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Module 2: The African Slave Trade And The Atlantic World

According to W.E.B. Du Bois, one of the preeminent black intellectuals and activists of the late 19th and 20th

centuries, the African slave trade, which transported between 10 and 15 million Africans across the Atlantic to

work as slaves in the Americas, was the most important “drama in the last thousand years of human history.”

The trade tore Africans away from “the dark beauty of their mother continent into the new-found Eldorado of

the West. They descended into Hell.” Module 2 examines the tragic history of the transatlantic slave trade that

occurred between European and African traders along the west coast of Africa from the late fifteenth through

the nineteenth century. It addresses why Europeans came to Africa to acquire slave labor, why powerful African

kingdoms who controlled trade along the coast of Africa sold human beings to European traders in exchange for

foreign commodities, how the trade generated early ideas of racial difference and systems of racism, and how

the trade transformed Africa and the lives of the Africans who found themselves ensnared in a slave system

sustained by cold, calculating economic rationality and human brutality.

Rather than a primitive, archaic system, the transatlantic slave trade, and the labor performed by African and

African-American slaves, created the modern Western world – one characterized by a global, interconnected

system of capitalist expansion. The trade regarded human beings as commodities who themselves labored to

produce commodities – gold, silver, sugar, tobacco, cotton – that generated profits for plantation owners,

manufacturers, and merchants. African and African-American slaves resisted enslavement at every stage and

found ways to create new communities, new kinship networks, and new cultures in defiance of an inherently

dehumanizing system of racial slavery that survived for more than four hundred years. (1)

Learning Outcomes

This module addresses the following Course Learning Outcomes listed in the Syllabus for this course:

• To provide students with a general understanding of the history of African Americans within the context

of American History.

• To motivate students to become interested and active in African American history by comparing current

events with historical information.(1)

Additional learning outcomes associated with this module are:

• The student will be able to discuss the origins, evolution, and spread of racial slavery.

• The student will be able to describe the creation of a distinct African-American culture and how that

culture became part of the broader American culture. (1)

Module Objectives

Upon completion of this module, the student will be able to:

Use primary historical resources to analyze a topic relevant to Europeans, Africans, and the Transatlantic Slave

Trade. (1)

Readings and Resources

• Learning Unit: Exchanging People for Trade Goods (see below) (1)

• Primary Source Documents (see below)

o Olaudah Equiano excerpt

o Thomas Phillips excerpt

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The Transatlantic Slave Trade: Exchanging People For Trade Goods

Introduction

Figure 2-1: Ottoman Empire by André Koehne is in the Public Domain . Map of the Ottoman Empire’s

geographical reach in the Mediterranean world from 1481 to 1683.

Europeans made the first steps toward an Atlantic slave trade in the 1440s when Portuguese sailors landed in

West Africa in search of gold, spices, and allies against the Muslims and the Ottoman Empire who dominated

Mediterranean trade. (2) ( See Figure 2-1 )

When the Portugese landed on the coasts of Africa they found societies engaged in a network of trade routes

that carried a variety of goods back and forth across sub-Saharan

Africa. Some of those goods included kola nuts, shea butter, salt,

indigenous textiles, copper, iron and iron tools, and people for

sale as slaves within West Africa. The arrival of European slave

traders in Africa also followed Muslim traders by some eight

centuries. As early as the seventh century, Muslims from North

African and other areas of the Mediterranean world established

trade routes into Saharan and sub-Saharan Africa and acquired

gold, pepper, ivory, dried meat and hides, and slaves, which they

transported to North Africa, the Middle East and beyond (Curtin

1990:40–41, Collins and Burns, A HISTORY OF SUB-

SAHARAN AFRICA (2014), 202).

As a result of the early West African slave trade by the

Portuguese, a sizeable number of Africans ended up in Portugal

and Spain. By the middle of the 16th century, 10,000 black people made up 10 percent of the population of

Lisbon. Some had been freed while others purchased their freedom. Some were the offspring of African and

Portuguese marriages and liaisons. Seville, Spain had an African population of 6,000. Some of these Africans

accompanied Spanish explorers to the North American mainland. (Curtin 1990:40–11).

