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Repellant but Necessary ? Transatlantic Slave Trade
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Peter



Joined: 10 Apr 2007
Posts: 105
Location: Gosport, Hampshire

Post Posted: Wed Mar 18, 2009 10:18 am    Post subject: Repellant but Necessary ? Transatlantic Slave Trade Reply with quote

‘Repellent but necessary’. To what extent was this an apt description of the
transatlantic slave trade between 1650 and 1800?



Slavery, the trade in human beings is something that has been going on since the dawn of man. It has been described as: One who is the property of, and entirely subject to, another person, whether by capture, purchase, or birth; a servant completely divested of freedom and personal rights. What singles out the transatlantic slave trade from other periods and locations is the disgusting and inhumane way the slaves were treated by their captures - they were treated as commodities and ‘inhuman work-units’. During the passage across the Atlantic, they lived in abominable cramped conditions, none or little exercise, a minimum amount of food, water, and clothing. However slavery had been a recognised way of life long before the Egyptians, and Romans had enslaved the Jews and Christians:

…As the Mamelukes [Mamluks] moved through the streets they took no prisoners. Every Christian was killed, with no regard to age or sex. Those who cowered in their houses were gathered up later for the slave markets, where it was said that so many slaves from Acre went on the block that the price of a young girl fell to a single drachma….

It had long been an established custom, that after battle, what we would now describe as ‘prisoners of war’, became slaves to the victors; either being sold off or ending up in the households of rich Africans, Arabs, or Asians - they were invariably treated with some humanity and in some cases even ended up as part of the household. In some cultures the number of slaves a man possessed showed his position in society. The owner still though had the ultimate power of life or death over a slave. In the Mediterranean the North African corsairs, and pirates were also taking white people from all over Europe and selling them in Africa or beyond as slaves. By the eighteenth century a large part of the European population would have been able to trace their ‘roots’ back to serfdom or slavery. It must be remembered that slavery was not just about the black people who endured the journey across the Atlantic, from West Africa to the Caribbean and America – who became known as ‘The Middle Passage’ slaves. Black and white slavery was part of human history - sadly it still survives today:

…A SHIP [sic] with 250 child slaves inside may return to Benin, West Africa after two other countries refused them entry. The boat set sail two weeks ago after the children’s parents sold them for £10 each. Benin’s information minister Gaston Zosso said: “We are waiting for the boat to return. We must punish those responsible.”….

Slavery was to disappear in Britain in or around the eleventh century. Today in Britain, and most of the world, slavery is looked upon in horror and disbelief - however it has not always been like that. To understand man’s condoning of slavery for many thousands of years, perhaps there is a need to look at the cultures and social conditions of humanity, when slavery on ‘The Middle Passage’ was rife. In Britain, life expectancy was relatively short and living conditions were harsh, a baby had to ‘fight to survive’ from the second it was born – violence and hardship was an everyday part of life. The average person did not have much to eat, money, and commodities were scarce, there was not as much in life as there is today – he would not have worried about another’s plight. The nobility, the rich merchants and the new entrepreneurs had servants, their forefathers had had serfs, what really was the difference – they were cheap all they needed was enough food to survive, and anyway most of the British owned slaves were ‘out of sight’. Why should society bother about them, they were chattels. This was the sort of attitude that the Europeans had towards slavery. A slave was not a human being in their sense of the word. These were the beliefs that allowed slavery to reach the magnitude it did.

The beginning of the modern African slave trade started with the Spaniards and Portuguese invading the West African coast and seizing the black inhabitants, in a rather crude and unorganised fashion; the slaves were taken back to their respective countries and sold at home or on the European markets – the numbers enslaved were probably in thousands. So what caused the shipment of some 12,000,000 black African slaves from their homeland to the Americas some 3,000 nautical miles away between 1615 and 1800; bear in mind they had been free men - not convicts. Most of the slaves went to the Caribbean or the southern states of America, but many also went to Brazil and other southern American countries. Why were they shipped across the Atlantic in the disgusting and repulsive conditions of a slave ship and for what purpose? The answer is simple; cheap labour, or rather free labour. With an average life expectancy of only seven years slaves were a disposable labour commodity.

The Caribbean had originally been inhabited by the island Caribs, who were a warrior and maritime nation, but they were almost wiped out by the Spaniards, and European diseases. From the sixteenth century onwards the ownership of the islands were contested by: the Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, French and the British. Britain’s first colony was Barbados, by 1800 Britain had gained ownership of a majority of the islands which make up the Caribbean archipelago. What was special about these islands and the Americas were the soil and temperature conditions which made it ideal for the growing of sugar cane. Sugar cane was also being grown in Brazil; tobacco and cotton were later to be grown in the southern states of North America. Britain like the rest of Europe needed sugar - however sugar cane growing and the other industries were labour intensive. The first workers were whites and there was some local labour, but this was not enough as the plantations expanded, also the whites were effected by the many diseases and the intolerable heat. The answer was, African slaves - the abominable repulsive Middle Passage slave trade was to start. The sugar plantations were to underpin the British economy for many years, so the government did not complain about slave labour. Many men, were to make vast fortunes, the money was reinvested into the British economy. Eventually they returned home and lived in luxury, their plantations were looked after by mangers or their heirs. They became known in Britain as ‘The Planters’.

