Click on the map above. On the page that loads, the interactive map shows the history of the Atlantic slave trade, which lasted from middle of the 15th century to the end of the 19th century.

What questions occur to you as you watch the animation? Certainly, there are many questions this animation raises but some you might consider are:

• Why is there a steady increase in the slave trade starting in 1666?
• Why are the time intervals inconsistent?
• Why do the origins of the dots move further south as time progresses?
• How does the inclusion of modern political borders impact my understanding of this map?

Questions on the Atlantic Slave Trade

Think of one question about the Atlantic slave trade that is NOT googleable (e.g. not factual only). Use the Questioning Grid below to help you create your questions.

Long Description

The Transatlantic Slave Trade

The Transatlantic Slave Trade was motivated by the desire for cheap labour in the Americas. Several European powers, primarily Spain and Portugal, attempted to use the Indigenous people of the Americas as a labour force, but they encountered several problems. The same European diseases that had decimated Mesoamerica impacted potential Indigenous workers, limiting their ability to survive forced labour. Enslaved Africans, however, had already been exposed to the same illnesses as the Europeans, meaning they were much less likely to succumb to them. It was also more difficult for slavers to confine enslaved Indigenous peoples; because the Indigenous people were familiar with the region, they could more easily escape European masters by heading deeper into the continent.

Finally, key figures like Bartolomé de las Casas argued that the Indigenous people should be converted, not enslaved. This argument was applied to Africans with much less frequency, meaning that there were far fewer moral objections to their enslavement.

Several internal factors determined European slavers’ access to potential slaves in Africa. As you learned in an earlier activity, the inconsistent use of hard currency in West Africa meant that slaves were the only pan-regional currency; thus, even those European traders who were not primarily slavers kept slaves on hand for trade. However, the greatest growth in the slave trade came from war. Enslaving prisoners of war was a common practice in Africa; it also provided European slavers with easy access to numerous slaves. The influx of European technologies like guns and gunpowder intensified the conflicts between communities, thus providing slavers with even more potential slaves.

How much impact did war have on the trade? In an interview with BBC History, Doctor Akosua Adoma Perbi, the head of the history department at Ghana's Legon university, explains that “One traveller wrote in his memoirs that in 1681 he had got only eight slaves after combing the whole of Ghana's coast from west to east. But when he asked why that was, he was told the people were at peace.” (BBC News, March 29, 2007)

What Were They Thinking?

At first, it can be challenging to understand why the oppressed might be complicit in their own oppression. This, of course, is why Historical Perspective is so important. For example, you have already learned that Western African communities were not unified. Like their European counterparts, they were often engaged in conflicts that made cooperation highly unlikely. For Europeans and Africans, allegiances with leaders from the other continents were sometimes more likely than an allegiance with neighbouring powers.

The two primary sources below might help you understand the perspective of West Africans. The first explains some of the fears enslaved Africans had about European slavery. The second provides insight into the political maneuvering necessary for African rulers to maintain control of their possessions.

Resistance in the Americas

While enslaved people could not bring possessions with them to the Americas, they did bring traditions and practices that would become part of western culture. For example, the African drumming traditions, brought to America by Africans, provided the backbone for virtually all forms of modern music with a beat, such as jazz, rock, and hip hop. In the late 1600s and 1700s, however, these drums were viewed with deep suspicion by slaveowners. Because the drums were used to communicate at a distance, plantation owners feared that the drums were being used to plan revolts against their owners. Thus, laws were passed throughout the colonies to ban the drum:

While the intent of the drumming is unclear, the perspective of slave owners was not. Clearly, slaveowners feared that the drums were being use to orchestrate violent uprisings. However, in the TED talk below, historian Chris Johnson suggests that the slave’s rebelliousness was far more subtle.

The Slave Trade and Britain

The quotation above is attributed to a drunken 18th century actor who uttered this response to a crowd who booed him off the stage in Liverpool. It is illuminating because it suggests not only the extent to which Britain relied on the slave trade, but also that the public was well aware of the dependency.

The timeline below provides a detailed overview of the slave trade. While you are encouraged to explore the entire timeline to enhance your learning, you are only required to focus on two trails: How the Slave Trade Worked and Resistance and Abolition.