History of Slavery
(A Perspective/overview for better understanding the Black Diaspora in the New World)
It is necessary to understand that, slavery itself was a major institution in antiquity (5th to 15th centuries - Dark/Middle Ages *). Slaves helped build the pyramids of Egypt and the world's first agricultural revolution: the hydraulic system of China. In the golden years of both Greece and Rome, slaves worked as domestic servants, in mines and public works, in gangs, and individually, on farms and other areas, including brothels. Many slaves of old Rome were fair Germans, including Saxons. Caesar, it may be recalled, brought "many captives home to Rome from the Gallic Wars. In the sixth century B.C., the Greeks and Romans were unprejudiced on grounds of race; they were quite insensible as to whether someone with black skin was superior to someone with white, or vice versa. So it is scarcely surprising that miscegenation was neither repugnant nor unexpected. Many Ethiopians married Greeks or Egyptians. Noteworthy, black heads are to be observed on Greek vases. Matter of fact, wild suggestions have been made that the ancient civilization in Greece had both Egyptian and a black origin. That imaginative view, if true, might affect any history of the Atlantic slave trade. Why? Socrates may have been black; Cleopatra may have had black blood, but odds are against it.
At the end of the Roman Empire, most ancient institutions collapsed. So did most families, gods and traditions. But slavery survived. The new masters of the old Roman world (The dark ages of Europe) obtained most of their slaves by capture in war; and war was then incessant. There was continual fighting between the different Anglo-Saxon monarchies. The laws of most of these successor states to Rome reflected Roman practice, though they adopted them to the new age. So throughout the early Middle Ages, the rules and codes for slavery began to appear much harsher
Black slaves also existed in antiquity. Egyptians had always traded in black slaves, during the time of the pharaohs. Egypt had a taste for black slave and was able to satisfy this caprice by trading with the territories to the south (Trans-Sahara trading.) Islam in fact accepted slavery as an unquestionable part of human organization. Islamic laws were more benign than the Romans. Slaves were not to be treated like animals.
West Africa itself had known slavery on a small scale, before the coming of Islam, and had so, since the establishment there of settled agricultural societies. African Kings who collected and sold slaves for lucrative export to the north usually kept a few for their own use.
The turning point for European journeys to West Africa came when, in 1415, the Portuguese mounted a military expedition and took Ceuta, then one of the greatest commercial entrepots on the south coast of the Mediterranean, and the northern terminus of several caravan routes in Africa. In 1444 they began their political intervention in Africa, and by 1478, they were found not only buying slaves in the estuaries of the African waterways, for transport to Portugal, but also taking them to be sold to Africans at Elmina Castle, (see “dropdown page” entitled Forts) where they were traded for gold. By 1466 the king of Portugal was making more money selling black slaves to foreigners than from the taxes levied on the entire kingdom.
The Spaniards were, indeed, still exploring Africa at the time. The demand for African slaves was growing in Spain and by 1475 their expedition began to bring back Africans for the Spanish domestic market. All the black slaves traded in Portugal, Spain and Africa were initially regarded then as just one more form of commodity and, though prized, not as an especially unusual one.
These Africans, particularly those south of the Sahara, were far from unsophisticated as the Europeans began to portray them to be: they weaved and used cotton and linen, they fished from well-built canoes (essential element of economic life); pottery had been practiced for centuries, they had recognizable chiefs and, of course, they traded. The smelting of iron and steel in West Africa was similar to that in Europe in the thirteenth century. These metals equipped most African households with knifes, shears, axes, and hoes. It is true that West Africa did not have wheeled vehicles, but those were still rare in Europe. Nor did they use the iron to invent the firearm. But it would be false to depict West Africa at the moment as being inhabited by primitive people as the Europeans led themselves to believe. In many respects, as noted below, they were at a higher level than those who the Europeans would soon meet in the New World. The color of their skin would make the difference.
Matter of fact, when it was realized that the Africans liked music, African bands of drummers and flute players were encouraged in Lisbon. These slaves brought to Portugal a little of their music and some of their dances, and many maintained their own languages, adopting it to create a pidgin Portuguese like our forebears had to do, as forced immigrants in the New World Diaspora.
This brings us to the Great Dreamer, Christopher Columbus, who lived for a time in Portugal’s plantation island of Madeira, with its, then, ample population of African slaves. As such, it is fair to say that he was a product of the new Atlantic slave-powered society. It would not be surprising if he had carried a few black slaves to the Caribbean on his first and second voyage in 1492 and 1493. Some unrecorded black slaves are certainly supposed to have reached the New World before the end of the fifteenth century. Furthermore, on his third voyage in 1496 Columbus himself returned to Spain with thirty Indians who he hoped to dispose of as slaves.
The native Indians were enslaved to do the hard work on plantations and the mines as the Europeans began settling in the New World. Whatever the population of Hispaniola (Todays Dominican Republic and Haiti) when Columbus landed in 1492,
there were in 1510, only 25,000 people able to work. The native Indians were by then in rapid decline, more from the disease brought by the Europeans than from loss of faith in the future and from the overwork to which they were subjected in the mines and fields. On a whole, the large-scale contact with Europeans after 1492 introduced novel germs to the Indian population; killing between 10 million and 20 million people, up to 95% of the indigenous population. The European lifestyle included a long history of sharing close quarters with domesticated animals back home, which had resulted in epidemic diseases unknown in the Americas. Soon the collapse of the Caribbean population would change the African slave trade to the Americas into a major enterprise.
