African+Societies,+Slavery+and+the+Slave+Trade

M.I: Before the trans-Atlantic slave trade, there was slavery already happening in Africa in which people entered slavery as a way to increase their status in society but the Atlantic slave trade changed all that but it did expand slavery to new regions. · Before the Atlantic slave trade, there existed some kind of slavery on the continent of Africa which the Europeans used to justify their enslavement of the people however, the previous slave trade was on a lesser scale and was something the people used to get some status since during this slave trade lineages could increase their wealth by being slaves. Slaves were used as concubines, servants, soldiers, administrators, and field workers. · In some cases, as was with the ancient empires in Ghana and Kongo, some times villages would be made up of slaves. Muslim traders during this time had slave porters and slaves from the villages to supply their caravan. In many situations though, these forms of servitude were fairly benign and were an extension of lineage and kinship systems and in some cases they were exploitive economic and social relations that reinforced the hierarchies of various African societies and allowed the nobles, senior lineages, and rulers to exercise their power. · Sometimes though, slaves were put in situations that they didn’t want to be in. Where they became dependent and their status in society became inferior, in this case mostly of the slaves were women. Who were degraded and this allowed men to use this as an excuse for polygamy, and it created harems of rulers and merchants. · The Muslims it was legitimate to enslave the non-Muslims but for them it was illegal and despite that Sudanic states enslaved both Muslims and non-Muslims who they used to produce agriculture surpluses for the rulers and nobles of Songhay, Gao, and other States, gold mining, salt production, and as caravan workers in the Sahara. Slavery during this time was a widely diffused form of labor control and wealth in Africa. · The African rulers did not enslave their own people rather their neighbors and they were quick to sell them to the Europeans in exchange for aid and commodities. M.I: The new and constant demand for slaves intensified enslavement in Africa and perhaps changed the nature of slavery itself in some African societies. · The endless wars that occurred within the African states promoted the importance of the military and the made of sale of captives into the slave trade and extension of the politics. Some people believed that the wars were religion based while others believed that it was the result of the European demand for new slaves. · Increasing centralization and hierarchy could be seen in the enslaving African societies, a contrary trend of self-sufficiency and anti-authoritarian ideas developed among the peoples who bore the brunt of the slaving tracks. · People who were right on the coast tried to monopolize the trade with Europeans, but European meddling in their internal affairs and European fears of any coastal power that became too strong blocked the creation of centralized states under the shadow of European forts. · Western and central African Kingdoms however began to redirect trade toward the coast and to expand their influence. They received access to guns, iron, horses, cloth, tobacco, and other goods and so in exchange for slaves they asked mainly for firearms which helped with their expansion. M.I: Rulers in the states that had formed during the slave era grew in power and often surrounded themselves with ritual authority and a luxurious court life as a way of reinforcing the position that their armies had won. · The empire of Asante rose to prominence in the period of the slave trade. Their cooperation and their access to firearms after 1650 initiated a period of centralization and expansion. They became a new power and when the Dutch realized this in 1700, they dealt with them directly. · The Asante had a constant supply of prisoners which they used as slaves and who made up for almost two-thirds of their trade. · Even in the 1516, the ruler limited the slave trade from Benin, and for a long time most trade with Europeans was controlled directly with the king and was in pepper, textiles, and ivory rather than in slaves. Eventually they began trading slaves but slavery was never the primary source of revenue or state policy in Benin. · The kingdom of Dahomey emerged as a power in the 17th century and its kings ruled with the advice of powerful councils but when they got access to firearms in the 1720’s, it rulers created an autocratic and sometimes brutal political regime that was based on the slave trade. It began to expand toward the coast seizing power from other states which impressed and attracted many European traders. · It maintained its autonomy and turned increasingly to the cycle of firearms and slaves. This trade was controlled by the royal court whose armies (including a regiment of women) were used to raid for more captives. As it expanded though, it eliminated the royal families and customs of the areas it conquered and imposed its own traditions which made it a united state and which helped it last longer than some of its neighbors. · Dahomey was a slaving state in the 19th century and it depended on the trade which had negative effects on the society as a whole. More than 1.8 million slaves were exported. · The growing divine authority of the rulers paralleled the rise of absolutism in Europe which led to the development of new political forms, some of which had the power to limit the role of the king. · In many places, crafts such as bronze casting, wood carving, and weaving flourished and guilds of artisans developed in many societies, and their specialization produced crafts executed with great skill. Arts were appreciated by Europeans who employed African artists. M.I: West Africa was the region most directly influenced by the trans-Atlantic slave trade, but there and elsewhere in Africa, long patterns of society and economy continued and intersected with the new external influences. · On the east coast of Africa, they dealt with military presence of the Portuguese and Ottoman Turks and continued commerce in the Indian Ocean. Trade in the interior brought ivory, gold, and a steady supply of slaves continuously. · Many slaves were destined of harms and households in Arabia and the Middle East by a small number was taken by the Europeans for plantations. · Swahili, Indian, and Arabian merchants followed the European model and set up clove-producing plantations using African slave laborers. · Large and small kingdoms form the interior of eastern Africa were supported by the well watered and heavily populated region of the great lakes of the interior.
 * Across the continent, in the northern savanna at the end of the 18th century, the process of Islamization, which had been important in the days of the Mali and Songhay empires, entered a new and violent stage not only linked Islamization to the external slave trade and the growth of slavery in Africa but also produced other long-term effects in the region.
 * Kingdoms that succeded the Songhay kingdom, were ruled by Muslim royal families and urban aristocracies but continued to contain large numbers of animist subjects, most of whom were rural peasants.
 * In western Sudan, religious brotherhoods advocating a purifying sufi variant of Islam extended their influence throughout the Muslim trade networks in the Senegambia region and the western Sudan. This had an intense impact on the Fulani.
 * Usuman Dan Fodio, a studious and charismatic Muslim Fulani scholar, began preaching the reformist ideology in the Hausa kingdoms which soon led to an upheavel in the kingdom, which turned in the over throw of the rulers and the unity under one caliph. This movement involved religious zeal and political ambition.
 * Literarcy became more widely dispresed and new centers of trade emerged during this period.
 * These upheavells moved by relgious, political, and economic motives, were affected by the external pressures on Afrca and fed into the ongoing processes of the external slave trade and the developement of slavery within African societies.
 * Captives resulting from wars were exported were exported down to the coast for sale to the Europeans, while another stream of slaves crossed the Sahara to North Africa.
 * Different roles were assigned to every different kind of slave but it was something that they had been accustomed to their everyday lives before becoming slaves though majority of them were involved in agricultural labor.