Africa: 14501750

Unit 4 Section 1

First European Contacts

Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal sowed the

seeds of tremendous change for Africa in the early
to mid-1400s

He and his men cautiously explored farther and farther

south along Africas west coast

Following their conquest of the Moroccan city of Ceuta

in 1450, the Portuguese became intensely curious to
discover the origins of the gold and slaves were brought
to North Africa via well established trade routes from
the continents sub-Saharan interior

Beginnings of the Slave Trade

In 1482, the African King Caramansa allowed the

Portuguese to open a trading post on what the
Europeans would call the Gold Coast of West
Africa,

Where vast amounts of African gold were soon traded

for goods from Europe, Asia, and other parts of Africa
that arrived on Portuguese ships

Soon after, monarchs such as the oba of Benin and

the manikongo of Kongo sent delegates to Portugal
to gather information on the homeland of these
foreign men

Slave Trade & Other Trade

Routes
The leaders of Benin
chose to restrict contact
with the Portuguese by the 1530s,

But by then the king of Kongo had made Catholicism

the official faith of his lands,

And begun providing the Portuguese with more and

more slaves

The Kongolese slave trade soon got out of

control, however, with unauthorized traders
resorting to kidnapping to meet the growing
demand for slaves

The Kings plea for help from the Portuguese met

Portuguese Involvement

Meanwhile, by the end of the 15th century, the

Swahili coast of East Africa featured a number of
prosperous Muslim-ruled trading states

In 1505, nearly all of them were attacked and

plundered by the Portuguese, who just recently
rounded the southern tip of Africa in their continuing
quest for sea route to India

Only Ethiopia was spared Portuguese aggression in East Africa

Under attack from the Muslim state of Adal, the Christian queen of
Ethiopia pleaded for Portuguese aid

The Muslims were held off, but Ethiopian hopes for

permanent alliance with Portugal went unfulfilled as a result
of the Ethiopian rulers refusal to affiliate their church with

The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade

Portugal led the way in bringing change to the

Americas as well as to Africa;

By the late 1500s, the Portuguese had copied the

plantation style sugar production of their Western
Atlantic islands, such as Madeira and So Tom, in their
New World colony of Brazil

Initially the Portuguese planters relied on

Amerindian slaves to produce their crops,

But as epidemics of old world diseases ravage the

indigenous American population, African slaves were
taken across the Atlantic in ever-increasing numbers by
the Portuguese, Spanish, British, and other European

Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade

It must be noted that European traders were not

the only ones to profit from these transactions:

European guidebooks provided detailed information on

the preferred trade items of different areas of Africas
Atlantic coast, as African traders were often found to
be shrewd bargainers

Indeed over the 18th century, the price demanded for a slave
on the Gold Coast more than doubled
The Africans bargaining advantages resulted in part from
exploitation of the rivalry among several European nations
that establish trading castles along the West African coast
Traders from the Dutch East India Company and other
European concerns found themselves forced to supply the

Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade

The European fervor for African slaves fueled the

growth of a number of West African kingdoms

The small kingdom of Whydah,

An early Gold Coast Center for the slave trade,

Was overtaken in 1727 by the neighboring kingdom of
Dahomey,

Dahomey was in turn dominated by the inland kingdom

of Oyo in 1730,

Which had been able to supply its army (of males and females) with
firearms furnished in exchange for slaves by European traders

Then was forced to pay tribute to Oyo to remain independent

For Oyo and the adjacent Kingdom of Asante,

Sources of Slaves

Contrary to the belief of many in Europe at that

time, only rarely did parents sell their children into
slavery

Instead, prior to the 18th century slaves sold to the

Europeans by West African traders were usually
prisoners of war;

However, historical debate continues over just how

frequently wars were initiated solely for the purpose of
capturing slaves for export

Current theory holds that most wars in the region were

fought over territory and other political disputes,
The capture and sale of enemy prisoners was simply a side

Cape Colony

For the most part, outright European colonization

of Africa would not take place until well after 1750
Two exceptions occurred before that time:

Both the Portuguese and Dutch established African colonies

after 1500
The Dutch East India Companys Cape Colony,

Located at the far southern tip of Africa,

Played a very minor role in African affairs during this period, as was
the companys economic activities were oriented almost entirely to
the Indian Ocean trade and focused very little on commercial
ventures within Africa

