had direct experience
of enslavement. He had been kidnapped in what is now Nigeria at the age of 11, sold
to a Virginia planter, then bought by a British naval officer, Captain Pascal, and later
sold on to a Quaker merchant. After eventually buying his freedom, he settled in
Britain where he wrote and published his autobiography. Equiano travelled
extensively around Britain giving public talks about his experiences as a young boy
kidnapped in Africa, his life as a slave, and the evils of the slave trade.
A third African who publicly demanded the abolition of the slave trade, as well as the
emancipation of slaves, was Ottabah Cugoano. Born in the country we now know as
Ghana, he too had been kidnapped and enslaved. Cugoano came to England from
Grenada around 1752 and was set free. In Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and
Wicked Traffic of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, published in 1787,
he declared that enslaved people had both the moral right and the moral duty to resist
their masters.

d. d
The Significance of the American Revolution

The abolition of the slave trade was inextricably linked with the American
Revolution . The revolutionaries’ commitment to freedom and equality necessarily
led to a growing unease over the legitimacy of slavery. Some Americans, called
Patriots, talked about making America an independent nation and part of their
strategy against Great Britain was to refuse to import any British products. Because the
British made money from the slave trade, they disliked the colonial attempts to limit it
and constantly pushed America to accept more slaves. Thomas Jefferson 1 noted this in
his first draft of the Declaration of Independence. One of his complaints about King
George III of England was that he had sponsored the slave trade and so had violated
“the most sacred rights of life and liberty” of Africans.
Though the Revolution did not lead to abolition of slavery, it set off a process of both
immediate and gradual emancipation in northern states. After the war, as slave
1
However, Thomas Jefferson, was himself a slaveholder, and showed little inclination to abolish the institution
of slavery. He removed this attack from the final version of the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson later
explained that South Carolina and Georgia wanted to continue to import slaves, and he did not want to anger
those colonies. He also claimed that he did not want to condemn the northern merchants who had been the
carriers of slaves. The Declaration of Independence stated that every person had natural rights, including liberty,
but it did not criticize slavery or the slave trade
labor was not a crucial element of the Northern economy, most Northern
states passed legislation to abolish slavery. However, in the South, the
invention of the cotton gin in 1793 made cotton a major industry and sharply
increased the need for slave labor. Tension arose between the North and the
South as the slave or free status of new states was debated . The ensuing debate
determined the broad lines of Congressional action for the next eighteen years.
American abolitionists sought to circumvent the Constitution by appealing directly
to the U.S. Congress. On February 11, 1790, two Quaker delegations from New
York and Philadelphia presented petitions to the House of Representatives calling
for an immediate end to the international slave trade. This was followed the next
day by a petition from the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, signed and endorsed by
Founding Father Benjamin Franklin, this time urging Congress to adopt measures
against slavery as well as the slave trade

Consequence
This new era of antislavery sentiment had a profound impact on the trade from West
Central Africa. Activist networks on both sides of the Atlantic brought positive
legislative change to end the centuries-long practice of enslavement.  Finally on 25
March 1807 the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act received its royal assent, abolishing
the slave trade in the British colonies and making it illegal to carry enslaved people in
British ships.   Historians debate whether this change was due to humanitarian or
economic impulses. Some policy makers clearly embraced the rights-based logic of the
Enlightenment and revolutions when they voted for emancipation. Others believed that
the plantation system was in decline and that states should turn their economic
interests elsewhere.

The mechanisms of emancipation varied across the regions. Despite British efforts to
suppress the slave trade , the number of slaves embarked from the region remained
high as long as there were still markets for slaves in Cuba, Brazil, and the United
States. Other nations sought to tap the sources of slaves previously dominated by
British and French traders, notably Portugal, Spain, and Brazil. In order to prevent this
from happening, Britain signed treaties with each of these countries that restricted or
banned their involvement in the traffic. Thus, in 1810 Britain and Portugal signed a
treaty for the gradual suppression of the trade, especially from ports outside
Portuguese jurisdiction in Africa. In 1815, an Anglo-Portuguese treaty prohibited
Portuguese traders carrying slaves north of the Equator.
Independent from Portugal since 1822, Brazil tacitly agreed to the terms of this 1815
treaty, and Brazilian traders too were banned from purchasing slaves from African
regions located north of the line. In 1817, Britain signed a similar treaty with Spain,
except the prohibition was to apply to the whole of the Atlantic. In 1826, it signed a
further treaty with Brazil, establishing outright abolition of the slave trade within three
years following ratification in 1827. Moreover, Britain sent warships to patrol the
coast of West Africa to intercept vessels violating these agreements. The antislavery
conventions established mixed commission courts around the Atlantic to adjudicate
vessels accused of illegal trading. As the British increased their efforts to suppress
the traffic in the North Atlantic, the number of captives in the South Atlantic continued
to rise well into the nineteenth century, making West Central Africa the major source
of slaves for the Americas.
Since the law prohibited trafficking in both hemispheres, traders no longer felt
restricted to West Central Africa and expanded their operations, albeit illegally, to
other African regions, including areas as far as Southeast Africa . At least in this
respect, the trade between the late eighteenth and the mid-nineteenth century followed
a pattern of continuity rather than expansion
Suppression of the illegal trans-Atlantic slave trade only became effective when
external pressures on slave-importing regions were bolstered by changing public
opinions within those societies. In 1850, domestic reformers in Brazil forced a
clampdown on the illegal slave trade with the assistance of a British naval blockade of
Rio de Janeiro. At that point, Cuba became the last large-scale slave importation zone.
It was not until 1867, after widespread abolitionist pressure within the Spanish empire
—and in light of emancipation in Cuba’s much larger neighbor, the United States,
after a violent civil war—that the Spanish government moved decisively against the
illegal trans-Atlantic slave trade, ending the traffic for good.
The present summary was taken from many sources ( books, articles )