Pri­mary sources:

1. Break­ing up the slave-trade. (1850). The African Repos­i­tory (1850–1892), 26(10), 298. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/89573711?accountid=14784This tex­tual arti­cle will help my paper in many ways. This arti­cle explains the slave trad­ing on the coast of Africa and Atlantic Ocean. This detailed arti­cle describes which areas of Africa had slav­ery and which agen­cies were in con­trol of cer­tain ports of slave trade. Know­ing which areas held slav­ery and under which agen­cies helps explain the rela­tions between those agen­cies and slaves. For an exam­ple, although the British had juris­dic­tion in many areas of Africa they had blocked some areas of slave trans­porta­tion. Also, the British seemed to be los­ing much power in Africa when the French took over some of their ports. It’s impor­tant to see where slav­ery is sup­ported and where it is not sup­ported and for what rea­sons can help us bet­ter under­stand slave trad­ing. This source is cred­i­ble because it’s pulled from The African Repos­i­tory from slave trade periods.

2. Mayer, Brantz.“Inspection and Sale of a Negro”. (1854).

This is a pic­ture of a colo­nial male fully dressed in explorer type of cloth­ing that is inspect­ing a slave that is in chains and wear­ing a cloth around his waist only. I felt this pic­ture is impor­tant for my paper because it shows how even with loaded guns and group of col­o­nizer that the slave that is being inspected is still chained. Also, the three African natives stand­ing behind the slave are hold­ing guns so it looks like the slave was sold for some guns. This source is cred­i­ble because the slave painter’s name was attached to the picture.

Sec­ondary sources:

3. Rod­ney, Wal­ter. “African slav­ery and other forms of social oppres­sion on the Upper Guinea coast in the con­text of the Atlantic slave-trade.” The Jour­nal of African His­tory7.03 (1966): 431–443.

This arti­cle will help my paper because it dis­cusses slav­ery as it still was in Africa before the boom of slav­ery towards the Amer­i­cas. It describes how slav­ery was pre-existing in Africa and before impe­r­ial con­trol. His paper talks about how most African natives before were in a serv­ing posi­tion towards local agen­cies like ser­vants for a king. The arti­cle dis­cusses slav­ery of Africans by Africans in dif­fer­ent parts of Africa, which will help with the back­ground por­tion for my paper. It’ll also help me under­stand slave rela­tions by under­stand­ing the his­tory of it.

4. Curtin, Philip D. The Atlantic slave trade: a cen­sus. Univ of Wis­con­sin Press, 1972.

This is a book that gives a good cen­sus of the Atlantic slave trade and gives numer­i­cal data based for how many slaves were sold, bought, and brought to the Amer­i­cas. It gives an overview of slave trade in Africa then in Amer­i­cas. It’s impor­tant to look at the slave trade that hap­pened after the first ini­tial slave trade because then it shows how slav­ery was rein­forced and main­tained across seas.

Jaspreet Kaur

HSTCMP 358

Smallwood

29 May 2015

Slave Trade

Trading slaves was a common practice amongst Africans and the Middle East region the new development of slave trade by the Atlantic voyages brought new forms of slavery. With the boom in the industries across the Atlantic Ocean slave trading intensified back in Africa to where people are being kidnapped and forced into slavery. Many regulations by the Imperial British Crown were set out to even end slave trade practices however such regulations failed when it came to implementing and enforcing them. I will be focusing on the new form of slave trade and how it came to be from the original consented slavery to the new type of slavery, which was for filling a new economic structure across the ocean.

Prior to the Atlantic slavery time period of late 16^th century to the 18^th century, slavery was pre-existing even in European countries. For an example, in the book The Atlantic Slave Trade the author Herbert Klein brings to attention that “slavery still existed in Europe in 1492. Like almost all complex societies in world history until that time, the states of Europe had known slaves from their earliest foundations, and slavery in earlier centuries had been a fundamental labor institution” (Klein, 01). This is very crucial to look at because prior to the Atlantic slave trade practices there was already an existing foundation of slave trading meaning that trading slave was not a new concept. With a pre-existing regulation of slave trading and treatment we can better understand the difference between slave trading before the Americas versus slave trade for the Americas and within the Americas. Since slaves were already a part of the European countries it means that Europeans knew slaves would provide an efficient source of labor therefore motivating the purchases of slaves from Africa. The slaves in Europe were mostly distinguished from other workers like peasants and serfs wasn’t the labor work they provided or any specialization in work, but their lack of familial and communal ties. Slaves are people who are not connected to anyone but their masters and solely rely on their masters (Klein, 02).

However European societies adopted this slave system from the Greeks and Romans, which closely relates to the slave system and practices of the Americas (Klein, 04). The close connection Roman slavery had with the American slavery is the legal scripture around slaves and masters. The dialogue in these legal scriptures displays the same type of ownership of slaves we see in Americas. For an example, Thomas Wiedemann points out in his book Greek and Roman Slavery “The legal convention is an agreement that whatever is captured is the course of warfare is said to belong to the conqueror” (Wiedemann, 17). This relates to slave ownership in the Americas when free slaves would easily fall victim of false ownership of masters claiming slaves as their property. Also, this relates to runaway slaves that have their masters searching for them and claiming them as their property.

There can be a common misconception that slave trade was finalized and only existed in Africa, but trading slaves still continued to exist in the Americas. In this article by Hugh A. Garland he goes on to describe the re-selling and buying of slaves in the Virginia colony. This piece of text shows how slaves take on the same identity, as does property. Slaves are no longer seen as human beings but a commodity of their own labor.

As slavery progressed in the Atlantic slave trade many people began to notice the barbaric practices that followed slavery. Therefore, the Imperial British Crown closed down many of their ports and in their territorial colonized regions banned slavery. In a newsletter called Breaking Up The Slave Trade from the 1850 time period, it showed the regions of them that were under the British regime had closed down their ports and stopped slavery practices. But, in neighboring areas slavery still existed either under the French, Portugal, or Spain. Slave trading of slaves in these areas in Africa didn’t only happen in formal large quantities but also informally. One constant half true fact that people believe is true is that white colonizers just took slaves but since slave trade has been a long practicing labor mechanism Africans sold other Africans. As we can see in the picture below which is painted by Brantz Mayer a former free slave in the time period 1854, we can see what looks like a trade off of a gun supplied by the colonists for another African slave brought by Africans. However, this process soon began to crumble

When other Africans noticed they were being kidnapped and taken without consent for slavery. The author James F. Searing shows in his book West African Slavery and Atlantic Commerce that when other Africans who are not slaves were being kidnapped and taken far away that they began to hide and seek protection (Searing, 02).