At the end of the Roman Empire, most ancient institutions collapsed. So did most families, gods and traditions. But slavery survived. The new masters of the old Roman world (The dark ages of Europe) obtained most of their slaves by capture in war; and war was then incessant. There was continual fighting between the different Anglo-Saxon monarchies. The laws of most of these successor states to Rome reflected Roman practice, though they adopted them to the new age. So throughout the early Middle Ages, the rules and codes for slavery began to appear much harsher
Black slaves also existed in antiquity. Egyptians had always traded in black slaves, during the time of the pharaohs. Egypt had a taste for black slave and was able to satisfy this caprice by trading with the territories to the south (Trans-Sahara trading.) Islam in fact accepted slavery as an unquestionable part of human organization. Islamic laws were more benign than the Romans. Slaves were not to be treated like animals.
West Africa itself had known slavery on a small scale, before the coming of Islam, and had so, since the establishment there of settled agricultural societies. African Kings who collected and sold slaves for lucrative export to the north usually kept a few for their own use.
The turning point for European journeys to West Africa came when, in 1415, the Portuguese mounted a military expedition and took Ceuta, then one of the greatest commercial entrepots on the south coast of the Mediterranean, and the northern terminus of several caravan routes in Africa. In 1444 they began their political intervention in Africa, and by 1478, they were found not only buying slaves in the estuaries of the African waterways, for transport to Portugal, but also taking them to be sold to Africans at Elmina Castle, (see “dropdown page” entitled Forts) where they were traded for gold. By 1466 the king of Portugal was making more money selling black slaves to foreigners than from the taxes levied on the entire kingdom.
The Spaniards were, indeed, still exploring Africa at the time. The demand for African slaves was growing in Spain and by 1475 their expedition began to bring back Africans for the Spanish domestic market. All the black slaves traded in Portugal, Spain and Africa were initially regarded then as just one more form of commodity and, though prized, not as an especially unusual one.
These Africans, particularly those south of the Sahara, were far from unsophisticated as the Europeans began to portray them to be: they weaved and used cotton and linen, they fished from well-built canoes (essential element of economic life); pottery had been practiced for centuries, they had recognizable chiefs and, of course, they traded. The smelting of iron and steel in West Africa was similar to that in Europe in the thirteenth century. These metals equipped most African households with knifes, shears, axes, and hoes. It is true that West Africa did not have wheeled vehicles, but those were still rare in Europe. Nor did they use the iron to invent the firearm. But it would be false to depict West Africa at the moment as being inhabited by primitive people as the Europeans led themselves to believe. In many respects, as noted below, they were at a higher level than those who the Europeans would soon meet in the New World. The color of their skin would make the difference.
Matter of fact, when it was realized that the Africans liked music, African bands of drummers and flute players were encouraged in Lisbon. These slaves brought to Portugal a little of their music and some of their dances, and many maintained their own languages, adopting it to create a pidgin Portuguese like our forebears had to do, as forced immigrants in the New World Diaspora.
This brings us to the Great Dreamer, Christopher Columbus, who lived for a time in Portugal’s plantation island of Madeira, with its, then, ample population of African slaves. As such, it is fair to say that he was a product of the new Atlantic slave-powered society. It would not be surprising if he had carried a few black slaves to the Caribbean on his first and second voyage in 1492 and 1493. Some unrecorded black slaves are certainly supposed to have reached the New World before the end of the fifteenth century. Furthermore, on his third voyage in 1496 Columbus himself returned to Spain with thirty Indians who he hoped to dispose of as slaves.
The native Indians were enslaved to do the hard work on plantations and the mines as the Europeans began settling in the New World. Whatever the population of Hispaniola (Todays Dominican Republic and Haiti) when Columbus landed in 1492,
there were in 1510, only 25,000 people able to work. The native Indians were by then in rapid decline, more from the disease brought by the Europeans than from loss of faith in the future and from the overwork to which they were subjected in the mines and fields. On a whole, the large-scale contact with Europeans after 1492 introduced novel germs to the Indian population; killing between 10 million and 20 million people, up to 95% of the indigenous population. The European lifestyle included a long history of sharing close quarters with domesticated animals back home, which had resulted in epidemic diseases unknown in the Americas. Soon the collapse of the Caribbean population would change the African slave trade to the Americas into a major enterprise.
Moreover, these Indians had already shown themselves to be nothing like such workers as black Africans, many of whom were accustomed to domestic animals and who also resisted disease well. Africans, too, were better able to work with horses than were the indigenous Indians, for the Mandingo, the Fula, and the Wolof people of Africa, at least, had an equestrian tradition.
So it is not surprising that on January 22, 1510, King Ferdinand should have given authority for, first, fifty black slaves to go to Hispaniola for the benefit of the mines – the slaves needed “to be the best available.”
The provision of slaves for the New World was now becoming what it was to be, in ever-increasing dimensions, for the next 350 years: a source of income for the merchants as well as the Crowns of Europe -- and hell for the Guinea men (blacks of Africa).
*Early 5th to 15th centuries AD. The period is characterized by a relatively scarcity of historical and other written records rendering it obscure to historians.
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So it is not surprising that on January 22, 1510, King Ferdinand should have given authority for, first, fifty black slaves to go to Hispaniola for the benefit of the mines – the slaves needed “to be the best available.”
The provision of slaves for the New World was now becoming what it was to be, in ever-increasing dimensions, for the next 350 years: a source of income for the merchants as well as the Crowns of Europe -- and hell for the Guinea men (blacks of Africa).
*Early 5th to 15th centuries AD. The period is characterized by a relatively scarcity of historical and other written records rendering it obscure to historians.
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