All of the sub-Saharan African societies discussed in Module 1 participated in the slave trade as the enslaved or

as slavers or brokers. While Europeans created the demand side for slaves, African political and economic elites

did the primary work of capturing, transporting and selling Africans to European slave traders on the African

coast (Thornton 2002:36). Since European traders were vastly outnumbered by West Africans who controlled

trade along the coast, they first had to negotiate with powerful African chiefs who often demanded tribute and

fair trading terms. Only then could European traders acquire African slaves.

The reason why Africans participated in the slave trade, given its drain on the most productive adults from

Africa’s populations, is complex.

The violence and war sown by the slave trade greatly disrupted African societies. One answer is that the

institution of slavery already existed in African societies. Slavery in Africa, however, was different from the

kind of slavery that evolved in the New World, particularly the English colonies, a topic discussed in Module 3.

(Curtin 1990:40–41).

Most legal systems in Africa recognized slavery as a social condition. Slaves constituted a class of people,

captives or their descendants, over whom private citizens exercised the rights of the state to make laws, punish,

and control. Although these rights could be sold, in practice people of the slave class who had been settled in

one location for a sufficient time came to possess a number of rights, including immunity from resale or

arbitrary transfer from one owner or location (Thornton 2002:43). In Kongo in west central Africa, there was no

such thing as a class of slaves but many people belonged to a transitory group of servile subjects. “These were

people of foreign origin, people who had been outlawed for criminal acts, people who had lost the protection of

their kinfolk, or become irredeemably indebted to others,” argues one historian. “They differed from those

enslaved by Europeans in that under normal conditions they were likely to be reabsorbed into society

(Birmingham 1981:32).”

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Many of those enslaved and brought to the New World were people who had participated in local and long-

distance trade. Depending upon their resources, they were skilled agriculturists; artisans of textiles, bronze,

gold, ivory sculpture, jewelry and sacred objects; craftsmen of wooden tools, furniture, and architectural

elements; as well as potters and blacksmiths. Others were skilled linguists in more than one African language

and often one or more European languages as well. In some cases, they had developed trade languages that

facilitated inter-group communication even among African people whose language they did not know.

Even though those who were enslaved became part of one of the most heinous of historical tragedies, Africans

enslaved in North American also became part of one of the greatest triumphs of human history. African people

and their descendants helped to develop the modern Western world and create a new nation in the process. (3)

The Transatlantic Slave Trade

Figure 2-2: Map of the Atlantic to illustrate

colonization in America (1888) by Charles P.

Lucas is in the Public Domain . Map showing the

Atlantic world, including the places in African

where European traders acquired slaves and the

regions in the Americans where Europeans used

them for labor.

The ninth through the fifteenth centuries were times

of great struggle in Europe. The European powers

struggled with one another for territorial and

commercial dominance. Western and Eastern

Christendom struggled with one another and with

Islam for religious and cultural dominance.

The struggle for religious dominance resulted in

North African Berbers, Mid-Eastern Arabs and other Muslim peoples from Morocco occupying the Iberian

Peninsula for 700 years from 712 A.D. to 1492 A.D. During this time, while the Iberian powers sought to free

themselves of Moorish occupation, England and France embarked on the Crusades to retake the Holy Land

from Muslims, whom Christians called the “infidels.”

The periods of the ninth to fifteenth centuries were also times of external warfare among European powers over

trade, the decline of chiefdoms, and of internal consolidation, all leading to the emergence of new European

states. This era was marked by the loss of agricultural productivity, famine, disease, and epidemics. Peasants

rebelled against increased demands by nobility for tribute to pay for the wars. To resolve the emerging crisis,

European nations increased the scale and intensity of Old World wars for commercial dominance. These

circumstances combined to deplete the wealth of European nobility and the Church (Wolf 1982:108–125). (3)

Economic Factors Leading to the Enslavement of Africans

As the fifteenth century came to a close, Europeans embarked upon exploration of the New World and Africa in

search of expanded territory, new goods, precious metals, and new markets. All of these enterprises required

manpower to explore, clear land, build colonies, mine precious metals, and provide the settlers with subsistence.

