United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization , Organisation des Nations Unies pour l’kducation, la science:e t la culture I SLAVE VOYAGES The Transatlantic Trade in Enslaved Africans Hilary McDonald Beckles University of the West Indies Educational resource for teachers prepared with the financial assistance of NORAD (Norway), for “Breaking the Silence”, the Transatlantic Slave Trade Education Project, Associated Schools Project Network, Division for the Promotion of Quality Education. ASPnet Address : 7, place de Fontenoy, 75352 Paris 07 SPA, rue Miollis, 75732 Paris Cedex 15 Tel. central : + (33.1) 45.68.10.80 - Fax central : + (33.1) 45.67.56.39 - Email asnnet@unesc:O.OTg Website : httn://w~.unesco.ore/educationfasu (ED-2002/WS/3?') ____-_- ._- ..- CONTENTS List of Tables l Timeline: The Transatlantic Slave Trade l Timeline: The Emancipation Process 1772- 1888 l Introduction 10 1. The Origins and Development of Slavery 21 2. West Africa before the Transatlantic Slave Trade 34 3. The Transatlantic Slave Trade 47 4. Slavery in the Americas 59 5. Financial and Commercial Organization 78 6. Volume and Variation 92 7. The Middle Passage: A Way of Death 105 8. Prices and Profitability 120 9. Resistance and Rebellion 135 10. The Impact of the Trade on Africa 147 11. The Impact of the Trade on Western Europe and the Americas 160 12. Abolition Struggles and Opposition Movements 174 13. Legacies and New African Identities 194 Bibliography 210 List of Tables Table 1: Spanish-American Slave Imports, 1595-1640 Table 2: Volume of Slave-Trade Departures by African Region and Period, 15 19- 1867 Table 3: Estimates of the Volume of the Transatlantic Trade since Curtin Table 4: Volume of the Transatlantic Trade by Carriers’ Nationality, 15 19-l 867. Table 5: Sex Ratios of Slaves from different African Regions, 1764-88 Table 6: Sex Ratios of Slaves landed in the West Indies by Region of Origin, 178 l-98 Table 7: Slave Mortality on ships owned by the Dutch West India Company Table 8: A Surgeon’s (Joseph Buckhana) Journal of slave mortality: An account of the slaves that died on board the James [Master, Mathew Morley], sailing from Africa to the West Indies, Nov. 4, 1788 to Feb. 8, 1789. Table 9: Nantes Slaving Departures Table 10: Major French Slaving Families (1708-1790) Table 11: Slave Prices in Brazil (Pemambuco) and Jamaica Table 12: Profit and Loss per voyage - William Davenport of Liverpool 1757-‘1785 Table 13: Average slave prices in Africa and the Caribbean, 167Os-1780s Table 14: Value of slaves exported Table 15: Guns imported into West Africa from England, 1796- 1805 Table 16: Exports of manufactures from England (f;) 3 -1___1 - -. Timeline: The Transatlantic Slave Trade 1502 First African slaves in the New World. 1640-1680 Beginning of large-scale introduction of African slave labour for sugar production in the British Caribbean. 1791 The Haitian Revolution begins as a slave uprising near Le Cap in the French West Indian colony of Saint Domingue, leading to the establishment of the independent nation of Haiti in 1804. 1793 White refugees pour into U.S. ports, fleeing the insurrection in Saint Domingue. 1794 The French National Convention emancipates all slaves in the French colonies. March 22: The U.S. Congress passes legislation prohibiting the manufacture, fitting, equipping, loading or dispatching of any vessel to be employed in the slave trade. 1795 Pinckney’s Treaty establishes commercial relations between the U.S. and Spain. 1800 May 10: The U.S. enacts stiff penalties for American citizens serving voluntarily on slavers trading between two foreign countries. 1804 The Republic of Haiti, the second republic in the Northern Hemisphere, is declared on January 1 1804 by General Jean-Jacques Dessalines. Haiti, or Ayiti in Creole, was the name given to the island by the indigenous Taino-Arawak peoples, meaning “mountainous country.” 1807 The British Parliament bans the transatlantic slave trade. Great Britain declares the West African country of Sierra Leone a crown colony. U.S. passes legislation banning the slave trade, to take effect in 1808. 1810 Britain negotiates an agreement with Portugal calling for the gradual abolition of the slave trade in the South Atlantic. 4 1815 At the Congress of Vienna, the British pressure Spain, Portugal, France and the Netherlands into abolishing the slave trade, though Spain and Portugal are permitted a few years of continued slaving to replenish labour supplies. 