The Transatlantic Slave Trade was a long event that occurred between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. It resulted in the transfer of over twelve million Africans from western Africa to the Americas, particularly to Brazil and the Caribbean, but also to regions like the British colonies of North America. In the process, it transformed the demographic and racial landscape of the Western Hemisphere. For instance, the significant African American community in the United States today is primarily comprised of the descendants of slaves who were trafficked across the Atlantic in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to work as cotton pickers or tobacco harvesters on the plantations of Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia. The number of slaves who were brought to the Caribbean and Brazil was so large that their descendants now make up the majority of the population in many of these islands and regions.[1]
Chronology of events
The transatlantic slave trade was closely connected to the European discovery of the New World and subsequent efforts to colonize it and profit from the American colonies. The Spanish had discovered the Americas in 1492, but they were followed closely by the English who were exploring the North American seaboard under John Cabot within a few years and the Portuguese who quickly determined the extent of the South American continent.
Within a short while, these nations were attempting to profit from these new regions by growing cash crops such as sugar, coffee, tobacco, and cotton, as well as working the extensive gold and silver mines which would eventually be located in regions like Mexico, Bolivia, and Brazil. In their efforts to do so, they quickly ran into a manpower shortage. There were few Europeans living here initially and those believed that it was justifiable for them to use the natives, who they perceived as savage heathens, as effectively slave labor. However, owing to the introduction of European diseases such as smallpox and measles, the native population of some groups like the Carib people of the West Indies were devastated in the course of the sixteenth century.[2] Hence, Europeans soon set upon the idea of purchasing slaves from African slavers on the coast of West Africa and transporting them across the Atlantic to work as bonded laborers on their plantation farms. This practice was first initiated by the Portuguese and Spanish in the first half of the sixteenth century, but the English, Dutch, and French soon became involved as well.[3]
In some instances, this was not the most brutal form of chattel slavery to begin with. For example, when the first slaves began arriving in the English colony of Virginia in 1619 from Africa, they were treated as indentured servants; this was a form of bonded labor whereby the individual had very few rights, but if they worked relatively hard for several years they could expect to earn their freedom and a small plot of land of their own in the burgeoning colony. Other European people who were viewed poorly by the colonial powers were often treated in this manner too; for instance, many indentured servants in Virginia and the Carolinas in the seventeenth century were from Ireland. Yet, over time this situation changed and the laws operated by the English and others towards African slaves became more and more brutal, with the chattel slave working cotton and tobacco farms in the manner which we are used to reading of appearing by the eighteenth century. Draconian colonial laws appeared in tandem which allowed slave-owners to physically attack their slaves and there was little hope of acquiring one's freedom by the eighteenth century.[4]
The transatlantic slave trade was at its height in the eighteenth century, but paradoxically this was also the period during which commentators in Europe and the Americas, buoyed by the moral and ethical ideals of the European Enlightenment, began to seriously consider its moral basis. Before long individuals like William Wilberforce were leading abolitionist groups which were pressuring the British government to ban slavery. This was eventually undertaken, with the British government overseeing this through the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act in 1807 and the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833. Yet there were some laggards. For instance, it took until the 1860s and the outbreak of the American Civil War for the United States to fully end slavery in the country, although for decades the northern states had been free states. The last nation in the Americas to bring about an end to slavery was Brazil in 1888.[5]
Extent of migration
Although all figures are estimates owing to the prevalence of unofficial slave smuggling, it is generally believed that about twelve and a half million Africans were transported from Africa to the Americas as slaves between the sixteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries. Nearly half of these were transported by Portuguese slavers, the single largest culprit. Britain transported roughly 3.3 million slaves, with the French responsible for about 1.4 million and the Spanish just over one million. After these the Dutch were the next biggest offender, having trafficked approximately 550,000 slaves and then American slavers with 300,000.
The ultimate destination of these 12.5 million slaves after they were purchased on the coast of Africa was mixed. For instance, the huge responsibility Portugal bears for the transatlantic slave trade is mirrored in the transporting of millions of Africans to Brazil across this long period. Beyond Brazil, the Caribbean was the most common destination, with nearly five million slaves brought here from Africa. Despite the manner in which race relations and the slavery issue came to dominate US society in the nineteenth century and remain major issues there today, only a very small percentage of the overall slave trade involved North America. The most accurate estimates contend that the number of those brought to the East Coast of the United States between the first arrivals in 1619 and the end of slavery in the mid-nineteenth century was roughly 388,000.[6]
Demographic Impact
The demographic impact of the transatlantic slave trade was immense. Taking the example of the United States, approximately 47 million people there today are designated as African Americans, a figure nearing 15% of the population. While not all of these are descendants of African slaves who were trafficked into North America between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, the majority are. As such, the slave trade has left an indelible mark on the demographic landscape of the United States today.[7] The situation is even more dramatic in parts of the Caribbean and Brazil. Because the slave population in these regions in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries often significantly outnumbered that of their captors from Europe, the population of many of these areas is overwhelmingly black and of African descent today. For instance, 91% of the population of Jamaica, one of Britain’s largest sugar plantation colonies in early modern times, is comprised of Afro-Jamaicans.[8] Consequently, the transatlantic slave trade, when combined with the ravages of European disease on the native peoples of these regions, served to completely transform the demographic landscape of much of the western hemisphere between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries.
Explore more about the Transatlantic Slave Trade
- MyHeritage Supports Africatown Heritage Preservation Foundation on the MyHeritage blog
- 1850 United States Federal Census (Slave Schedule) on MyHeritage
- Descendants of the Enslaved and Enslavers – Working Together to Discover Family at Legacy Family Tree Webinars
- Exploring the Records in a Slave Owning Community at Legacy Family Tree Webinars
- Gradual Emancipation and Enslavement in the North at Legacy Family Tree Webinars
- Tick Marks and Number Counts: Understanding and Using the Slave Schedules at Legacy Family Tree Webinars
- Who Were “Felix Richards’ Slaves”?: Identifying Enslaved People Photographed During the Civil War at Legacy Family Tree Webinars
- The African-American Migration Experience - The Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture presents information on the major waves of African American migrations (Transatlantic Slave Trade, Runaway Journeys, the Domestic Slave Trade, Colonization and Emigration, Haitian Immigration, Caribbean Migration, African Migration and African American migration within the United States
References
- ↑ Atlantic Worlds: Enslavement and Resistance. Royal Museums Greenwich
- ↑ The Origins of Slavery. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
- ↑ transatlantic slave trade. Encyclopedia Britannica
- ↑ Transatlantic Slave Trade. Colonial Williamsburg
- ↑ 9 Facts About the Transatlantic Slave Trade. History Channel
- ↑ Documenting Slave Voyages. Emory University
- ↑ The Changing Definition of African-American. Smithsonian Magazine
- ↑ Jamaica. World History Archives