In the New World, Europeans first tried to meet these needs by enslaving American Indians and relying on

European indentured laborers. Nevertheless, war, disease and famine among Native Americans and European

settlers depleted the colonies’ already limited labor supply. When both of these sources proved inadequate to

meet the needs for labor, Europe turned to Africa (Wolf 1982:108–125).

The development of economies based on production of sugar, tobacco and eventually rice were contingent upon

workers with particular attributes of material cultural knowledge, agricultural skills and the physical capability

to acclimate to the New World environment. Africans first enslaved by the Spanish and Portuguese

demonstrated that they were people who fulfilled these requirements (Wolfe 1982:108–125).

In the sixteenth century, Spanish conquistadores sailed to the Americas lured by the prospects of finding gold.

They brought a few Africans as slaves with them. Early Spanish settlers soon were reporting that in mining

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operations the work of one African was equal to that of four to eight Indians. They promoted the idea that

Africans as slaves would be essential to production of goods needed for European colonization.

Several factors combined to give impetus to the Spanish demand for an African work force. Native Americans

died in large numbers from European diseases for which they had no immunity. At the same time, the Spanish

clergy interceded to the Spanish Crown to protect exploitation of Indians in mining operations.

The introduction of sugarcane as a cash crop was another factor motivating the Spanish to enslave Africans. In

order to turn a profit, Spanish planters needed a large, controllable work force, they turned to Africa for laborers

(Reynolds 2002:14).

Once Portugal and Spain established the profitability of the African slave trade, other European nations entered

the field. The English made an initial foray into the African slave trade in 1530 when William Hawkins, a

merchant of Plymouth, visited the Guinea Coast and left with a few slaves. Three decades later Hawkins’ son,

John, set sail in 1564 for the Guinea Coast. Supported by Queen Elizabeth I, he commanded four armed ships

and a force of one hundred and seventy men. Hawkins lost many of these men in fights with “Negroes” on the

Guinea coast in his attempts to secure Africans to enslave. Later through piracy he took 300 Africans from a

Spanish vessel, making it profitable for him to head for the West Indies where he could sell them for money and

trade them for provisions. Queen Elizabeth I rewarded him for opening the slave trade for the English by

knighting him and giving him a crest that showed a Negro’s head and bust with arms bound secure (Hale [1884]

1967 Vol. 3:60).

For more than a century after Columbus’s voyages, only Spain and Portugal established New World

settlements. England did not establish its first enduring settlement in Jamestown, Virginia, until 1607. France

founded a settlement in Quebec in 1608. Henry Hudson brought Africans with him in his Dutch sponsored

exploration of the river that came to bear his name. Africans also accompanied the Dutch in 1621 when they

established a trading post in the area of present day Albany. (3)

Race as a Factor

European participation in African enslavement can only be partially explained by economics. At the end of the

medieval period, slavery was not widespread in Europe. It was mostly isolated in the southern fringes of the

Mediterranean. Iberian Christians mostly enslaved Muslims, Jews, Gypsies, and Slavs who were “white” non-

Christian eastern Europeans from whose name the word “slave” derives. When the transatlantic slave trade in

Africans began in 1441, Europeans placed Africans in a new category. They deemed them natural slaves — a

primitive, heathen people whose dark skin confirmed their God-ordained inferiority and subservience to

Christian Europeans. (Gomes 1936 in Sweet 2003:5). Europeans thus created an emergent understanding of

“race” and racial difference from their participation in the transatlantic slave trade and a system of racism

codified in law and policy and driven by a desire for wealth and profit. The first transnational, institutional

endorsement of African slavery occurred in 1452 when the Pope granted King Alphonso V of Portugal the right

to reduce all the non-Christians in West Africa to perpetual slavery (Saunders 1982:37–38 in Sweet 2003:6).

