WHAP - Mr. Duez Ch. 15: Global Commerce
Unit 4: Early Modern World1450-1750
The Atlantic Slave TradeThe Slave Ship, originally entitled Slavers Throwing overboard the Dead and Dying—Typhoon coming on, is a painting by British artist J.M.W. Turner, 1840.
Olaudah EquianoThe Journey to Slavery
"The Slave Ship" by British artist J. M. W. Turner, 1840.
In this classic example of a Romantic maritime painting, Turner depicts a ship, visible in the background, sailing through a tumultuous sea of churning water and leaving scattered human forms floating in its wake.
If you choose to take Mr. Gillespie’s AP European History course as a junior or senior,
you will learn much more about Turner and other European artists of this time period.
We will watch the documentary: The Power of Art: David ( painter French Revolution)
in Atlantic Revolutions chapter. Art is powerful and moves people to act. Remember,
art galleries during this time period were similar to movie theaters today.
Published on Mar 6, 2012. Part 1 to the top right & Part 2 bottom right.
Mr. John Gillespie, Dual Credit US History & AP European History teacher, explains the reason why history is constantly changing. He asserts that people's bias & perspective is unique to their own life experiences, & explains the experiment he conducts with his students every year to show how history is biased & inconsistent.
”Let me suggest to you, that history, the events, the sayings, the wars, the treaties, the other deeds of the past, do not change, they happened after all, nobody can change that without a time machine, but the telling of history changes. The telling of history changes. Our perspective on history changes. How we see the past and interpret the past changes."
YouTube: Khan Academy - Turner, Slave Ship (Art History)
The Middle Passage
Mid-18th cent. painting of slaves held
below deck on a Spanish slave ship
illustrates horrendous conditions of
the transatlantic voyage
Compare English & Spanish Colonies.
Brazil & Caribbean: No earlier civilization existed & production of sugar for export defined economy. Spanish colonists rarely included women & families. Large # of Africans were imported as slave labor.Considerable amount of racial mixing took place. Mixed-race population: Much of the urban skilled workforce & supervisors in sugar industry, as well as some prominent members of community.
More slaves were voluntarily set free by their owners in Brazil than in N. America.
Interior of Slave Ship: This detailed drawing of the interior of a slave ship shows how the "cargo" was arranged to maximize capacity.
The Middle Passage
Compare English & Spanish Colonies.
Sugar Cane Plantations: Hell on Earth in Caribbean.The worst place to work as a slave in the Americas.
1. What was distinctive about the Atlantic slave trade? 2. What did it share with other patterns of slave owning and slave trading?3. What explains the rise of Atlantic slave trade?4. What roles did Europeans and Africans play in the unfolding of the Atlantic slave trade?5. In what different ways did the Atlantic slave trade transform African societies?
This 18th cent. French painting
shows the sale of slaves at Goree, a
major slave trading port in what is
now Dakar in Senegal.
A European merchant & an African
authority figure negotiate the
arrangement, while the shackled
victims themselves wait for their
fate to be decided.
Compare English & Spanish Colonies.
European merchants waited on
board their ships or in fortified
port cities to purchase slaves from
African merchants & elites.
African slavery in the New World
★ Differed fundamentally
from past instances of
slavery in world history
★ Clearly racially based &
plantation economies were
driving force
Those who were captured &
enslaved by other African peoples
were seen to be outcasts &
foreigners, often prisoners of war,
within local villages.
House of Slaves, Senegal: Goree Island in Dakar, Senegal now stands as a memorial to the Atlantic Slave Trade. For many years, it housed slaves before they were loaded onto ships bound for the Americas.
Long-term impact on West Africa: Economic stagnation & political disruption
★ Without a strong role in the Afro-Eurasian trade Africa: unplugged from world trade
★ Sand routes & Islamic trading networks simply destabilized & collapsed as Europeans sailed around the continent.
★ Elimination of Islamic & North African “middlemen” created a transfer of wealth to Western Europe & devastated the economy & culture of Africa & later Islamic world*
*mostly Ottoman Empire★ Opened the door to corruption,
slavery, & later colonization of Africa.
Slave Market Memorial: These statues of chained slaves in Tanzania stand as a memorial to the old slave market.
St. George's Castle, Ghana: Tourists explore holding cells once used to hold slaves before they were shipped off across the Atlantic.
European slavers point of view:
To Europeans slave traders, Africans were ideal slaves because:
★ Immune systems could handle many tropical & European
diseases.
★ Came from a largely agricultural society.
★ W. Africa was relatively close to Brazil & Caribbean by sea.
How should we distribute the moral
responsibility for the Atlantic slave trade?
Mankind - History of all of us
Episode - Treasure, min. 32:21 - 39:00
Queen Nzingha a Mbande (c. 1583-1663) 17th cent. queen of the Ndongo & Matamba Kingdoms of the Mbundu people in southwestern Africa.
YouTube: CrashCourse WH - Atlantic Slave Trade
