Colonization,

The African Slave

Trade
&
The Middle Passage
 African Slavery
Davis, D.B. Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World. New York, New
York: Oxford University Press.,2006

“Every colony in the New World played a part in the creation of the
world’s first system of multinational production for what emerged as
mass market – a market for slave-produced sugar, tobacco, coffee,
chocolate, dye-stuffs, rice, hemp and cotton”

David Brion Davis

• For four centuries, beginning with Iberian plantation agriculture in the
Atlantic sugar islands off the African coast, European expansion and
settlement of the Americas established and expanded the African slave
trade
• African slavery flourished in 16th-century Mexico, Peru and Brazil
• The demand for labour was especially acute in the tropical and semi-
tropical zones
• In the 17th century, it made possible factory like plantations in the
British, French, Danish and Dutch Caribbean -- the center of wealth in
the Western Hemisphere
• By the mid-1700’s the value of exports to Britain from the British West
Indies was 10X that of exports north of Virginia and Maryland
• African slavery existed with all the other systems
• Spanish and Portuguese were accustom to holding African slaves
• 1 in 10 were slaves in Lisbon Portugal – North Africans
 Context of the Colonies
1) Heterogeneity
2) Autonomy
3) Destabilization
• Social, political, economic systems different depending on
colonizing country
• Involuntary settlement : 1) Indigenous peoples
2) African slaves
3) Destitute Europeans
4) Fleeing religious persecution
5) Political or military posts
• Colonies became increasingly autonomous - distance
necessitated this but created instability
 Motivation for Exploration of the
New World

1) Imperialism
2) Mercantilism
3) Transplantation of Nobility
4) Christian Church/State
5) New Naval Technology
6) New Sea Route Needed
7) Alleviate Population Pressure
Triangular Trade
Overview of the slave trade out of Africa, 1500-1900
• Captive Africans followed many routes from homelands to new world
• 2000 slaves imported into the Americas each year in the century
before 1600 (average)
• 55 000/yr for the 18th century as a whole
• Peak decade for the whole history of the trade - 1780’s, annual
average of 88 000 slaves arriving in the Americas each year
• Deliveries reached more than 100 000 in a few individual years
• North Americans, with a view of world history that centres on their
own region, often think of the slave trade as a flow of people from
Africa to the United States
• Only 20th went to the United States
• Yet the African-American population in the United States today is
one of the largest in the New World
• 1/3 of all slaves landing in the Americas went to Brazil (largely from
west central Africa)
• 1/2 went to the Caribbean Islands and mainland
Volume and direction of the trans-Atlantic slave trade from
all African to all American regions
• Strong connections between particular embarkation and
disembarkation regions
• Also the case that captives from any of the major regions of
Africa could disembark in almost any of the major regions of
the Americas
• Even captives leaving Southeast Africa (the region most remote)
could disembark in mainland North America, as well as the
Caribbean and South America.
Major coastal regions from which captives left Africa,
all years
• Regions closer to the Americas and Europe generated a
relatively small share of the total carried across the Atlantic
• Voyage length determined by wind and ocean currents as well
as relative proximity of ports of embarkation and
disembarkation
Major regions where captives disembarked,
all years
Countries and regions in the Atlantic World where slave voyages
were organized, by share of captives carried off from Africa
• Slave voyages left from all major Atlantic ports at some point over
the nearly four centuries of the trans-Atlantic slave trade
• Largest four ports:
1)Rio de Janeiro
2)Bahia
3)Liverpool
4)London
Major regions and ports involved in the trans-Atlantic slave
trade, all years
• Few commercial centers in the Atlantic world were untouched
by the slave trade, and all the major ports had strong
connections with the traffic.
Slave Ship