(Graphic from Kids Zone, The countries of Africa and library.advanced.org/10320/Tour.htm) In the 1700s the coasts of West Africa had three main divisions controlled by Europeans in their effort to monopolize the slave trade. The three divisions were SENEGAMBIA, UPPER GUINEA, and LOWER GUINEA. SENEGAMBIAS two navigable rivers, the Senegal and the Gambia, were controlled by the French and the English, respectively. The West Africans who became slaves from the SENEGAMBIA included the Fula, Wolof, Serer, Felup, and the Mandingo. UPPER GUINEA had a two thousand miles coastline from the Gambia south and east to the Bight of Biafra. This coastline was also designated the Windward Coast because of the heavy winds on the shore. The West Africans who became slaves from the UPPER GAMBIA included the Baga and Susu from French Guinea, the Chamba from Sierra Leone, the Krumen from the Grain Coast, and the Fanti and the Ashanti from the Gold Coast, commonly referred to today as Ghana. East of the Volta River was the Slave Coast which was so named because the slave trade was at its height there since the African kings (Slattees) permitted Europeans to compete equally for Africans to become slaves. Those West Africans who became slaves from this region included Yoruban, Ewe, Dahoman, Ibo, Ibibio, and the Efik. LOWER GUINEA had fifteen hundred miles of coastline from Calabar to the southern desert. The West Africans who became slaves from this region were all Bantus. The trading of Africans from the West Coast provided an economic boon for the Europeans. The trading of Africans from the West Coast produced the heinous Middle passage. The trading of Africans from the West Coast produced the African American! (Connections: A Culturally Historical Prospective of West African to African American, by Kelvin Tarrance, Revised: May 3, 1996 asu.alasu.edu/academic/advstudies/2b.html) Slave brokers believed that there were traits of the various African peoples and the preferences of the slave brokers for slaves from specific groups. Colonists always held some view of which tribes produced the most desirable slaves, and this preferred tribal affiliation changed depending on the work and the era. The docile Gold Coast slave was the preferred worker for a while before the Senegambians were elevated to an equal status. The Ashanti were more likely to seek revenge on their oppressor, which put them among the least sought-after tribes. (Margaret Washingtons chapter on the Gullahs in Edward Countryman, ed. How Did American Slavery Begin? Boston: St. Martins, 1999. x + 150 pp. Bibliographical references. $35.00 (cloth), ISBN 0-312-21820-6; $11.95 (paper), ISBN 0-312-18261-9. Reviewed for H-Survey by Brian D. McKnight , from H-NET BOOK REVIEW Published by H-Survey@h- net.msu.edu (November, 1999)) Imperial African States that we know about mostly developed along the Sahel (Corridor) which was the major trade route between East and West Africa. The Sahel shore was seen as a coastline on the great expanse of the Sahara Desert. (Map found at The Ohio State University Libraries Black Studies Library Website sources given as Ancient African Kingdoms, Margaret Shinnie DT25 .S5 1970. A History of the African People, Robert W. July DT20 .J8 1992, The History Atlas of Africa Samuel Kasule. G2446.S1 K3 1998 aaas.ohio-state.edu/) The African Diaspora Map - I This map is the result of almost 20 years research by Joseph Harris, Distinguished Professor, Department of History, Howard University, Washington. The purpose of the map is to show the general direction of the prinicpal sea routes of Arab, European and American trade in African slaves up to 1873. (Mapping Africa, Africa and the Diaspora Movement, The Kennedy Center African Odyssey) The study of the African component of slave resistance may appear to be the exception to the general state of slave studies, which has tended to pay more attention to the European influences on the Americas rather than the continuities with African history. Palmares is identified as an African kingdom in Brazil; an early and important example of the quilombos and palenques of Latin America which also often revealed a strong African link (See the excellent studies in Richard M. Price, ed., Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas, 2nd ed. (Baltimore, 1979); Patterson, Slavery and Slave Revolts, 289-325.) In Jamaica, enslaved Akan are identified with rebellion and marronage; they are considered responsible for setting the course of cultural development among the maroons. (Monica Schuler, Akan