1817 September 23: Great Britain and Spain sign a treaty prohibiting the slave trade, Spain agreeing to end the slave trade north of the equator immediately, with that south of the equator ending in 1820. British naval vessels are given the right to search suspected slave ships. Nevertheless, loopholes in the treaty undercut its goals, and slavery continues until 1830. The slave economies of Cuba and Brazil expand rapidly. In the Le Louis case, British courts establish the principle that British naval vessels cannot search foreign vessels suspected of slaving unless permitted to do so lby their respective countries - a ruling that hampers British efforts to suppress the slave trade. 1819 The U.S. and Spain renew their commercial agreements in the Adams-Onis Treaty. The U.S. Congress passes legislation stiffening provisions against American participation in the slave trade. Britain stations a naval squadron off the West-African coast to patrol the area against illegal slavers. 1820 May 15: U.S. law equates slave trading with piracy, which is punishable by the death penalty. The U.S. Navy dispatches four vessels to patrol the West-African coast for slavers. This campaign lasts for four years, before the cruisers are recalled and co-operation with the British broken off. 1824 Britain and the U.S. negotiate a treaty condemning the slave trade as piracy and establishing joint procedures for its suppression. However, the U.S. Senate makes a series of amendments to the treaty, and the British refuse to sign. 1825 5 The Antelope case: A U.S. patrol seizes a slave ship, the Antelope, sailing under a Venezuelan flag with a cargo of 281 Africans. The U.S. Supreme Court hears the case and issues a unanimous opinion declaring the slave trade to be a violation of natural law. However, the ruling only sets some of the 281 Africans free, holding that the U.S. cannot prescribe law for other nations and noting that the slave trade is legal in Spain, Portugal and Venezuela. As a result, the vessel is restored to its owners, along with those Africans designated by the court as Spanish property (numbering 39). 1831 A large-scale slave revolt, led by Sam Sharpe, breaks out in Jamaica and is brutally suppressed. 1833 Britain passes the Abolition of Slavery Act, to take effect in August 1834, providing for the emancipation of slaves in the British West Indies. Following their emancipation, a six-year period of apprenticeship is permitted for former slaves. 1835 June 28: The Anglo-Spanish agreement on the slave trade is renewed, and enforcement is tightened. British cruisers are authorized to stop suspected Spanish slavers and bring them before mixed commissions in Sierra Leone and in Havana. Vessels carrying specified “articles of equipment,” such as extra mess gear, lumber and foodstuffs, are declaredprimafacie to be slavers. 1837 Britain invites the U.S. and France to create a joint international patrol to stop slaving. The U.S. declines to participate. 1838 Most colonial assemblies in the British West Indies have introduced legislation dismantling the apprenticeship system for former slaves. Laws against vagrancy and squatting attempt to keep the social and labour system of the plantation economies intact, with varying results. 1839 January: Nicholas Trist, U.S. Consul in Havana, recommends that the U.S. Administration dispatch a naval squadron to West Africa to patrol for slavers, warning that the British will police American vessels if the U.S. does not act. 6 June 12: The British navy brig Buzzard escorts two American slavers, the Elzgle and the Clara, to New York, where they are to be tried for piracy. Two further slavers arrive several weeks later, together with a further pair later in the autumn of tihe same year. The Amistad is seized off Long Island and taken to New London. (Fall) U.S. federal officers arrest several ship owners in Baltimore accused. by the British of being slave traders. Several schooners being built for the trade are also seized. J.W.M. Turner’s painting The Slave Ship (also known as Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying - Typhoon coming on) goes on display at the Royal Academy in London. 1841 Nicholas Trist is dismissed as U.S. Consul in Havana amid allegations that he connived at, or made no effort to suppress, the illegal sale of U.S. vessels to Spanish slave traders. Timeline: The Emancipation Process, 1772-1888 1772 In Britain, Lord Chief Justice Mansfield rules that English law does not support slavery, thus laying the basis for freeing England’s 15,000 slaves. 