The Impact of the Slave Trade
11th and 12th Grade Literature and Informational Reading Texts
The societal and cultural impacts of the transatlantic slave trade were significant as the mix of diverse peoples gave rise to a new social class structure in Spanish America. Combined with many blended traditions of the Spanish, Native Americans and African peoples, the result was a blended culture that included unique styles of architecture, language, farming styles, cooking styles, drama, dance, song, and religious practices to name a few cultural aspects.
A large part of South America that remained outside of the realm of the Spanish empire due to the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494 was Brazil. Portugal had claimed this area as its empire with the issue of land grants to nobles who agreed to settle the land and share any profits made with the Portuguese crown. A big difference here was that the area of Brazil offered no instant amount of wealth from gold or silver. The exportation of brazilwood and plantation agriculture, along with cattle ranching were the sources of Portuguese profits. However, as many as four million African slaves were sent to this area, like the Spanish empire, a blended culture developed.
The need for slave labor in the Americas was accompanied by the religious argument that Africans could be exposed to Christianity through the work of missionaries and would convert from their current religious practices which were either Islam or a wide variety of polytheistic religions. Ironically, although conversion to Christianity was one of many justifications for enslaving Africans, very little religious conversion occurred because missionary work got in the way of productivity which equalled lower profits. In the southern states of the U.S. the surgence of Protestant Evangelicalism helped bring about the first substantial conversion to Christianity during the few decades prior to the Civil War. After the Civil War, the church continued to exist at the center of the community for newly emancipated slaves. By this time, religion had become one means of helping secure self-determination by African Americans.
The effects of the slave trade on West Africa were daunting-- especially in terms of demographics. West African populations were greatly reduced so slave traders headed into the interior portions of the continent in order to obtain slaves. Coastal areas couldn't keep up with the European demand for slave labor and wars and slave raids within the continent further decimated the population along with consequences to the environment. Only a few traditional kingdoms (like Benin, a kingdom in southern Nigeria) were able to limit the trade or regulate it with local law. In the end, though, few were successful over the long haul: these small, centralized kingdoms were not very effective at resisting the slave trade and their populations dwindled as European demand and greed increased. During the Transatlantic slave trade, millions of slaves were transported to the Americas from Africa. The slave trade benefitted the European economies greatly. However, African society was completely devastated.
The forced migration of the African and Atlantic slave trades dispersed Africans to new locations far from their ancestral homeland. These new locations that enslaved Africans found themselves living in are known as the Diaspora. The African Diaspora resulted from forced migrations in multiple directions: west across the Atlantic, east to the Muslim Middle East, and throughout the African continent. The demand for slaves was highest in lands across the Atlantic, where over ten million enslaved individuals were forced to migrate to during the years of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The combined numbers of sub-Saharan Africans forced to migrate to the Middle East and to lands other than those of their ancestors within Africa near 14 million. For those Africans leaving the continent, more men migrated west and more women migrated east.
The gender disparity among slaves travelling in each direction was dictated by the demands of the slave market in each region. In the west, more men were required for labor- intensive plantation work, whereas there was a higher demand for domestic slaves, usually women, in the east. The destinations of slaves in the western trade, that is the transAtlantic trade, clustered around European colonies with plantation systems. In the 16th and early 17th centuries, most slaves were destined for Spanish and Portuguese mainland colonies, stopping first at the major transit markets on the Caribbean islands of Curacao and St. Eustatius. In the second half of the 16th century, the biggest Spanish-American markets were Veracruz, Cartagena, and Lima.
The preference for male slaves on plantations and the resulting gender imbalance required a steady supply of enslaved Africans through the 18th century, and the origins of these slaves varied. For example, the regions of origin of the majority of slaves in Portuguese Brazil included Senegambia, Bight of Benin, Kongo, and Bight of Biafra. However, concentrations of Africans from the same regions existed in quite a few of the New World colonies. In the French Caribbean colony of Saint Domingue, records show a high percentage of slaves from the Kongo. Africans from West Central Africa were enslaved in large proportions of the British colony, and later American state of South Carolina.
European slave traders and owners referred to African ethnicities as nations. They characterized these nations according to perceived demeanor, and individual slaves and owners would show preference for slaves from particular nations. While the diversity of regions from which slaves originated makes it difficult to generalize, and certainly not all regions or Africans can be lumped together, a good many of Africans in the Diaspora would have shared certain common elements. These elements include a shared religious worldview, including healing practices, similar deities, ancestor worship, and the practice of divination, as well as the music and dance sensibilities that accompanied religious expression. These common elements often served as the basis of new communities in the Diaspora.
