Africa


 * 1) Notes on p.435-440**

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 * 1) **The Atlantic Slave Trade**
 * Early Portuguese contacts established a pattern of commercial relationships that eventually evolved into social, cultural, and political change. Those changes affected the political balance of the area and led to increasing subordination of Africans. This subordination, combined with the age-old practice of slavery in Western Europe, led to slave trade as plantation colonies required the labor.
 * Portuguese established **factories**, trading forts with resident merchants along the African coast
 * Most important was **El Mina** (The Mine, 1482) for gold production
 * Once cannons were rendered ineffective, the forts existed on the local ruler's consent
 * Rulers benefited from European goods and Portuguese assistance in wars
 * Portuguese brought rulers slaves
 * From the forts, the Portuguese penetrated existing trade routes and expanded into the interior
 * Impressed by the large kingdoms of the Gold Coast like Benin and disillusioned by small states on the Senegambian coast
 * Missionary attempts to convert leaders from Islam
 * Began efforts in the Kongo in 1484
 * Converted the ruler **Nzinga Mvemba** (1507-1543)
 * Europeanized his kingdom
 * Subordinated to Portugal economically and socially
 * His people were enslaved and communications were limited
 * **Luanda** was formed for contact with the Mbundu people south of Kongo
 * Became **Angola**
 * Established the pattern of trading forts, diplomacy and force, alliances, and commercial relations
 * Slave trade began in 1441
 * Started from prisoners of raids to human cargo
 * 1) **Trend Toward Expansion**
 * In order to maintain a sufficient labor supply in the plantation colonies, the amount of slaves imported only increased.
 * Between 1450 and 1850, about 12 million Africans were shipped across the Atlantic
 * 1500 - Small Amounts
 * 1600 - 16,000
 * 1700 - 1800 - 7 million
 * 3 million lived in Americas by the 1800s, 6 million by the 1860s
 * Brazil had about a million
 * Cuba had 700,000
 * Mortality rate of 10~20%
 * Many died in wars and arches, up to a third
 * Constant need of labor due to high mortality and low fertility
 * Exception in Chesapeake area
 * Dimensions of trade varied with time and economic and political situations
 * Spanish America and Brazil --> British and French Canada --> Chesapeake
 * Slave trade moved from Sengambian coast to west central Africa, the Gold Coast, and the Slave Coast
 * Slave wars helped create the Akan **Asante** state and the Fon **Dahomey** state
 * 1) **Demographic Patterns**
 * Due to the selective trading of the Atlantic slave trade, the demographics of western Africa became disproportionate.
 * trans-Saharan slave trade focused on women as concubines and domestic servants for N.Africa and Middle East
 * Atlantic slave trade focused on men
 * Cut populations by half (if slavery had not existed)
 * Gender ratio imbalance
 * New crops helped balance out the losses
 * 1) **Organization of the Trade**
 * The political map of slave trade fluctuated between European powers and the African rulers. Overall, the trade was organized into a triangular path that incorporated the Atlantic coast: West Europe, West Africa, and the New World.
 * Portugal controlled coastal trade until 1630
 * El Mina was seized by the Dutch in 1637
 * The **Royal African Company** was chartered in the 1660s by the British
 * France followed similar route, but not until the 1700s did they have a prominent presence
 * Other nations, like Denmark, had African ports
 * Merchant towns/commercial forts were suppliers of captives and deadly due to tropical diseases like malaria
 * Local rulers required a tax or tribute for trading
 * Spanish developed a complicated pricing system where a man was an **Indies piece** and children and women were priced off that
 * Slaves were either captured in military campaigns or bought in the interior
 * Private merchants made the monopolization of slave trade difficult
 * In Dahomey, a royal monopoly was established
 * Slave trade is a debated determinism for the Industrial Revolution and the rise of capitalism
 * Net profits initially ranged upward 300% but fell to 10%
 * **Triangular Trade**
 * Slaves from Africa --> Sugar from Caribbeans --> Manufactured Goods from Europe --> Africa

