Full transcript
0:02hi welcome back
0:04uh so last time we talked about how
0:07the slave trade how slavery took hold in
0:09virginia
0:11and uh
0:13how the colonies moved away from
0:16indentured servitude and evolved toward
0:18a society based in slavery and racial
0:21hierarchy
0:23and so today i'd like to consider the
0:25experience of africans in this process
0:28how did the opening of the atlantic
0:30world change africa
0:32how did it influence the development of
0:34africa along with the americas in europe
0:38what was it like to live in societies
0:41where slavery was not only encouraged
0:44but considered a part of everyday life
0:47and of course what was it like for
0:48ordinary africans who are swept up in
0:51this process
0:53and so
0:54i'd like to start with
0:56a graphic that illustrates in about two
0:59minutes time
1:01the journey of slaves across the
1:03atlantic and so
1:07i used to be able to blow this up but
1:09i'm not sure that i can anymore
1:13and what you see here is an animated map
1:16and you should start to see dots going
1:19across the screen
1:21and each one of those dots
1:23represents
1:25a slave ship carrying its cargo to the
1:28americas
1:29the bigger the dot the more slaves on
1:33board and so you you can see here this
1:36this gif this animated map started out
1:40in the mid 1500s very slowly but here we
1:43are
1:45about a hundred years later and you can
1:47see
1:48that we're already seeing an increase in
1:50the number of slave ships traveling
1:52across the atlantic most of them
1:55coming of course from west africa
1:58in this area
2:00but not all of them some farther south
2:02some farther north
2:04even the rare ship from the east coast
2:06of africa
2:08and if we notice their destination
2:12most of them
2:13the overwhelming majority of them are
2:15headed to brazil
2:18and often to the caribbean here
2:21and we do see some of course heading to
2:23north america but here
2:25uh as you see we're now in the 1700s the
2:28pace
2:30of slave cargo's heading to the americas
2:32has increased rapidly and now we're
2:34entering into
2:36probably the most intense period of the
2:39slave trade and you can just see here
2:42how many dots are flying across the
2:44screen and again each one of those dots
2:46represents a ship
2:48and anywhere from you know
2:52dozens of slaves on board to hundreds
2:55and so here we are now in the era of the
2:58american revolution starting to slow
3:00down a little bit but when the
3:01revolution ends picking up again lots of
3:03slaves heading to
3:05hispaniola here the dominican republic
3:08what we call the dominican republic in
3:09haiti today
3:11and i want you to notice a change here
3:14by the time we get to about 1809 you'll
3:17still see slave ships heading to north
3:19america now in fact they're kind of
3:21increasing but once we get to 1809
3:25they pretty much stopped there still
3:27might be a random ship you see a couple
3:30who are coming to the united states it's
3:32course the united states at this point
3:33not a british colony anymore
3:36and that's because
3:38the united states outlawed the slave
3:40trade in 1809 made it illegal to bring
3:43in more slaves from africa that did not
3:46mean that the slaves who were already in
3:48the united states
3:50would have anything done to alter their
3:51condition but what it meant was that no
3:55more slaves could be imported and so
3:58there were some who certainly broke the
4:00law
4:01but um
4:04for the most part that put an end to the
4:06trade trade in the united states
4:09and so
4:10uh i think that illustrates just
4:14the amount of you know the sheer amount
4:18of slaves coming to the americas if we
4:20think about the lives and the logistics
4:23behind the dots from the investors in
4:26europe
4:27who put up the money from these very
4:30very risky ventures to the sailors who
4:32worked on board the ships
4:34to of course the africans themselves
4:38and nobody knows
4:41how many africans were taken from their
4:43homeland and shipped across the atlantic
4:45ocean
4:47but a group of historians has done their
4:50best and come up
4:52um
4:53with a number by combing through
4:55countless logs and manifest visiting
4:58archives
4:59and
5:00to the best of our knowledge between
5:02about 1501 and 1866
5:06something like 12 and a half million
5:09slaves left africa or africans i guess
5:12we should say at this point of that
5:14number
5:15about 10.7 million
5:18disembarked from the ships that they
5:20were carried on that means that we had
5:22almost 2 million
5:24who didn't make it for some reason or
5:27another and we'll talk about it later
5:29but you can see here in this particular
5:32drawing which was a primary source
5:34that shows the
5:36diagram of a slave ship that slaves were
5:39of course crowded together and
5:43kept in utterly deplorable conditions
5:46so
5:48the largest carriers
5:50of slaves
5:52were far and away the portuguese they
5:55were the ones who started first
5:58and they were the ones who finished last
6:01they carried something alone this tiny
6:04country of portugal but i guess we could
6:06also say brazil later on
