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The influence of the Atlantic slave trade
The effect of the Atlantic slave trade
Intra africa slavery and servitude
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In the 21st century, slavery and the Atlantic Slave Trade are viewed as immoral and quite possibly the most horrifying treatment known to man by society and foreign leaders but, was the same view regarded in the 17th century? The short primary sources, “Nzinga Mbemba: Appeal to the King of Portugal”, and “Captain Thomas Phillips: Buying Slaves in 1639”, enables individuals to identify how foreign leaders, specifically the kings of African nations, conducted the issue of slavery and the slave trade. In the words of Nzinga Mbemba and Captain Phillips, the kings of Congo and Ouidah both knowingly accepted slavery in their country but, had strikingly opposing views concerning the Atlantic Slave Trade; King Mbemba prohibited the trading of slaves whereas the King of Ouidah welcomed slave trading. During the 17th century, slavery was a widely used commodity with the Europeans, little do people know however that African kings also had and accepted slavery in their own nations. King Nzinga Mbemba of Congo and the King of Ouidah had similarities on the issue of slavery; they tolerated the use of slaves. Congo’s king had no contingency with slavery; in fact, he had slaves in his country. When the Portuguese were purchasing goods in Congo, the king had men “investigate if the mentioned goods are captives or free men” (NZ, 622). The fact that the king differentiates the men between ‘free’ and ‘captives’ illustrates that not all people in Congo are free. Whether these captives are from the country of Congo or not, they are still caught and held all across the nation against their will. King Mbemba kept slaves because the population of Congo was vastly declining due to the slave trade. In his letter, he pleads with the king of Portug... ... middle of paper ... ...nd contrasting points of African kings. While they both approved the use of slaves, Mbemba despised the slave trade and coaxed Portugal’s royalty into ending the entire business for the benefit of his nation. The king of Ouidah however seemed adamant about getting rid of his slaves in the trade without regard to how the slaves were being treated or how it affected his country. The mixed opinions on the slave trade and the identical thoughts of slavery during the 17th century allows one to see the varying notions the two issues had on the kings in Africa. Works Cited Reilly, "Nzinga Mbemba: Appeal to the King of Portugal." Worlds of History, Volume Two: Since 1400: A Comparative Reader, July, 2010, [620-623]. Reilly, "Captain Thomas Phillips: Buying Slaves in 1693." Worlds of History, Volume Two: Since 1400: A Comparative Reader, July, 2010, [623-629].
The Atlantic Slave Trade affected millions of lives throughout the centuries that it existed and now many years later. It was so widely and easily spread throughout four continents and with these documents we get to read about three different people with three different point of views. A story of the life as a slave from an African American slave himself, how the slave trade was just a business from the point of view from merchants and kings, and letter from King Affonso I referring to the slave trade to King Jiao of Portugal.
One of the major questions asked about the slave trade is ‘how could so Europeans enslave so many millions of Africans?” Many documents exist and show historians what the slave trade was like. We use these stories to piece together what it must have been to be a slave or a slaver. John Barbot told the story of the slave trade from the perspective of a slaver in his “A Description of the Coasts of North and South Guinea.” Barbot describes the life of African slaves before they entered the slave trade.
Phillips' book is an attempt to provide an overview of the practice and institutions of slavery in the Americas from its beginnings to the 19th century. Writing in 1918, Phillips hoped to provide an account of slavery based upon historical evidence and modern methods of research, rather than ideological motivations. He drew his evidence from the plantation records and letters of slave owners; contemporary travel accounts; court records and legal documents; newspaper articles; and in some instances, the recordings of slaves themselves, rather than what he viewed as more biased sources such as abolitionist writings. While this approach was not systematic and led him to base many of his conclusions upon subjective evidence and an over reliance upon particular chroniclers of the South, the bulk of his findings are supported by subsequent scholarship.
Slavery is a sensitive topic that most would say evil and bad. Martin states that “some African-Americans claimed that Jews were the dominant figures in the trading of black slaves. (Martin 1993). Research by Mintz and McNeil support that “After making contact with the West Africans, the Portuguese est...
.... D. and a member of the World History Association in addition to the American Society of Journalists and Authors. She also writes for national journals specialized in history and culture. The selected chapter in the source discusses the rise of Queen Nzinga to power and her relationship with the Portuguese, both of which I discuss in my paper.