By the second half of the fifteenth century, the term “Negro” had become essentially synonymous with “slave”

across the Iberian Peninsula and had literally come to represent a race of people, most often associated with

black Africans and considered to be inferior (Sweet 2003:7). In the seventeenth century, Spanish colonizers

created a sistema de castas, or caste system, that ranked the status, and power, of peoples based on their “purity

of blood.” Spanish elites born in Spain sat the top of this racial classificatory system while African slaves

occupied the bottom. Skin color thus correlated with status and power. Race-based ideas of European

superiority and religious beliefs in the need to Christianize “heathen” peoples contributed to a culture in which

enslavement of Africans could be rationalized and justified. These explanations, however, do not answer the

question of why some Africans participated in the enslavement of other Africans in the transatlantic slave

trade. (3)

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Figure 2- 3: Las castas mexicanas by Ignacio María Barreda is

in the Public Domain .

Internal African Conflicts and Complexities

Western and African historians agree that war captives,

condemned criminals, debtors, aliens, famine victims, and

political dissidents were subject to enslavement within West

African societies. They also agree that during the period of the

transatlantic slave trade, internal wars, crop failure, drought,

famine, political instability, small-scale raiding, taxation, and

judicial or religious punishment produced a large number of

enslaved people within African states, nations and

principalities. There is general agreement among scholars that

the capture and sale of Africans for enslavement was primarily

carried out by the Africans themselves, especially the coastal

kings and the elders, and that few Europeans ever actually

marched inland and captured slaves themselves (Boahen, 1966;

Birmingham 1981; Wolf 1985; Mintz 2003). African wars

were the most important source of enslavement. (3) It is

important to recognize, however, that there did not exist a

common shared “African” identity among African peoples

during the early stages of the transatlantic slave trade along the

coast of West Africa. Consequently, when traders from West

African kingdoms sold men, women, and children to

Europeans slave traders most would have thought they were

selling outsiders, rather than fellow Africans, from their

societies and kingdoms — people who spoke different

languages, people who were prisoners of war or criminals, debtors and dissidents. (1)

Just as there were wars between Europeans over the right to slave catchment areas and points of

disembarkation, there were increasing numbers of wars between African principalities as the slave trade

progressed. Whatever the ostensible causes for these wars, they resulted in prisoners of war that supplied slave

factories at Goree and Bance Islands, Elmina, Cape Coast Castle, and James Forts and at Fernando Po along the

West and West Central African coast.

The fighting between African societies followed a pattern. Wars weakened the centralized African governments

and undermined the authority of associations, societies, and the elders who exercised social control in societies

with decentralized political forms. The winners and losers in wars both experienced the loss of people from

niches in lineages, secret societies, associations, guilds and other networks that maintained social order. Conflict

brought about loss of population and seriously compromised indigenous production of material goods, cash

crops and subsistence crops.

Winners and losers in the African wars came to rely upon European trade goods more and more. Eventually the

European monetized system replaced cowrie shells as a medium of exchange. European trade goods supplanted

former African reliance on indigenous material goods, natural resources and products as the economic basis of

their society. At the same time Europeans increasingly required people in exchange for trade goods. Once this

stage was reached an African society had little choice but to trade human lives for European goods and guns;

guns that had become necessary to wage wars for further captives in order to trade for goods upon which an

African society was now dependent (Birmingham 1981: 38).

While the slave trade often enriched the West African kingdoms that controlled the trade along the coast, it had

a devastating impact on the societies as a whole. African societies lost kinship networks, agricultural laborers

and production. The loss of people meant the loss of indigenous artisans and craftsmen, along with the

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knowledge of textile production, weaving and dying, metallurgy and metalwork, carving, basket making,

potting skills, architectural, and agricultural techniques upon which their societies depended. Africa’s loss was

the New World’s gain. These were the same material cultural expertise and skills that Africans brought to the

New World along with their physical labor and ability to acclimate to environmental conditions that made them

indispensable in the development of the Western Hemisphere. (3)

Which Europeans Trafficked in Slaves?

Which Europeans Trafficked in Slaves?

The Portuguese dominated the first 130 years of the transatlantic African slave trade. After 1651 they fell into

second position behind the British who became the primary carriers of Africans to the New World, a position

they continued to maintain until the end of the trade in the early nineteenth century.