6:08carried something like 5.8 million
6:12people
6:13to brazil that's about 47
6:16of all slaves
6:18um about 3.2 million
6:22went to the british west indies and
6:24british north america and the british
6:26were
6:28in terms of numbers the second most
6:30involved
6:31in the slave trade carrying something
6:35again yeah like 3.2 million compared to
6:38the portuguese 5.8 million but there's
6:40other players too the french to some
6:42extent of course the spanish the dutch
6:46even denmark was involved for a time in
6:49the slave trade
6:52and so
6:54um the united states of course although
6:57it came to benefit from slavery since it
7:00wasn't a country until very late in this
7:03process right we're not a country until
7:041776
7:06the slave trade has already been going
7:08on for two and a half centuries at that
7:10point
7:11the united states was only responsible
7:13for bringing about 305 000
7:16africans out of africa
7:18and embarked disembarking about two and
7:21uh 250 000 in the united states and so
7:26what we need to keep in mind here is
7:29this is the largest trans
7:31oceanic forced migration in history and
7:36that is
7:37saying something right this is a massive
7:39migration of people but they're being
7:42brought against their will
7:45and i'm going to give you a statistic
7:47that i kind of marvel at a little bit
7:49even
7:50having known this for quite a while
7:52we like to think of the americas as a
7:54place of opportunity
7:56for its immigrants
7:59but most again most of the people who
8:01were brought here brought against their
8:03will something like six out of seven
8:06people who crossed the atlantic
8:08before the american revolution were
8:11african slaves
8:13before 1820 about four africans arrived
8:17in the americas for every single
8:20european
8:22so this
8:23is a large large number of people and
8:26they're being brought here
8:28again not by choice
8:30not to make a better lives for
8:32themselves but in fact
8:34um to make a better life for somebody
8:37else in a lot of cases and so slavery
8:40itself is a very old institution
8:46uh it goes back to the dawn of
8:47civilization if you read the bible in
8:50the old testament
8:51you'll find
8:53that
8:55slavery existed then
8:57um
8:58it flourished in greece and rome the
9:01middle east early modern russia
9:05but in all of those places something was
9:08different about slavery as opposed to
9:11the slavery that exis that it develops
9:13that evolves after
9:15the opening of the atlantic of the world
9:17and that is the fact that in all of
9:19those places slavery had nothing to do
9:22with skin color
9:23slavery had existed in africa for
9:26centuries as well
9:28slavery often involved personal service
9:31often for a limited time
9:34starving children could be sold into
9:36slavery if you were a debtor or a
9:38criminal
9:39you might serve time as a slave
9:42um but slaves still had rights
9:45they could marry they had they could
9:47have kids they had certain protections
9:49under the law
9:51but europeans are driven by a need for
9:55labor due in some part to a declining
9:58native american population who was going
10:00to work in those mines in south america
10:04silver mines for instance who is going
10:06to
10:07work on the sugar plantations in the
10:10caribbean
10:11who is going to pick tobacco
10:14all of these
10:16entities all of these resources are
10:19labor-intensive you need workers for
10:21them and
10:23european workers are not always willing
10:26to volunteer
10:28for such
10:30uh arduous labor so sugar for instance
10:33very costly
10:35very exotic when
10:37uh you know prior to columbus arriving
10:40in the americas but
10:41portugal begins using slave labor on the
10:45island of madeira
10:47and this changes the institution
10:50fundamentally
10:52almost all of those people end up being
10:55slaves for life and that by the time we
10:58get to the american revolution only one
11:00percent of blacks had to actually become
11:03free and again if you remember what we
11:06talked about before
11:08we saw that early on in virginia slavery
11:11had not yet hardened into this
11:14institution with rigid rules
11:17and there were paths to freedom for
11:20some early slaves or servants but
11:24after a while those loopholes are closed
11:27and slavery becomes an institution
11:30defined by color
11:32and
11:34that exists overwhelmingly in the
11:37southern colonies of north america but
11:39of course it can be found in every
11:41region
11:42and so
11:45people become commodities here right
11:48we're putting a price tag on human
11:51beings
11:53and the rise of global capitalism at
11:56this point depends upon slavery without
11:59slavery there's no sugar on the table of
12:02europeans there's no cheap tobacco or
12:05cheap cotton
12:07and to us today this seems like a very
12:11backward
12:12anti-modern barbaric institution
12:16but keep in mind
12:18at the time the most advanced economic
12:21systems the most prosperous
12:23societies of the time replied upon
12:26slavery
12:27it requires logistics it requires
12:29business savvy and wealth to make it