In his book The African Slave Trade, Basil Davidson contrasts law in the Congo in the early sixteenth century with law in Portugal and England. In those European countries, where the idea of private property was becoming powerful, theft was punished brutally. In England, even as late as 1740, a child could be hanged for stealing a rag of cotton. But in the Congo, communal life persisted, the idea of private property was a strange one, and thefts were punished with fines or various degrees of servitude. A Congolese leader, told of the Portuguese legal codes, asked a Portuguese once, teasingly: "What is the penalty in Portugal for anyone who puts his feet on the ground?"
Though the Atlantic Slave Trade began in 1441, it wasn’t until nearly a century later that Europeans actually became interested in slave trading on the West African coast. “With no interest in conquering the interior, they concentrated their efforts to obtain human cargo along the West African coast. During the 1590s, the Dutch challenged the Portuguese monopoly to become the main slave trading nation (“Africa and the Atlantic Slave Trade”, NA). Besides the trading of slaves, it was also during this time that political changes were being made. The Europe...
Rediker, Marcus. The Slave Ship A Human History. New York, New York: Penguin Group, 2007. Print.
Linda M. Heywood, "Slavery and Its Transformation in the Kingdom of Kongo: 1491-1800." The Journal of African History, 50 (2009): 11. Accessed May 5, 2016. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40206695.
In, conclusion the experiences of Equiano’s servitude in Africa differed from his experience in England. The African slave trade primarily was based upon providing jobs to families or punishment to real criminals. Many times the cruel example of being kidnapped from your village and forced into this way of life was also prevalent. This narrative contains the terrifying events of a young a child being held captive. The sources we have of the truth from this period of time are limited and hard to obtain. Servitude still exists to today in many parts of Africa and will remain a common part of their
An example of this activity, “By 1444, a ‘cargo’ of 235 enslaved Africans had been brought to Lagos in Portugal...using enslaved Africans on sugar plantations in Madeira, a Portuguese island off the west coast of Africa by 1460.” Kingdom of Ndongo, positioned along the west central coast of Africa, highly affected through this enslavement activity, is mentioned for the first time during the sixteenth-century as being “one of a number of vassal states to Kongo...and was the most
As the king of central West African state of Kongo, Mbemba ran into a few problems. The power of Mbemba’s monarchy is viewable in the complications that occurred when the Portuguese abused the Kongolese slave markets. In Letters to the King of Portugal Mbemba writes “merchants are taking every day our natives, sons of the land and the sons of our noblemen and vassals and our relatives, because the thieves and men of bad conscience grab them wishing to have the things and wares of this Kingdom which they are ambitious of.” (P.80) Mbemba loses a big portion of his slave trade market due to the involvement with the Portuguese. Mbemba was baptized and converted into a Christian by Portuguese explorers. Having ties with another country proved only to be detrimental to Mbemba’s slave trade. As a result Mbemba was unable to flourish economically. The Portuguese didn 't have much regard for how their tactics were affecting Mbemba. Much like an older brother having priority over a little brothers toy and then telling on him to their proverbial parent (King of Portugal), Mzemba lost the trade market and sent a letter of redress to the King of Portugal. Mbemba’s cry for help exemplifies the lack of economic strength in his slave
Alas, in 1961 Patrice Lumumba was assassinated by a US- sponsored plot 7 months after independence, and replaced him with a “puppet dictator named Mobutu” (Kingsolver). In her book, Barbara Kingsolver surfaces a forgotten part of our nation’s history in the exploitation of the Congo through her main characters, the Price family, who are missionaries sent to the Kilanga village. Through characters’ narratives that “double as allegories for the uneasy colonial marriage between the West and Africa” (Hamilton, Jones), Kingsolver creates a relatable way for her readers to understand the theme she is trying to convey, which is “‘what did we do to Africa, and how do we feel about it?’” (Snyder). Kingsolver began with this theme and developed the rest of the novel around it, just as she does with her other works, and sticking with her trademark technique, she utilizes her book as a vessel for “political activism, an extension of the anti-Vietnam protests” she participated in college (Snyder).
Regardless of the way that there was a little resistance to the slave exchange rule, from African social orders on the whole or of their decision substances, the slave merchants still figured out how to work together. The more extensive Atlantic world effectively figured out how to infiltrate Africa since the adversaries to subjugation and slave exchange were barely heard in the slave holding social orders. These social orders were perceived as slave holding foundations
As Marlow passes through the waters of the Congo, it is easily visible the trouble of the natives. “Black shapes crouched, lay, sat between the trees, leaning against the trunks, clinging to the earth half coming out, half effaced with the dim light, in all the attitudes of pain, abandonment, and despair.” (20) Show that the holding of these colonies has started. The soldiers have come in and taken the inhabitants and are destroying them and taking from them the one thing they deserve over everything, life. The imperialists seem to not care about the Africans and are just there for their land.