Based on data concerning 86% of all slaving vessels leaving for the New World, historians estimate that the

British, including British colonials, and the Portuguese account for seven out of ten transatlantic slaving

voyages and carried nearly three quarters of all people embarking from Africa destined for slavery (Eltis et al

2001).

France joined the traffic of slaves in 1624, Holland and Denmark soon followed. The Dutch wrested control of

the transatlantic slave trade from the Portuguese in the 1630s, but by the 1640s they faced increasing

competition from French and British traders. England fought two wars with the Dutch in the 17 th century to

gain supremacy in the transatlantic slave trade.

Three special English companies were formed, including the Royal African Company, to operate in the sale of

slaves. They were given the exclusive rights to trade between the Gold Coast and the British colonies in

America. As the 17 th century came to a close in 1698, English merchants’ protests led to the English crown

extending the right to trade in slaves more generally. Colonists in New England immediately began to engage in

slave trafficking. Vessels left Boston, Massachusetts and Newport, Rhode Island laden with hogsheads of rum

that were exchanged for people in Africa consequently enslaved in North American and Caribbean colonies.

Beginning with the Spanish demand for slave labor, a demand that continued and expanded in the other colonies

and the United States even after abolition of the trade in 1807, the Transatlantic Slave Trade brought between

9.6 to 11 million Africans to the New World (Curtin 1969; Donnan [1930]2002; Eltis et. al 2001; Hall 1992).

Greater numbers of people were sold into slavery from some regions as compared to other regions. Some

European nations transported more Africans than others and some regions in the New World received more

Africans from certain regions than others. The British and Portuguese account for seven out of every ten

transatlantic slaving voyages and carried nearly three quarters of all people embarking from Africa destined for

slavery (Eltis et al 2001). (3)

The Middle Passage

European slavers transported millions of Africans across the ocean in a terrifying journey known as the Middle

Passage. Writing at the end of the eighteenth century, Olaudah Equiano, a former slave and abolitionist whose

memoir helped end the British slave trade in 1807, recalled the fearsomeness of the crew, the filth and gloom of

the hold, the inadequate provisions allotted for the captives, and the desperation that drove some slaves to

suicide. (Equiano claimed to have been born in Igboland in modern-day Nigeria, but he may have been born in

colonial South Carolina, where he collected memories of the Middle Passage from African-born slaves.) (2)

In the same time period, Alexander Falconbridge, a slave ship surgeon, described the sufferings of slaves from

shipboard infections and close quarters in the hold. Dysentery, known as “the bloody flux,” left captives lying in

pools of excrement. Chained in small spaces in the hold, slaves could lose so much skin and flesh from chafing

against metal and timber that their bones protruded. (2) Other sources detailed rapes, whippings, and diseases

like smallpox and conjunctivitis aboard slave ships. (1) One historian has referred to conditions Africans endured

in the Middle Passage as “probably the purest form of domination in the history of slavery as an institution.”

(Eltis, THE RISE OF AFRICAN SLAVERY IN THE AMERICAS, 117). (2)

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“Middle” had various meanings in the Atlantic slave trade. For the captains and crews of slave ships, the Middle

Passage was one leg in the maritime trade in sugar and other semi-finished American goods, manufactured

European commodities, and African slaves. For the enslaved Africans, the Middle Passage was the middle leg

of three distinct journeys from Africa to the Americas. First was an overland journey in Africa to a coastal

slave-trading factory,

often a trek of hundreds

of miles. Second—and

middle—was an oceanic

trip lasting from one to

six months in a slaver.

Third was acculturation

(known as “seasoning”)

and transportation to the

American mine,

plantation, or other

location where new

slaves were forced to

labor. (2)

Figure

25: Slaveshipposter by

Plymouth Chapter of the

Society for Effecting the

Abolition of the Slave

Trade is in the Public

Domain . This diagram

of the British slave ship,

Brookes, showing how

traders stowed African

slaves in order to

maximize capacity.

