A brief history of slavery · Issue 838

With the Abolition of UK Slavery being celebrated on March 25, Tasha Prest-Smith reflects on the facts and figures about slavery

The Facts about Slavery

It is easy to think primarily of the transatlantic Slave Trade when considering the issue of slavery. However, slavery predates writing and evidence for it can be found in almost all cultures and continents. Its many origins remain unknown.

By 950 AD, for example, people were captured in southern Africa, taken to Ghana on the west coast of Africa, and sold as slaves. Arab traders bought them, transported them across the Sahara and sold them on to the wealthy in the Mediterranean and the Middle East.

In short, the slave trade was already a part of African culture, and people were already both subordinated and treated as commodities.

The Transatlantic Slave Trade began in 1502 when growing sugar cane (and a few other crops) was found to be a lucrative enterprise. It is believed that about 11-12 million men, women and children were transported in ships across the Atlantic to various ports in the New World – mostly to South America and the islands in the Caribbean.

This transportation continued until 1807, although slavery was not abolished as a whole throughout the British Empire until 1834. 173 years – an uncomfortably short while ago, particularly when it is considered that slavery was not abolished in the USA until 1863.

How The European Slave Trade Developed

Although Portugal was the first nation to set up colonies on the Atlantic coast of Africa and set up sugar plantations for slaves in Brazil, unfortunately it wasn’t long until England got involved in the European (transatlantic) Slave Trade, under the reign of Elizabeth I.

In 1562, John Hawkins bought slaves in Sierra Leone, took them to Hispaniola, one of the Antilles, where he traded them for sugar and hides.

This was the beginning of the Slave Triangle. Typically, a voyage might set out from Bristol, taking cloth and manufactured goods to West Africa, bought slaves to Jamaica or Florida, and brought back, in return, sugar, tobacco and later cotton to England.

Slaves were usually captured by African tribes in raids or open warfare, or purchased from other African tribes. Many West African chiefs were happy to get rid of their enemies by capturing and selling them for trade goods such as whisky, swords, guns and gold. Whole tribes were often captured and sold, not just the warriors.

Far from passively accepting their imprisonment, some transported Africans actively resisted the brutality of their captors. African slaves are known to have engaged in at least 250 shipboard rebellions during the period of the transatlantic crossings.

Predictably, the living conditions for the slaves were terrible. A third of them died on their voyage across the Atlantic. Another third died within three years of landing because of disease, the brutality of their owners or general neglect.

As a measures against rebellions, slaves were often fitted with spiked iron collars to stop them escaping. Similarly, the children of slaves usually became the property of the slave master.

Having originated from tropical West Africa, it was widely believed that slaves would be effective workers, being accustomed to hot climates and to the infectious diseases prevalent in the tropics. But while Africans may have carried some resistance to tropical diseases, they had no such immunity to the numerous European diseases that spread through the New World.

As a result, smallpox, chicken pox, cholera, whooping cough and other diseases continually ravaged slave populations.

While the treatment of slaves varied according to time and location, it is usually apparent that in those cases where slaves were treated better, they were more likely to be productive, trained and efficacious, perhaps even taking pride in their work.

Harsh treatment had the opposite reaction. It reduced morale, lowered productivity, required higher levels of supervision, and also removed all incentive for slave workers to work harder than necessary to get by.

Revolts by slaves were always savagely repressed. Absentee ownership, particularly in Brazil and the Caribbean islands, often caused the overseers to literally work the slaves to death.

They had little or no incentive to take care of another person’s human property, particularly as most of them regarded the Africans as sub-human.

The peak of he European Slave Trade was in 1786. Over the last hundred years, 2,130,000 slaves had been transported to British colonies in America.

Famous Slaves

There are several famous African slaves who helped fight against the injustice of their situation.

Nat Turner was born into slavery in Virginia in 1800. He was one of the few slaves who had the chance to learn to read and write. He also got along well with his second (and last) master, Joseph Travis.

Turner had always lived a religious life since childhood and felt that he was appointed by God to liberate slaves. He and some friends killed numerous whites in two days in 1831, in an act of rebellion. He was hung and skinned on November 11 of that year.

Araminta Ross was luckier. She was born into slavery in Maryland, and later changed her name to Harriet Tubman. She was one of the few women slaves to escape and was taken in by whites. She was a large part of the development of the Underground Railroad (a freedom train for runaway slaves to North America).

She was a vital guide and helper during the fight to free blacks and the American Civil War in the 1860s.

Tubman was never caught in her acts and she used the rest of her life in dedication to black and women’s rights. She endured inhumane treatment from some masters, bearing the scars of beatings until she died, age 91.

Margaret Garner was a ‘mulatto’ (half-black, half-white) slave, notorious – or celebrated – for killing her own daughter rather than see the child returned to slavery.

Garner was born on a farm in Kentucky. In 1856, she and her husband, Robert, along with their four children, escaped slavery and fled to Ohio, along with several other slave families.

Slave catchers and police found the Garners barricaded inside a former slave’s house in which the family were taking refuge. They stormed the house and pursued the fugitive slaves from room to room.

Margaret killed her two-year-old daughter with a butcher knife rather than see the child returned to slavery. She was preparing to kill her other children and herself when she was subdued by the posse.

The entire group was taken to jail and a subsequent trial lasted for two weeks; Margaret was forced to return to a slave state along with Robert, her two sons and her baby daughter. The steamboat on which the Garners were travelling began to sink, and Margaret and her baby daughter were thrown overboard. Sadly, the baby was drowned.

Robert and Margaret were eventually sold to Judge Bonham for plantation labour at Tennessee Landing. Margaret died in 1858 of typhoid fever; her life story is the foundation of Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved.

The Aftermath of Slavery

The 200th year of the abolition of slavery is clearly a time for reflection. Slavery is, without dispute, one of the single most shameful and inhumane activities with which humans have been involved.

In September 2006 it was reported that the UK Government may issue a ‘statement of regret’ over slavery, an act that was followed through by a ‘public statement of sorrow’ from Tony Blair in November 2006.

The damage, of course, can never be undone. In amid the horrors, injustice and sadism of slavery, however, the spirit of the captives must not be forgotten.

Blues music evolved in the USA in the communities of former African slaves, from spirituals, praise songs, field hollers and chants. It heavily influenced later Western popular music, becoming part of the genres of ragtime, jazz, bluegrass, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, hip-hop, and even country music.

Most of all, the resilience and courage of all slaves on a daily basis is testimony enough to the inner grace with which they were endowed; grace which, ironically, white slave masters, who passed themselves off as superior beings, were utterly devoid of.