Atlantic Slave Trade
Slavery in the Atlantic Ocean
Transatlantic Slave Trade
© UNESCO
The transatlantic slave trade is unique within the universal history of slavery for three main reasons:
- its duration - approximately four centuries
- those vicitimized: black African men, women
and children - the intellectual legitimization attempted on its behalf - the development of an anti-black ideology and its legal organization, the notoriousCode noir.
As a commercial and economic enterprise, the slave trade provides a dramatic example of the consequences resulting from particular intersections of history and geography. It involved several regions and continents: Africa, America, the Caribbean, Europe and the Indian Ocean.
The transatlantic slave trade is often regarded as the first system of globalization. According to French historian Jean-Michel Deveau the slave trade and consequently slavery, which lasted from the 16th to the 19th century, constitute one of "the greatest tragedies in the history of humanity in terms of scale and duration".
The transatlantic slave trade was the biggest deportation in history and a determining factor in the world economy of the 18th century. Millions of Africans were torn from their homes, deported to the American continent and sold as slaves.
Triangular Trade
The transatlantic slave trade, often known as the triangular trade, connected the economies of three continents. It is estimated that between 25 to 30 million people, men, women and children, were deported from their homes and sold as slaves in the different slave trading systems. In the transatlantic slave trade alone the estimate of those deported is believed to be approximately 17 million. These figures exclude those who died aboard the ships and in the course of wars and raids connected to the trade.
The trade proceeded in three steps. The ships left Western Europe for Africa loaded with goods which were to be exchanged for slaves. Upon their arrival in Africa the captains traded their merchandise for captive slaves. Weapons and gun powder were the most important commodities but textiles, pearls and other manufactured goods, as well as rum, were also in high demand. The exchange could last from one week to several months. The second step was the crossing of the Atlantic. Africans were transported to America to be sold throughout the continent. The third step connected America to Europe. The slave traders brought back mostly agricultural products, produced by the slaves. The main product was sugar, followed by cotton, coffee, tobacco and rice.
The circuit lasted approximately eighteen months. In order to be able to transport the maximum number of slaves, the ship's steerage was frequently removed. Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, England and France, were the main triangular trading countries.
The slave trade represents a dramatic
encounter of history and geography. This four
century long tragedy has been one of the
greatest dehumanizing enterprises in human history.
It constitutes one of the first forms of globalization.
The resultant slavery system, an economic and
commercial type of venture organization, linked
different regions and continents: Africa, the Arab
World, Asia, the Indian Ocean, the Caribbean and
the Americas. It was based on an ideology:
a conceptual structure founded on contempt for
the black man and set up in order to justify the sale
of human beings (black Africans in this case) as a
mobile asset: For this is how they were regarded
in the "black codes", which constituted the legal
framework of slavery in the Americas.
The history of this dissimulated tragedy, its
deeper causes, its modalities and consequences
have yet to be better elucidated: This is the basic
objective that the UNESCO's member states set
for the "Slave Route" Project. The issues at stake
are: historical truth, human rights, development,
identity and citizenship in the modern multicultural
societies. The idea of "route" signifies, first and
foremost, the identification of "itineraries of
humanity", i.e. circuits followed by the slave trade.
In this sense, geography sheds light on history.
In fact, the slave trade map not only lends
substance to this early form of international
trade, but also, by showing the courses it took,
illuminates the impact of the system.
These slave trade maps are only a "first
draft". Based on currently available historical data
gathered by Joseph Harris (USA) about the slave
trade and slavery, they should be completed to
the extent that the theme networks of researchers,
set up by UNESCO, continue to bring to light the
deeper layers of the iceberg by exploiting archives
and oral traditions. It will then be possible to
understand that the black slave trade forms the
invisible stuff of relations between Africa,
the Arab World, Europe, the Indian Ocean, Asia,
the Americas and the Caribbean.