Recent estimates count

between 11 and 12

million Africans forced

across the Atlantic

between the sixteenth

and nineteenth

centuries, with about 2

million deaths at sea as

well as an additional

several million dying in the trade’s overland African leg or during seasoning. (2)

Summary of Transatlantic Slave Trade

It was the labor of enslaved Africans who extracted the gold and silver from South American mines, who grew

the sugar cane on Caribbean plantations, and later tobacco, rice, indigo, and cotton on North American

plantations that helped power an entire system of capitalism. European capital funded slave ships who carried

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European goods to the coast of Africa in exchange for human beings who became slaves and by extension

commodities who were bought and sold to other traders and plantation owners.

These African slaves then produced commodities grown in European colonies that traders exported to Europe

for manufacturing and sale to consumers across the continent. Africans and their labor were the beating heart of

this interconnected system of global trade and capitalist expansion. For instance, in one single year, 1807,

Britain imported 297.9 million pounds of slave-produced sugar, 72.74 million pounds of cotton, and 16.4

million pounds of tobacco — virtually all of it produced by slaves.

In the year 1800 alone, historian Robin Blackburn estimates that about one million slaves performed labor on

British controlled plantations that amounted to about “2,500,000,000 hours of toil” combined. (Blackburn, THE

MAKING OF NEW WORLD SLAVERY , 581, Rediker, THE SLAVE SHIP , 347–348). That same African

slave labor in 1800 produced the equivalent of over 4 billion American dollars when adjusted for inflation in

2018.

Despite the exploitation and dehumanization they endured as slaves, Africans created new cultures and kinship

ties that drew from their roots in Africa and their new experiences and contacts in the Americas. These African-

American cultures would become the basis of black resistance and resilience for generations of slaves while,

later, also becoming a fundamental part of the history and culture of the United States of America. (1)

Excerpt from: Thomas Phillips, A Journal of a Voyage Made in the Hannibal of London, Ann. 1693, 1694 (published 1732).

Source Introduction and Summary: In this document, Captain Thomas Phillips of the English

slave ship, Hannibal, describes how he and his English crew interacted and negotiated with an

African king, and his emissaries, in order to acquire slaves. Phillips also describes how English

traders branded and shackled slaves in the early stages of the Middle Passage, and how Africans

resisted their enslavement by mutiny and suicide. Phillips also provides a rare reflection on how

Europeans and Africans perceived color difference and created emerging concepts of race and

racism.

Phillips, and his ship, were part of the Royal African Company, the English slave trading stock-

company which originated in 1660 after the restoration of the monarchy. The Royal African

Company dominated the West African slave trade during the late seventeenth century. In 1693,

Phillips and the Hannibal left England for present day Benin on the West African coast to

acquire slaves. After filling his ship with 700 men and women, Phillips and the Hannibal sailed

for Barbados in the eastern Caribbean where English sugar plantation owners required large

amounts of slave labor. Only 372 of the slaves on the Hannibal survived the passage from West

Africa to Barbados – an unusually high mortality rate. During the seventeenth century, the

average mortality rate for any given slave ship making the passage from Africa to the Americans

was about twenty percent. (Yazawa, Documents for America’s History, 59) (1)

Excerpt:

“As soon as the king understood of our landing, he sent two of his cappasheirs [Africans

designated by coastal kings to supply European traders with slaves], or noblemen, to compliment

us at our factory [slave trading fort on the coast], where we design’d to continue, that night, and

pay our devoirs [respects] to his majesty next day, which we signify’d to them, and they, by a

foot-express, to their monarch; whereupon he sent out two more of his grandees [noblemen] to

invite us there that night, saying he waited for us, and that all former captains used to attend him

the first night: whereupon being unwilling to infringe the custom, or give his majesty any

offence, we took our hammocks, and Mr. Peirson, myself, Capt. Clay, our surgeons, pursers, and

about 12 men, arm’d for our guard, were carry’d to the king’s town, which contains about 50

houses . . . (216)