Slaves were not the only export from the western bight of West Africa around the areas of Gambia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and Senegal – an area known as the bight of Benin or the ‘slave coast’. European countries had for many centuries been trading with the African merchants in: Gold, gum, hides, timbers and palm oil had been exchanged for: European cloth, metals, tools, knives, beads and spirits – the most tradable being guns and ammunition. Slavery was nothing new in Africa it was part of history and culture. African countries were ruled by Kings and Queens and they all had their own social structures. Like the Europeans, the African tribes were nearly always at war – they always wanted a bit more land or power! With the wars, came prisoners, it was then normal for the prisoners to be become slaves, it was part of Africa’s economy. As the need for slaves increased in the Americas, so did the trafficking in Africa – it became an ‘industry’. It has been said that at the height of slavery, the Africans were going to war to get more slaves.

A whole new infrastructure was created to cope with the slave trade. The slaves had to be escorted in chains from their place of capture, to markets or holding places on the coast. Then small boats were needed to ferry them along the rivers or out to the slave ships anchored off the coast. All along the slave-coast the European slaving countries had built forts to protect their interests and as holding areas for slaves – the slaves time in chains and manacles might start many months even before their journey across the Atlantic started; so their total time in chains might be considerable – they were weak and under nourished even before the voyage started. Britain’s interests in the area were looked after by trading companies, probably the biggest was the Royal African Company, which had been chartered in 1662, as the Royal Adventurers of England trading in Africa, it had got into some financial difficulties in 1672 and some shareholders and creditors were incorporated, and it then became known as the Royal African Company. It had exclusive trading rights from Sallee to the southern tip of Africa; initially it was very successful trading in slaves, gold, silver, and redwood which was needed for dying cloth. Its monopoly was attacked and by the end of the seventeenth century its trade had been opened up to independent traders who had to pay ten percent of their trade to the company. The trade in slaves to British possessions had been granted exclusively to British ships in the Asiento clause secured in the 1713 Peace of Utrecht. The eighteenth century slave trade was to be dominated by Britain, as usual everything Britain did, was carried out with firm resolve, if there was a profit to be made in any trade the British traders and merchants would always be there. Ironically after Britain ceased slave trading in 1807, when sociably, slave trading was no longer acceptable – Britain became the country that by way of the Royal Navy was to relentlessly hunt down the slave traffickers left. The attitude was - ‘If Britain cannot have slaves then no other country is going to have them and undercut our trade’.

For the ship owners and the ‘Company’, it was to be a very lucrative trade. The slavers arrived from England with trading goods for the Africans; they then took on slaves for the journey across the Atlantic to the Americas. Once they had discharged the slaves they took on a cargo of sugar, and sugar products, cotton and ginger, to be discharged in Bristol, Liverpool, and London; it became known as the British slave trade triangle – there were also the Caribbean and American slave triangles.

Probably one of the most repellent, nefarious, and disgusting time in man’s treatment of his ‘fellow’ human beings was to commence - the voyage across the Atlantic; probably voyage is the wrong word to describe this event, horrifying is nearer the mark. The first ships used were ordinary small trading ships no more than 300 tons, occasionally bigger, some with deck heights of only four and half feet. It was to be many years before purpose built ‘slavers’ as they were known were built. The slaves may have walked many hundreds of miles, in shackles, probably being beaten as they walked, they would also have lost a lot of body fat – families had been torn apart, physiologically they would be very low. Once they had got to the coast they were put in cellars inside the forts or other corals. It could be many months before they were put on ship to the Americas; their diet was also totally inadequate. The Africans had lived off a healthy diet of fresh water, fruit, and maize crops, they bathed regularly and were very fit - the European type ship diet they were to encounter was just not suitable for them.

Once they had been ferried out to the anchored slave ship, sometimes as many as 600 slaves were entombed in a ship of only 350 tons; the ideal age group for slaves was between fifteen and thirty five – the planters preferred their slaves to be male, and only about a third would have been women. This would probably be the last light many of them would ever see - or until they arrived in the Americas. The men were shackled side by side, all the space they had was that area that their bodies took up on the deck. The women were not usually shackled, but allowed to roam free. They became the crew’s playthings, and whores, very often being repeatedly raped. The conditions inside the slave decks would have been terrible. The heat, humidity, and smell alone would have been intolerable even for a strong man, but the slaves were put in when they were at their lowest – what chance did they have! They say you could smell a slave ship even before you could see it. The slaves were to suffer from diarrhoea, nausea, and sickness – they lay in their own and others faeces. Most of them were to suffer from severe dehydration, due to the intense heat in the ship. Dehydration was not really appreciated at the time, the slavers rarely carried enough water, what they did was putrid and stagnant – many slavers relied on rain water, and there was never enough. It is interesting to note that even though the slaves were a commodity and worth money, little was done to keep them alive. Dead slaves were hurled over board, some were even towed behind the ship, to act as bait for sharks - shark meat was used to feed the crew and the slaves. Many of the slaves lost the will to survive and ‘willed’ themselves to die. Many of the slaves would remain crippled for life, due to the way they had been manacled and chained up in the slave ships.