12:32work
12:33and often one tends to think of
12:35europeans as being the sole force behind
12:39the slave trade and while they were
12:42certainly the primary drivers
12:44they could not have achieved success
12:46without the aids of africans
12:50slaves
12:51were almost always
12:53i guess we should say slavers meaning
12:55the europeans who bring their slave
12:56ships and dock off the coast of africa
12:59they almost always buy their slaves
13:02from african
13:05leading merchants and chiefs of these
13:08coastal kingdoms and
13:10african kings are not duped here
13:13the europeans are paying top dollar
13:17the africans are exacting a very
13:20substantial price for the slaves that
13:22they're turning over
13:24they're trading manufactured goods as
13:27well as cloth and tea
13:31the tea having made its way
13:33from india already perhaps
13:36and these african chiefs they drive a
13:38hard bargain too if you're gonna pay in
13:41currency we're talking about 17 to 20
13:44pounds sterling
13:46that was the going rate for a slave and
13:48that would be about four thousand
13:49dollars per
13:51slave today
13:53they also
13:54provided guns something like three
13:57hundred thousand guns per year exported
14:00tech west africa
14:02but the demand is going to change the
14:06process here
14:10at first
14:12african
14:14africans are all too willing to turn
14:16over their criminals and outsiders
14:19the people that perhaps they've captured
14:21in wars
14:22um
14:23but now what we tend to see is wars or
14:26raids that are conducted in the name of
14:29capturing more slaves and of course this
14:31decimates
14:32african societies
14:35and we can think of this you know in
14:37some ways as a choice right
14:40even if africans
14:42weren't always on board with
14:43participating
14:45um
14:46you know they might have felt compelled
14:49to engage in it anyways
14:51the thought being
14:53that if your neighboring kingdom does
14:56participate and you don't and they
14:57receive state-of-the-art weaponry
15:00that you might find yourself enslaved
15:02next so in some ways this is a case of
15:05enslave or be enslaved to be sure
15:10and so this is a choice
15:12um that some africans
15:14some african kingdoms
15:16are making on the coast
15:20and so
15:22once
15:23slaves are rounded up you know africans
15:26are captured in the interior they're
15:29marched to the coast
15:31um you know many of them have never seen
15:34the coast they've never seen the ocean
15:36before
15:38and once there they're put on these
15:40massive slave ships and
15:43taken on what becomes known as the
15:46middle passage
15:48and so
15:49we saw if you did some of the reading
15:51for last week you saw
15:54how bad it was for indentured servants
15:57to make this journey across the atlantic
16:00ocean
16:02but for slaves it is infinitely worse
16:06this is a voyage that can last months
16:09um
16:10it depends to some extent on the winds
16:13you might if you're lucky
16:15cover the 4 000 miles
16:18in three weeks to a month um but if you
16:23run into
16:24the doldrums or some dead air
16:27you could have ships that were stranded
16:29for weeks
16:31and this forces captains aboard those
16:33ships to make hard choices to
16:37throw slaves
16:39overboard to conserve food and water
16:42supply and of course
16:44treatment on these ships was very brutal
16:47slaves could be branded as a way to be
16:49marked
16:51suicide was common revolt was common
16:55and again these are people who have no
16:57idea what's in store for them some of
16:59them think they're being fattened up to
17:01be eaten
17:04and you know they're being held in
17:06chains in these horrible connect
17:09conditions below deck
17:12they're disa they're being disciplined
17:14and controlled
17:16and they're being deliberately placed
17:18with other men from different tribes in
17:21order to prevent them from communicating
17:24and
17:25um to avoid revolt
17:28early on especially
17:31slavers were more interested in men than
17:35women they were more valuable for the
17:38grueling labor that they
17:40were expected to do particularly in the
17:43caribbean they were inspected for health
17:46they were forced to eat and if they
17:48chose not to eat there were tools that
17:50would pry their mouths open
17:53and so
17:54obviously
17:56these
17:57slave traders have an interest in
17:59getting their cargo
18:01across the atlantic alive but
18:04they're also interested in making a
18:06profit
18:07like i said earlier food is running out
18:10perhaps the best choice is to dispose of
18:14some slaves early on if there's signs of
18:17disease you want to
18:18kind of call the infected slaves before
18:22they infect everybody else
18:25and there is some research to this point
18:28that
18:29suggests that sharks actually became
18:32accustomed
18:33to following slave ships across the
18:36atlantic these ships
18:38were always throwing waste overboard and
18:41when slaves died they were throwing
18:44bodies overboard as well
18:47and so
18:49this
18:50was uh you know part of
18:55you know the absolute horror of these
18:58journeys
18:59these captains