“We returned him thanks by his interpreter, and assur’d him how great affection our

masters, the royal African company of England, bore to him, for his civility and fair and just

dealings with their captains; and that notwithstanding there were many other Places, more plenty

of negro slaves that begg’d their custom, yet they had rejected all the advantageous offers made

them out of their good will to him, and therefore had sent us to trade with him, to supply his

country with necessaries, and that we hop’d he would endeavor to continue their favour by his

kind usage and fair dealing with us in our trade, that we would oblige his cappasheirs to do us

justice, and not impose upon use in their prices; all which we should faithfully relate to our

masters, the royal African company, when we came to England. He answer’d that the African

company was a very good brave man; that he lov’d him; that we should be fairly dealt with, and

not impos’d upon; But he did not prove as good as his word; nor indeed (tho’ his cappasheirs

shew him so much respect) dare he do anything but what they please . . . so after having

examin’d us about our cargoe, what sort of goods we had, and what quantity of slaves we

wanted, etc., we took our leaves and return’d to the factory, having promised to come in the

morning to make our palavera, or agreement, with him about prices, how much of each of our

goods for a slave. (217)

“According to promise we attended his majesty with samples of our goods, and made our

agreement about the prices, tho’ not without much difficulty; he and his cappasheirs exacted very

high, but at length we concluded as per the latter end; then we had warehouses, a kitchen, and

lodgings assign’d us, but none of our rooms (217) had doors till we made them, and put on locks

and keys; next day we paid our customs to the king and cappasheirs . . . then the bell was order’d

to go about to give notice to all people to bring their slaves to the trunk [holding area for slaves

to be sold] to sell us . . . This man carry’d about [the bell] and beat with a stick, which made a

small dead sound . . . (218)

“We were every morning, during our stay here, invited to breakfast with the king, where

we always found the same dish of stew’d fowls and potatoes; he also would send us a hog, goat,

sheep, or pot of pitto [a liquor made from corn] every day for our table, and we usually return’d

his civility with three or four bottles of brandy, which is his fumum bonum [favorite]: We had our

cook ashore, and eat as well as we could, provisions being plenty and cheap; but we soon lost our

stomachs by sickness, most of my men having fevers, and myself such convulsions and aches in

my head, that I could hardly stand or go to the trunk without assistance, and there often fainted

with the horrid stink of the negroes, it being an old house where all the slaves are kept together,

and evacuate nature where they life, so that no jakes can stink worse: there being forced to sit

three or four hours at a time, quite ruin’d my health, but there was no help. (218)

“Capt. Clay and I agreed to go to the trunk to buy the slaves by turns, each his day, that

we might have no distraction or disagreement in our trade, as often happens when there are here

more ships than one, and the commanders can’t set their horses together, and go hand in hand in

their traffick, whereby they have a check upon the blacks, whereas their disagreements create

animosities, underminings, and out-bidding each other, whereby they enhance the prices to their

general loss and detriment, the blacks well knowing how to make the best use of such

opportunities, and as we found make it their business, and endeavor to create and foment

misunderstandings and jealousies between commanders, it turning to their great account in the

disposal of their slaves. (218)

“When we were at the trunk, the king’s slaves, if he had any, were the first offer’d to sale,

which the cappasheirs would be very urgent with us to buy, and would in a manner force us to it

ere they would shew us any other, saying they were the Reys Cosa [the king’s slaves], and we

must not refuse them, tho’ as I observ’d they were generally the worst slaves in the trunk, and we

paid more for them than any others, which we could not remedy, it being one of his majesty’s

prerogatives; then the cappasheirs each brought out his slaves according to his degree and

quality, the greatest first, &c. and our surgeon examin’d them well in all kinds, to see that they

were sound wind and limb, making them jump, stretch out their arms swiftly, looking in their

mouths to judge their age; for the cappasheirs are so cunning, that they shave them all close

before we see them, so that let them never be so old we see no grey hairs in their heads or beards;

and then having liquor’d them well and sleek with palm oil, ‘tis no easy matter to know an old

one from a middle-age one, but by the teeths decay; but our greatest care of all is to buy none

that are pox’d, lest they should infect the rest aboard; for tho’ we separate the men and women

aboard by partitions and bulk-heads, to prevent quarrels and wranglings among them, yet do

what we can they will come together, and that distemper which they call the yaws, is very

common here, and discovers itself by almost the same symptoms as the . . . clap does with us;

therefore our surgeon is forc’d to examine the privities of both men and women, with the nicest