It is a misconception that vast profits were made on the ‘middle passage’, the merchants did make profit, but the loss of slaves was very high, sometimes as high as sixty percent. Profit could be recuperated on the third passage of the British slave triangle:

…Amongst the cargo of cotton, ginger and molasses on the return leg of the voyage were 341 hogsheads of muscovada sugar. Since a hogshead was generally reckoned as 12 cwt., and one pound of muscovada was worth approximately 6d. on the London wholesale market, the muscovada alone was worth over £12,000 sterling: [approximately £750,000 at today’s value] this undoubtedly made the ‘abortive’ loss on the middle passage easier to bear….

On arrival in the Americas, the slave ships went alongside and waited for the slave merchants to arrive. The slaves that were left would have been in a very sorry and distressed state, many of them continued to die after arrival. Once ashore the slave merchants did their best to fatten the slaves up, and make them presentable for auction. Once they had been purchased, the master or mistress had complete control over the slave. There were many sadistic owners who continually beat or whipped their slaves; legislation ensured that the owners could not get into trouble for any thing they did: it was firmly established that slaves were just chattels. Slaves could be executed for: murder, rape, arson or assault on a white person. Many slaves were to die through mistreatment and disease, so it was expected that female slaves would start producing children from thirteen years onwards, and by twenty they would have produced at least five children - they were ‘sired’ by the plantation ‘stud’, who had been specially selected for this task!

The slaves lived in wooden shacks with an earth floor, they were given sufficient food and clothing to survive. The house slaves lived a far better life than the field slaves, the former were given cast off clothing and food that was left; some even became educated. The field slaves worked from sunrise to sunset and at harvest they worked an eighteen hour day. They were encouraged to work hard by the owner’s overseer, who controlled the slaves by whipping, mistreatment, branding, and torture. Even pregnant women were expected to work right up until they had their baby. They were encouraged to get married, the owners believed that there would be less chance of rebellion if the slaves were married. They were not allowed to become Christians or look at the Bible, the owners feared that they might start thinking of equality if they read the Bible. Its ironic to think that white religious slave owners who believed in the Bible treated the slaves they way that they did - but a slave was cheaper to buy than pay wages. For slaves that ‘ran’ or rebelled retribution was swift, they were shot or burned at the stake. The plantation owners eventually became the minority controlling the majority and there was the constant fear of a slave uprising.


The numbers will never be known of how many slaves actually crossed the Atlantic from Africa to the Americas, it is supposed that the figures of between 12 and 20,000,000 are an estimate: probably 2,000,000 died in transit, or shortly after arriving. For Britain the slave trade had provided an inexhaustible wealth, it had also provided constant employment for the ships and the infrastructure that went with them, in Britain, and the colonies. Repellent but necessary, was the question posed. As far as our standards are concerned in this age, we find slavery distasteful and repugnant: but, as discussed earlier in this essay, at the height of slavery it was a common and accepted practice. Necessary? Yes, the planters were making money in the colonies which was flowing back into the economy of Britain and making the country stronger – money was always needed by the government to finance the wars it was invariably involved in. There was an inexhaustible supply of slaves - so why not use them!

Britain’s attitude to slavery was to change, on Monday 16 March 1807, after the third reading an abolition Bill was introduced into Parliament. Those that argued against the bill summed up the willingness and attitude to support slavery: The following are some of the comments from Hansard.

…The arguments used against the Bill have a curious familiar ring… The slavery is a great nursery for seamen [fishing, whaling, and the coal sea trade had also been a seaman’s nursery]. Now that Britain has lost her American colonies, the West Indies are one of her chief supports. The planters are loyal to man; they support us with men and money at a time when we need all the help we can get… The Negroes are better off working in a Christian country than being left in their native barbarism; and you only have to look at their smiling faces to see that they themselves realise it. We cannot legislate for foreign countries; if we pull out of the trade, they will carry it on, and we shall give up our profit without benefiting the Negroes….

The Royal Navy’s relentless pursuit of slave ships is well documented - however the last black cargo of slaves were to Cuba, and as late as 1880. Slavery is still alive in many forms throughout the world. It is interesting to note that in the animal kingdom, they only kill for food or protection, but man has this peculiar habit of treating other fellow human beings with impiety, abuse, and disdain – very often ending in death.
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alexhills8



Joined: 14 Nov 2009
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Post Posted: Sat Nov 14, 2009 11:28 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I know that even in the history of the mankind, slavery is really common things even before. The trade of human beings is really a common doings especially in rural areas. I know some countries where that tradition is still said to be happening especially to poor farmers.




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PMarione
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Post Posted: Thu Nov 19, 2009 12:46 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Something very politically incorrect.

The Africans were as culprit as the Europeans in the slave trade. Europeans were not stealing people from Africa but buying them from the tribe chiefs or the family.

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