Even the Cape colonies slaves were imported primarily from places
outside of Africa such as South Asia and East Indies

Angola Colony

Angola was a somewhat different story:

As the African slave trade move steadily south and east

during the 16th century, the Portuguese realized they
could profit from maintaining a permanent settlement
along Africas Atlantic coast

Centered on the ports of Luanda and Benguela, the colony of

Angola soon became the primary supplier of African slaves
for the Americas

Portuguese settlers in the cities found profitable employment acting

as middlemen, transferring slaves brought by caravan from Africas
far interior to ships bound for Brazil

The ships had brought goods from Europe and the Americas, which
were taken back to the interior for exchanging in huge markets and
fairs for more slaves,

Angola Colony

The Portuguese presence on the Angola coast

was maintained via relationships
partnerships, even with inland African
leaders,

many of whom were loosely allied in an enormous

federation of kingdoms

Environmental crises in the region actually aided

these leaders in boosting their subject populations
and maintaining a steady supply of young adults for
the slave trade

Severe droughts in Africas southern grasslands

forced refugees to flee to less arid areas

Ending of Slave Trade

The strong African states that emerge from this

process were able to discourage further
encroachment and territorial takeover by the
Europeans,

who preoccupied with the Indian Ocean trade and

colonization in the Americas remained basically
content to trade

Textiles,

Metals,

Weapons for African slaves until the 19th century.

At that time the combination of humanitarian and

Africa and Islam

While the 15 century marked the beginning of

significant European contact with Africa,

The Islamic world has of course long since developed

strong ties with the continent, beginning in the
century after Muhammads death

Muslim beliefs and practices have spread from North Africa

to the sub-Saharan region via overland trade,
As well as to the Swahili coast of East Africa through the
trade ships that plied the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean

By the time Henry the Navigators men were

beginning their exploration of West Africa, Islamic
legal and governmental structures as well as the

Songhai Empire

One independent kingdom was the Songhai

empire,

Which had succeeded in Mali as the leading center of

trans-Saharan trade

As Songhai grew from its base in the western

Sudan, its indigenous Muslim leaders began to
expand northward into the Sahara

Perhaps fearing an impending territorial rivalry, the

kingdom of Morocco sent the border of their territory,
an addition of several thousand men and camels across
the desert in 1590

Half the men died on the journey, but the remaining

Islam and Trade

The tenets of Islam played a significant role in

many areas of African life, even economics

While the Atlantic circuit trade brought rum and other

alcoholic beverages to coastal Africa,

The Muslim merchants of the Hausa trading cities were

forbidden by their religion to use alcohol

Conversely, Muslims (as well as Christians) of this

period felt free to engage in the trade of slaves

In fact, Muslims viewed the enslavement of pagans

to be an act of virtue, as it would bring new followers
to their faith

Comparing Slave Networks

While the slave trade with the Islamic North

played an important role in the economy of the
Sudan,

What little historical evidence remains, indicates that

the size of the trans-Saharan slave trade was smaller
than that of the trans-Atlantic trade

From the 17th to 19th centuries, some 1.7 million Africans

were marched across the Sahara
Or shipped over the Red Sea or Indian Ocean to lives of
slavery in the Middle East and India
In contrast, between 1550 and 1800 nearly 8,000,000 slaves
crossed the Atlantic to the Americas

Comparing Slave Networks

Their final destination determined the type of

work that African slaves were forced to do

Most slaves sent to the Americas ended up performing

grueling physical labor on sugar, tobacco, cotton
plantations

Those who wound up in the Islamic world were

debatably more fortunate, as they were often placed in
employment as soldiers or household servants

The gender balance was different as well:

Most African slaves sent to the Americas were men

The majority of African slaves sent to the Middle East

Legacy of the Slave Trade

By the beginning of the 19th century,

The slave trade had brought considerable profit

to certain African leaders and merchants (and a
great deal more, of course, to Europe, the
Americas, and the Islamic world)

It also decimated the population of young,

healthy adults in some parts of sub-Saharan
Africa, particularly the inland territory of the
Slave Coast

However, the overall population of the region

was still substantial,