19:01did their best to keep
19:03the slaves in a state of fear
19:06and
19:07of course
19:09ship revolts were somewhat common
19:13there is a lot at stake here but some
19:16research actually suggests
19:19that
19:21something like 1 in 10 slave voyages was
19:24affected by violence and so usually
19:27these revolts are unsuccessful
19:31they're usually put down with great
19:32force but some of them are successful
19:35occasionally
19:36africans force slave ships to turn
19:40around to go back to africa
19:42sometimes the ships are destroyed in the
19:45middle of the ocean
19:47but
19:48this does make a difference right we we
19:52want to think about the idea of agency
19:54here again
19:55did slaves have any ability to influence
19:59their outcome to influence their
20:01conditions
20:03and i think you know one thing we could
20:05say is if
20:07africans had been more docile
20:10then perhaps
20:12many many more people would have been
20:14enslaved
20:16because
20:17some research suggests because these
20:20revolts this violence on these ships was
20:23so common
20:24that these ships had to be staffed
20:28appropriately they had to have a
20:30sufficient number of sailors on board
20:32well armed to put down rebellions and so
20:35that's going to reduce the number
20:37of um you know
20:39journeys you're going to make across the
20:41atlantic you need to have more manpower
20:44per ship then you get out you're going
20:45to have fewer ships and so some people
20:48suggest that you know if these slaves
20:51had been more docile then maybe one
20:53million more people might have been
20:55shipped across the atlantic so in other
20:57words even if they were not successful
21:00in securing their own freedom
21:02perhaps they prevented somebody else
21:05from being enslaved
21:09and so here's just a a quick map
21:13that sort of again sums up where most
21:16slaves were going the bigger the circle
21:19uh the
21:20the more slaves who were disembarked
21:23in those areas so the west indies
21:27was a primary location
21:31the caribbean
21:32barbados
21:34these are british colonies
21:36jamaica and this is a very very grueling
21:42place and again these people are working
21:45on sugar plantations um sugar
21:48plantations are very profitable for
21:50their owners but they're really deadly
21:53for slaves it's a very brutal work
21:56regimen
21:57hard work tropical diseases
22:01and there's been some studies to suggest
22:04that one in three
22:06caribbean slaves in this 18th century
22:09would have died within about three years
22:11of their arrival
22:13in a place like barbados
22:15and also
22:17we see an extremely low birth rate
22:21due to nutritional deficiencies these
22:23slaves worked hard they probably didn't
22:26get enough to eat they didn't get all
22:28the nutrients they needed and so as a
22:31result
22:32the birth weight rate is extremely low
22:35probably about one in four babies died
22:38within 10 days of their birth
22:41and so what this means is
22:44that this is a place where you've got to
22:46continually replenish slaves
22:49you've got to continually bring more
22:51slaves from africa because this is not
22:55a population that's self-sustaining
22:58north america on the other hand is
23:00different births there exceed death so
23:04there is a natural population growth
23:07there
23:10and so let's talk finally then
23:12about
23:13consequences here
23:15how is it
23:16you know what are the big consequences
23:19here
23:20well i'm gonna start with
23:23how this affects africa of course
23:26and so
23:27africa
23:29is um devastated by this uh we can think
23:34of
23:36again we're talking about maybe 10 or 12
23:38million people leaving the continent
23:41and so what the continent is ultimately
23:45faced with is demographic loss
23:48the population decrea actually declines
23:51in west africa now think about what's
23:53going on in europe at this point again
23:55they're benefiting
23:57from having corn and potatoes
24:00added to their diet the population is
24:02rapidly expanding there
24:04africa on the other hand sees a net
24:06decline in its population between 1700
24:09and 1800 there were probably about 25
24:12million people
24:14um
24:15in west africa in particular in 1700
24:19by 1800 it's only 20 million
24:22and so this of course is going to hamper
24:25development you're losing people your
24:28population is sinking
24:30and of course
24:31this has real consequences for
24:35the development of economies and
24:36societies and governments to be sure
24:40um
24:41and of course african society itself is
24:44changing too
24:46no longer do we see
24:49sort of
24:50revered traditional culture in a lot of
24:53cases especially on these coastal
24:55kingdoms we see
24:57uh you know a new found sort of
24:59fascination or i think we could say
25:01greed um
25:03for wealth that can come with
25:06the uh the capturing and the selling of
25:09slaves
25:11and so
25:13um you know who benefits from this
25:16arrangement well
25:18that's a
25:19interesting question right
25:22um it's certainly
25:24not
25:25africans there's maybe a handful