In some plantation societies, such as in the West Indies, slaves were required to build their own houses in the slave quarters and organize the communal work areas. Houses and communal work spaces in these instances were African in style, at times reflecting a particular region such as the Mandingo-style pointed roofs of slave houses in the West Indies. It was here, in slave quarters, that Africans in the Diaspora on the western side of the Atlantic Ocean formed new networks and communities.
A large part of South America that remained outside of the realm of the Spanish empire due to the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494 was Brazil. Portugal had claimed this area as its empire with the issue of land grants to nobles who agreed to settle the land and share any profits made with the Portuguese crown. A big difference here was that the area of Brazil offered no instant amount of wealth from gold or silver. The exportation of brazilwood and plantation agriculture, along with cattle ranching were the sources of Portuguese profits. However, as many as four million African slaves were sent to this area, like the Spanish empire, a blended culture developed.
The need for slave labor in the Americas was accompanied by the religious argument that Africans could be exposed to Christianity through the work of missionaries and would convert from their current religious practices which were either Islam or a wide variety of polytheistic religions. Ironically, although conversion to Christianity was one of many justifications for enslaving Africans, very little religious conversion occurred because missionary work got in the way of productivity which equalled lower profits. In the southern states of the U.S. the surgence of Protestant Evangelicalism helped bring about the first substantial conversion to Christianity during the few decades prior to the Civil War. After the Civil War, the church continued to exist at the center of the community for newly emancipated slaves. By this time, religion had become one means of helping secure self-determination by African Americans.
The effects of the slave trade on West Africa were daunting-- especially in terms of demographics. West African populations were greatly reduced so slave traders headed into the interior portions of the continent in order to obtain slaves. Coastal areas couldn't keep up with the European demand for slave labor and wars and slave raids within the continent further decimated the population along with consequences to the environment. Only a few traditional kingdoms (like Benin, a kingdom in southern Nigeria) were able to limit the trade or regulate it with local law. In the end, though, few were successful over the long haul: these small, centralized kingdoms were not very effective at resisting the slave trade and their populations dwindled as European demand and greed increased. During the Transatlantic slave trade, millions of slaves were transported to the Americas from Africa. The slave trade benefitted the European economies greatly. However, African society was completely devastated.
The forced migration of the African and Atlantic slave trades dispersed Africans to new locations far from their ancestral homeland. These new locations that enslaved Africans found themselves living in are known as the Diaspora. The African Diaspora resulted from forced migrations in multiple directions: west across the Atlantic, east to the Muslim Middle East, and throughout the African continent. The demand for slaves was highest in lands across the Atlantic, where over ten million enslaved individuals were forced to migrate to during the years of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The combined numbers of sub-Saharan Africans forced to migrate to the Middle East and to lands other than those of their ancestors within Africa near 14 million. For those Africans leaving the continent, more men migrated west and more women migrated east.
The gender disparity among slaves travelling in each direction was dictated by the demands of the slave market in each region. In the west, more men were required for labor- intensive plantation work, whereas there was a higher demand for domestic slaves, usually women, in the east. The destinations of slaves in the western trade, that is the transAtlantic trade, clustered around European colonies with plantation systems. In the 16th and early 17th centuries, most slaves were destined for Spanish and Portuguese mainland colonies, stopping first at the major transit markets on the Caribbean islands of Curacao and St. Eustatius. In the second half of the 16th century, the biggest Spanish-American markets were Veracruz, Cartagena, and Lima.
The preference for male slaves on plantations and the resulting gender imbalance required a steady supply of enslaved Africans through the 18th century, and the origins of these slaves varied. For example, the regions of origin of the majority of slaves in Portuguese Brazil included Senegambia, Bight of Benin, Kongo, and Bight of Biafra. However, concentrations of Africans from the same regions existed in quite a few of the New World colonies. In the French Caribbean colony of Saint Domingue, records show a high percentage of slaves from the Kongo. Africans from West Central Africa were enslaved in large proportions of the British colony, and later American state of South Carolina.
European slave traders and owners referred to African ethnicities as nations. They characterized these nations according to perceived demeanor, and individual slaves and owners would show preference for slaves from particular nations. While the diversity of regions from which slaves originated makes it difficult to generalize, and certainly not all regions or Africans can be lumped together, a good many of Africans in the Diaspora would have shared certain common elements. These elements include a shared religious worldview, including healing practices, similar deities, ancestor worship, and the practice of divination, as well as the music and dance sensibilities that accompanied religious expression. These common elements often served as the basis of new communities in the Diaspora.
In some plantation societies, such as in the West Indies, slaves were required to build their own houses in the slave quarters and organize the communal work areas. Houses and communal work spaces in these instances were African in style, at times reflecting a particular region such as the Mandingo-style pointed roofs of slave houses in the West Indies. It was here, in slave quarters, that Africans in the Diaspora on the western side of the Atlantic Ocean formed new networks and communities.