Slave Rebellions in the British Caribbean, Savacou, 1 (1970), 8-31. Also see Mavis C. Campbell, The Maroons of Jamaica, 1655- 1796 (Trenton, N.J., 1990); and Barbara Klamon Kopytoff, The Development of Jamaican Maroon Ethnicity, Caribbean Quarterly, 22 (1976), 33-50.) Despite the identification of the ethnic factor, however, most studies of slave resistance fail to examine the historical context in Africa from which these rebellious slaves came. Whether or not there were direct links or informal influences that shaped specific acts of resistance simply has not been determined in most cases. Because the African background has been poorly understood, perhaps, scholars have tended to concentrate on the European influences which shaped the agenda of slave resistance. Eugene Genovese, for example, has argued that there was a fundamental shift in the patterns of resistance by slaves at the end of the eighteenth century, which he correlated with the French Revolution and the destruction of slavery in St. Domingue. (Eugene D. Genovese, From Rebellion to Revolution: Afro-American Slave Revolts in the Making of the Modern World Baton Rouge, 1979). Before the 1790s, according to Genovese, slave resistance tended to draw inspiration from the African past, but the content of that past remains obscure in Genoveses vision. With the spread of revolutionary doctrines in Europe and the Americas, slaves acquired elements of a new ideology that reinforced their resistance to slavery. The process of creolization, which introduced slaves to European thought, brought the actions of slaves more into line with the revolutionary movement emanating from Europe. Genoveses interpretation further highlights the problem of identifying the impact of African history on the development of the diaspora. Scholars who are not well versed in African history seem to have a cloudy image of the African contribution to resistance and the evolution of slave culture. Perhaps it is to be expected, therefore, that European influence is more easy to recognize than African influence. For Genovese, following the earlier lead of C.L.R. James, (C. L. R. James, The Black Jacobins: Toussaint LOuverture and the San Domingo Revolution, New York, rev. ed., 1963). the French Revolution had such an obvious impact on the St. Domingue uprising that the African dimension is not relevant. As Thornton has demonstrated, however, even the uprising in St. Domingue had its African antecedents, especially the legacy of the Kongo civil war. (John K. Thornton, `I am the Subject of the King of Congo: African Political Ideology and the Haitian Revolution, Journal of World History, 4:2 (1993), 181-214) Moreover, influences from Africa remained a strong force in the struggle against slavery well after the 1790s, especially in Brazil and Cuba, where there was a continuous infusion of new slaves from Africa, often from places where slaves had been coming for some time. The complex blending of African and European experiences undoubtedly changed over time, but until African history is studied in the diaspora, it will be difficult to weigh the relative importance of the European and African traditions. (The African Diaspora: Revisionist Interpretations of Ethnicity, Culture and Religion under Slavery Paul E. Lovejoy in Studies in the World History of Slavery, Abolition and Emancipation, II, 1 (1997).) Both images above. Go to URL below to zoom in on detailed and exact locations. During the 1700s when the Atlantic slave trade was flourishing, West Africans accounted for approximately two-thirds of the African captives imported into the Americas. The coastal ports where these Africans were assembled, and from where they were exported, are located on this mid-18th-century map extending from present-day Senegal and Gambia on the northwest to Gabon on the southeast. This decorated and colored map illustrates the dress, dwellings, and work of some Africans. The map also reflects the international interest in the African trade by the use of Latin, French, and Dutch place names. Many of the ports are identified as being controlled by the English (A for Anglorum), Dutch (H for Holland), Danish (D for Danorum), or French (F). Guinea propia, nec non Nigritiae vel Terrae Nigrorum maxima pars . ..Nuremberg: Homann Hereditors, 1743, Hand-colored, engraved map., Geography and Map Division. (international.loc.gov/ammem/aaohtml/exhibit/aopart1.html#0101)
Posted on: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 17:14:46 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015