1774 The English Society of Friends votes for the expulsion of any member engage’d in the slave trade. 1775 Slavery abolished in Madeira. 1776 The Societies of Friends in England and in Pennsylvania in the U.S. require their members to free their slaves or face expulsion. 1777 The Constitution of the State of Vermont prohibits slavery. 1780 7 --- - L.-__I-..-~-- The Constitution of Massachusetts declares all men to be free and equal; a judicial decision in 1783 interprets this as meaning that slavery should be abolished. Pennsylvania adopts a policy of gradual emancipation, freeing the children of all slaves born after 1 November 1780 on their 28fh birthday. 1784 Rhode Island and Connecticut pass gradual emancipation laws. 1787 The “Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade” is set up in England. 1791 The Haitian Revolution begins. 1794 The French National Convention abolishes slavery in all French territories. This is repealed by Napoleon in 1802. 1799 New York State passes a gradual emancipation law. 1800 U.S. citizens barred from exporting slaves. 1804 Haiti declares independence from France, and slavery there is abolished. New Jersey adopts a policy of gradual emancipation. 1805 The Constitution of Haiti provides that any slave arriving in Haiti is automatically both free and a citizen of the country. 1807 England and the United States prohibit their citizens from engaging in the international slave trade. 1813 Gradual emancipation adopted in Argentina. 1814 Gradual emancipation begins in Colombia. 1820 Britain begins to use its naval power to suppress the slave trade. 1823 Slavery abolished in Chile. 1824 8 Slavery abolished in Central America. 1829 Slavery abolished in Mexico. 1831 Slavery abolished in Bolivia. 1838 Slavery abolished in all British colonies. 1841 The Quintuple Treaty is signed, under which England, France, Russia, Prussia and Austria agree to search vessels on the high seas in order to suppress the slave trade. 1842 Slavery abolished in Uruguay. 1848 Slavery abolished in all French and Danish colonies. 1851 Slavery abolished in Ecuador. Slave trade ended in Brazil. 1854 Slavery abolished in Peru and Venezuela. 1862 Slave trade ended in Cuba. 1863 Slavery abolished in all Dutch colonies. 1865 Slavery abolished in the U.S. as a result of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution and the end of the Civil War. 1871 Gradual emancipation initiated in Brazil. 1873 Slavery abolished in Puerto Rico. 1886 Slavery abolished in Cuba. 1888 Slavery abolished in Brazil. Introduction The transatlantic slave trade is now generally accepted to have been a crime against humanity, even in those countries on both sides of the Atlantic that actively participated in it. The French Government, for example, designated the trade as such in February 1999, and UNESCO has also endorsed this point of view, launching a “Slave Routes Project” in an effort to “break the silence” that the Organization believes still surrounds this tragedy. The objectives of the project are to encourage the production and popularization of scientific knowledge about the transatlantic slave trade and to promote inter-cultural peace and dialogue. Though recent decades have seen an explosion in academic publications on the slave trade, comprehensive accounts of a general nature are still not readily available for educational purposes, contributing to the silence around the trade that the UNESCO project seeks to break. Students around the world still have a limited understanding of the tragedy that the slave trade represented, and the understanding that they do have of it is still too largely determined by their immediate cultural and political environments. Increasing the availability of teaching materials on the slave trade should, therefore, be an important part of the UNESCO project. In West Africa, for example, students have reported difficulties in assessing how traditionally localized systems of exploiting the labour of, and of buying and selling, unfree persons historically gave way to, or developed into, the slave trade, which, by the mid-18th century had assumed a dominant commercial position in their societies. Similarly, European students continue to find it paradoxical that their countries, while domestically championing notions of human rights and of civil 10