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 * 2) Notes on p. 440-449**
 * 1) **African Societies, Slavery, and the Slave Trade**
 * Slavery existed as a powerful social and economic institution throughout Africa. Though there were variations, slavery indoctrination is undoubted and it allowed Europeans to enter the slave trade easily.
 * Pre-Atlantic trade slavery were mainly benign extensions of kinship networks.
 * Rulers or the state controlled most/all of the land and slavery was used to increase wealth, status, and consolidate power
 * Slaves were used as servants, concubines, soldiers, field workers, administrators, etc.
 * In kingdoms like Ghana and Kongo, there were villages of enslaved dependents required to pay tributes
 * Muslims traders had slave porters and slave villages to supply caravans
 * Otherwise, they reinforced hierarchies that empowered the nobility, senior lineages and rulers
 * Slaves were considered aliens and placed in inferior and/or dependent positions
 * Enslavement of women was a central feature
 * Domestic servitude and adding females to the lineage
 * Led to polygamy and harems
 * Increase of power for rulers and merchants, decrease of power for women
 * Muslims, like **Ahmad Baba** of Timbuktu, denounced enslaving Muslims
 * Sudanic states enslaved all captives without discretion
 * 1) **Slaving and African Politics**
 * Slavery was a way to increase political power and centralization, a method adopted by African societies and greatly aided by European presence and firearms.
 * sub-Saharan states were small and fragmented, constantly at war to consolidate power.
 * Slaves and slave trade were political-economic moves
 * As some states expanded and centralized, the other states developed ideas of anti-authoritarianism and self-sufficiency.
 * Coastal states tried to monopolize the Afro-European trade but were blocked by European trading forts
 * States expanded economically towards the coast and politically towards the interior
 * 1) **Asante and Dahomey**
 * Two major states during the period were Asante and Dahomey, a state on the Gold and Slave coast respectively. They embody a trend of centralization that can be seen in African societies during the period due to slave trade. On the other hand, while centralization occurred, dissent thoughts of anti-centralization were also developing. Lastly, African arts flourished during this period, serving both a cultural, religious, and economic role.
 * Slave trade leads to development of various governments
 * Reinforcement of divine kingships
 * Checks and balances, bureaucracy, shared power
 * In Oyo, a council shared power with the ruler
 * Traditional art forms (bronze casting, woodcarving, weaving) flourished
 * Artisan guilds developed
 * Used to reinforce the the authority of the kings
 * Used for religious symbolism
 * Recognized by Dutch for its excellence as early as 16th century
 * 1) **Asante**
 * Composed of 20 matrilineal clans
 * the Oyoko clan predominated
 * **Osei Tutu** was the **asantehene**, supreme civil and religious ruler
 * Occurred after the introduction of firearms in 1650s
 * Unified the Akan people under his title and acknowledged localism
 * Advised by all-Asante council
 * Recognized by the Dutch by 1700
 * Dominated untl the 1820s
 * Gold and slaves (the latter formed 2/3 of trade) were main exports
 * 1) **Benin**
 * At height of power when Europeans arrived
 * The ruler, **//oba//**, limited slave trade as early as 1516
 * Reversed by the ambitious nobles and European pressure
 * Slave trade remained unimportant
 * 1) **Dahomey**
 * Ruled with powerful councils until the rise of autocracy in 1720s due to firearms
 * **King Agaja (1708-1740)** captured **Whydah**, a popular port that attracted many European traders, when he expanded towards the coast
 * Slave trade was controlled by royal court
 * 1.8 million slaves were exported between 1640 and 1890
 * 1) **East African and the Sudan**
 * The development of slavery and slave trade in the East African coast and the Sudan can be traced to the Islamization that occurred until the 19th century. With the dissolution of Songhay, Islamization took a violent turn as the Fulani people were influenced by a new reform sect of Islam. After a revolution, the Fulani people continued to expand and the warfare fueled the external slave trade that spanned the continent.
 * The Swahili coast continued Indian ocean commerce, adapting to the Portuguese and Ottoman military presence
 * Interior trade continued to supply slaves, ivory, and gold
 * Most slaves were used for harems and domestic servitude in Arabia and Middle East
 * Others were shipped to plantation colonies such as Mauritius
 * On offshore islands and then the coast itself, clove plantations were set up with slave workforce
 * Zanzibar was one of the major islands with a slave population of 100,000 by the 1860s
 * Slave trade in the Red Sea continued until the 1900s
 * Interior E. Africa was composed of many kingdoms, small and large
 * The Bantu-speaking people predominated
 * Cushitic-speaking people
 * **Luo** peoples spoke Nilotic
 * Established a ruling dynasty at Bunyoro amongst Bantu population
 * Islamization entered a violet stage linked with the growth of slave trade
 * The division of Songhay created several pagan states such as Bamabra kingdom of **Segu**
 * Other states, such as the Hausa kingdoms, were ruled by Muslim royal families with many animist subjects, but accommodations were achieved
 * Beginning in the 1770s, Muslim reform movements promoted a new Sufi variant of Islam and swept western Sudan
 * Greatly influenced the **Fulani** people, pastoral people spread throughout western Sudan
 * 1804 -> Usuman Dan Fodio, a Muslim Fulani scholar, preached the reformist ideas to the Haus kingdoms
 * Became a revolution, him as a prophet
 * The Fulani took control of most of the Hausa states
 * A new kingdom based in Sokoto developed
 * A new caliphate was created
 * It was a political move
 * Exemplified by attack on Muslim kingdom of Bornu
 * Results of the revolution
 * 1) New political units were created
 * 2) Crusade against paganism
 * 3) Social and cultural changes
 * 4) Spread of literacy
 * 5) Rise of new commercial centers such as Kano
 * 6) New states formed by jihads
 * Changes fed into processes of slave trade and development of slavery
 * Slaves were exported and utilized
 * 1) **White Settlers and Africans in Southern Africa**
 * The Dutch Cape Colony brought European into conflicts with the southern Bantu-speaking peoples.
 * Southern end of the continent was little affected by slave trade, the area occupied by the non-Bantu pastoral hunter: the **San** and the **Khoikhoi**
 * By the 16th century, the Bantu-speaking peoples occupied SE Africa while the hunters occupied the Kalahari Desert to the west
 * Spoke Tswana, Sotho, Zulu and Xhosa
 * Sotho villages contained upward 200 people
 * Ngunni lived in hamlets made of a few extended families
 * Agricultural and pastoral, used iron and copper tools, weapons and adornments, traded with one another
 * Men were artisans and herders
 * Women were farmers, housewives, village labor administrators
 * Chiefdoms were the main political unit
 * Supported by relatives and accepted by the people
 * Political organization created junior lineages and fierce competition for land
 * Especially intense during the late 1700s due to population increase and/or Portuguese outposts
 * The Cape Colony established large farms that used Indonesian, Asian, and eventually African slaves
 * Expansion caused war between San and Khoikhoi people
 * Boer saw Africans as intruders
 * Expansion led to wars between Afrikaners and the Bantu
 * Expansion also led to independent Boer states founded by **//voortrekkers//**
 * Exemplified by the Great Trek when Britain outlawed slavery in 1834
 * 1) **The Mfecane and the Zulu Rise to Power**
 * Unification occurred under **Shaka Zula** in 1818
 * Reformed loose forces into regiments organized by lineage and age
 * New tactics and weapons
 * Army became a permanent institution
 * Shaka's policies destroyed the ruling family of the conquered states
 * Iron fisted military outlook
 * Assassinated in 1828
 * Rise of Zulu and other chiefdoms (**Swazi, Lesotho**) began the **mfecane**, wars of crushing and wandering
 * Series of campaigns and force migrations led to constant warfare as people sough survival by fleeing, emulation, or joining conquerers
 * Europeans were targets as well
 * Firearms gave the Boers a defensive edge
 * Zulu Wars of the 1870s crushed the Zulu powerhouse


