MC_A Concise History of Africa

A Concise History of Africa

The Arrival of the Europeans Throughout the 15th century, the Portuguese had been exploring Africa’s coast, establishing trading posts for several types of commodities, ranging from gold to slaves, as they looked for a route to India and its spices. They were also hoping to convert the people to Christianity, making them their allies against Islam. By 1475 they had reached the Bight of Benin, and it has been suggested that the Portuguese enabled intra-African trade by shipping goods from port to port. This may have weakened the Songhai empire, however, as trade took to the sea and difficult journeys overland were abandoned. The Portuguese were joined by other seafaring empires, profoundly affecting indigenous trade across the Sahara. Now that the direction of trade had turned towards the sea, inland states declined as coastal ones gained in wealth and power, now helped by the availability of firearms. Now the slave trade began to increase its momentum; the Portuguese needed workers on their plantations in Brazil and as other European powers established colonies in the Americas, the need for labor grew, causing the vicious trade to expand. Coastal African states began to attack their neighbors, taking captives who were then sold into slavery. OPPOSITE: Carved stamps are used to print symbols on traditional Adinkra cloth made by the Ashanti people in Ghana. ABOVE: African slaves processing sugar cane on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. Engraving by Theodor de Bry (1528–1598).

took and held members of other tribes captive, human sacrifice of captives being common in Aztec society. The Spanish followed by enslaving indigenous Caribbean tribes, and as the native populations declined, mostly through European diseases, came to be replaced by commercially imported Africans. These were primarily obtained from their African homelands by coastal tribes, who captured and sold them, receiving guns and gun powder in exchange. The total slave trade to islands in the Caribbean, Brazil, Mexico and to the United States is estimated to have involved 12 million Africans, of whom 645,000 were brought to what is now the United States. In addition to African slaves, poor Europeans were brought over in substantial numbers as indentured servants, particularly in the British 13 colonies.

The Atlantic Slave Trade Human bondage existed in Africa since earliest times, often in the forms of agricultural labor and conscripted soldiers. Africans became part of the Atlantic trade in slaves after the European Age of Exploration, from which comes the modern Western perception of African-descended slaves owned by non-African slave traders. Africa’s involvement in this trade emerged when suitable ships made it possible for long voyages to be made from the Mediterranean, down the coast of Africa, and ultimately across the Atlantic to the Americas. Before they even boarded ship, many slaves had already made long inland journeys, and had often been bought and sold several times along the way. Slavery existed in the Americas prior to European colonization, in that the indigenous population often

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