25:28again
25:29people in the coastal kingdoms elites
25:31who are trafficking and slaves who may
25:34be enriching themselves
25:36um but
25:38even if we consider europeans we could
25:40say some people might be tempted to say
25:42oh well the europeans benefited well
25:44this is true of course
25:46um
25:47but not every european benefits either
25:52most of the sailors on slave ships
25:54didn't prosper this was dangerous
25:56dangerous work
25:59seamen were poorly paid
26:01they could succumb to illness just like
26:04slaves did again
26:06violent outbreaks
26:08and it seems like being
26:11a seaman on one of these ships often led
26:14to a very short life now the big
26:17difference we can say is
26:18these people had a choice
26:20as opposed to the african slaves who
26:22were brought on board these
26:24ships um
26:26but
26:26we have to think about
26:28what their lives were like that this was
26:31what they thought was their best choice
26:33right i mean this is still again they
26:35have a choice africans don't
26:37but they were probably faced with some
26:39pretty grim choices on their own
26:42and
26:44so if anybody
26:45is actually prospering here
26:48it's the people who are investing money
26:51it's the captains of ships it's banks
26:54who are
26:56lending money it's insurance companies
26:59who are uh
27:00who are insuring these voyages across
27:03the atlantic it's the plantation owner
27:06perhaps first and foremost
27:08who's amassing fabulous wealth again
27:12probably particularly in sugar at this
27:14time
27:15but there'll be other resources later
27:18fabulous wealth off the backs of slaves
27:21and then something else we have to
27:24consider too
27:25is
27:26the average consumer is better
27:29benefiting as well so
27:32sugar at this time moves from being
27:35something that's exotic and very pricey
27:38to something that comes within reach of
27:41the average worker
27:43in england or in the americas you take
27:46sugar with your coffee or with your tea
27:50all but perhaps the very very poorest
27:52people
27:53would have access to sugar at least
27:55sometimes
27:57um we could say the same thing about
27:59tobacco
28:01or rice
28:02or certainly cotton a little bit later
28:05on the idea of making cheap clothing
28:07from cotton so
28:09farmers
28:10in the pennsylvania back country workers
28:13in new york city
28:15citizens of london and philadelphia
28:18they may not have a direct hand in
28:20enslaving people but they're using the
28:22products
28:24that were derived from their bondage
28:26and in some ways we could say that
28:28they're actually you know
28:31perpetuating this institution
28:33so there's several points removed
28:36obviously some people are aware of this
28:38there are some people who eventually say
28:40you know what i'm not going to have
28:41sugar on my table
28:43but there's other people who don't
28:44really reflect on it or think about it
28:46or all
28:47and then another thing that we can say
28:50is rebellion slaves are going to rebel
28:55we'll talk about this a bit later in the
28:57semester
28:58certainly in places like brazil um
29:01jamaica
29:03there are constant rebellions there's
29:06lots of you know bloody revolts people
29:09killed on both sides
29:12in the americas not as much or i mean in
29:15north america not as much in the united
29:17states not as much there are some
29:20instances and we'll talk about those
29:21instances but
29:23not as much at this point and we start
29:25to see
29:26a change
29:27moving from
29:29african culture to african-american
29:32culture you have these disparate
29:34cultures that are uniting
29:36on the ship
29:38they're uniting more when they get to
29:41their you know their
29:43their place of
29:45um disembarkation whether that is
29:48jamaica or south carolina or georgia
29:52um and we're seeing
29:54elements of african culture mixed then
29:58with american culture and something that
30:00emerges that is distinctly
30:02african-american
30:05at this point and so are there voices
30:08against slavery
30:11yes there are voices that are going to
30:13come out against slavery and as we'll
30:15see in the united states this is going
30:18to become a particularly thorny problem
30:21a people that comes to depend on slavery
30:25economically and socially we can't
30:27forget
30:29are doing so even as they begin to
30:32proclaim their belief in natural rights
30:36right the idea that they need to be
30:39that
30:41government
30:42needs to be consented to and of course
30:45the idea as well
30:47that all men are created equal and so
30:50this
30:51is somewhat paradoxical when it comes to
30:53reconciling this with slavery so
30:56that is something that as we get closer
30:59to the time of the american revolution
31:01we're going to have to consider
31:04but for now we're going to stop and um
31:07there'll be one more lecture
31:09that kind of deals with this first part
31:11of the course in the opening of the
31:12atlantic world
31:14and i will post that
31:17in a couple of days
31:18so
31:19hope all is well with you and
31:21i will talk with you again soon
31:24take care