 * 3) Finish the Chapter**

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 * 1) **Slave Lives**
 * Being captured meant separation from friends and family and hoarding into unsanitary habitats before being shipped to a foreign location. Many prisoners die on their way to the slave quarters, others died during the **Middle Passage** and voyages elsewhere. Regardless of the high mortality, Africans retained their culture: language, beliefs, traditions, and memories.
 * 1) **Africans in the Americas**
 * Slaves worked various occupations at the plantations and mines of the New World. Slaves were desired for their experiences and availability compared to the Native Americans wanning from disease, the tenure of indentured servitude, and the costs of wages.
 * Slaves worked on plantations and mines as metallurgists, farmers, artisans and grunt work.
 * The plantation system became a central characteristic of the Americas
 * 1) **American Slave Societies**
 * American slave societies varied due to many determinisms but common features are a racial based social hierarchy and overwhelming slave communities.
 * **Creole slaves** were distinguished from **saltwater slaves**
 * The former had more permissions and freedoms and the chance for **manumission**
 * African nobles and religious leaders continued to exercise authority despite the hierarchy
 * Slaves retained ethnic and political distinctions that divided the community
 * Hierarchy mirrored the Latin American hierarchy
 * Slave-based societies varied in composition
 * British North American slavery was independent of Africa since it reproducing itself
 * 99% Creole by 1850
 * 1) **The People and Gods in Exile**
 * Afro-American culture was very dynamic due to the fusion of African cultures during the process of slave trade and slave existence. Despite their attempts to adapt, slave life was extremely harsh and recalcitrance, running away, and confrontation was rampant. Runaway slave communities developed and mounted defensives against their enemies. Some were successful while others were not.
 * Slave holders tried to break cultural identity by avoiding a large concentration of one culture
 * Ineffective since slavers dealt from mainly one location
 * The continuity of slave culture depended on volume and concentration
 * Poor gender ratios
 * Religions: Christianity, English Islands **obeah**, Brazilian **candomble,** Haitian **vodun**
 * Religious leaders were held in high esteem
 * Several Black Catholic brotherhoods
 * In 1835, at Bahia, Brazil, Muslims slaves rebelled
 * There were many examples of resistance and confrontation
 * Runaway slave communities like **Palmares** existed and endured (Palmares lasted a century of assualts)
 * One of the most remarkable were the **Suriname Maroons** who managed to resist until recognition and truce developed
 * 1) **The End of the Slave Trade and the Abolition of Slavery**
 * Due to the debated reasons, slave trade declined. One probable answer was the Enlightenment and revolution of morality. Slavery, which had been politically and religiously justified since ancient Greece, was seen the opposite during the Enlightenment and many writers like **Rousseau** and Adam Smith denounced the practice. The English abolition of slavery, a goal championed by humanitarians like **William Wilberforce,** in 1807 effectively ended slave trade as England applied pressure to other nation to abolish slavery and used their unstoppable naval power to enforce it.