scrutiny . . . When we had selected from the rest such as we liked, we agreed in what goods to

pay them, the prices being already state before the king, how much of each sort of merchandize

we were to give for a man, woman, and child, which gave us much ease, and saved abundance of

disputes and wranglings, and gave the owner a note, signifying our agreement of the sorts of

goods; upon delivery of which the next day he receiv’d them; then we mark’d the slaves we had

bought in the breast, or shoulder, with a hot iron, having the letter of the ship’s name on it, the

place being before anointed with a little palm oil, which caus’d but little pain, the mark being

usually well in four or five days, appearing very plain and white after. (218)

“When we had purchas’d to the number of 50 or 60 we would send them aboard, there

being a cappasheir, intitled the captain of the slaves, whose care it was to secure them to the

water-side, and see them all off; and if in carrying to the marine any were lost, he was bound to

make them good, to us, the captain of the trunk being oblig’d to do the like, if any run away

while under his care, for after we buy them we give him charge of them till the captain of the

slaves comes to carry them away: These are two officers appointed by the king for this purpose,

to each of which every ship pays the value of a slave in what goods they like best for their

trouble (218), when they have done trading; and indeed they discharg’d their duty to us very

faithfully, we not having lost one slave thro’ their neglect in 1300 we bought here. (219)

“There is likewise a captain of the sand, who is appointed to take care of the merchandize

we have come ashore to trade with, that the negroes do not plunder them, we being often forced

to leave goods a whole night on the sea shore, for want of porters to bring them up; but

notwithstanding his care and authority, we often came by the loss, and could have no redress.

“When our slaves were come to the seaside, our canoes were ready to carry them off to

the longboat, if the sea permitted, and she convey’d them aboard ship, where the men were all

put in irons, two and two shackled together, to prevent their mutiny, or swimming ashore. (219)

“The negroes are so willful and loth to leave their own country, that they have often

leap’d out of the canoes, boat and ship, into the sea, and kept under water till they were drowned,

to avoid being taken up and saved by our boats, which pursued them; they having a more

dreadful apprehension of Barbadoes [the island of Barbados in the eastern Caribbean] than we

can have of hell, tho’ in reality they live much better there than in their own country; but home is

home, &c: we have likewise seen divers of them eaten by the sharks, of which a prodigious

number kept about the ships of this place, and I have been told will follow her hence to

Barbadoes, for the dead negroes that are thrown over-board in the passage. I am certain in our

voyage there we did not want the sight of some every day, but that they were the same I can’t

affirm. (219)

“We had about 12 negroes did willfully drown themselves, and others starv’d themselves

to death; for ‘tis their belief that when they die they return home to their own country and friends

again. (219)

“I have been inform’d that some commanders have cut off the legs or arms of the most

willful, to terrify the rest, for they believe if they lose a member, they cannot return home again:

I was advis’d by some of my officers to do the same, but I could not be persuaded to entertain

the least thoughts of it, much less to put in practice such barbarity and cruelty to poor creatures,

who, excepting their want of Christianity and true religion, (their misfortune more than fault) are

as much the works of God’s hands, and no doubt as dear to him as ourselves; nor can I imagine

why they should be despis’d for their colour, being what they cannot help, and the effect of the

climate it has pleas’d God to appoint them. I can’t think there is any instrinsick value in one

colour more than another, nor that white is better than black, only we think it so because we are

so, and are prone to judge favorably in our own case, as well as the blacks, who in odium of the

colour, say, the devil is white, and so paint him.” (219) (7)

Attributions

(1) Content by Florida State College at Jacksonville is licensed under CC BY 4.0

(7) A Journal of a Voyage Made in the Hannibal of London by Thomas Phillips is in the Public

Domain.

Excerpt from: Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African. Written By Himself. Vol. I. (published 1789) CHAPTER II ~The author's birth and parentage--His being kidnapped with his sister--Their separation-- Surprise at meeting again--Are finally separated--Account of the different places and incidents the author met with till his arrival on the coast--The effect the sight of a slave ship had on him-- He sails for the West Indies--Horrors of a slave ship--Arrives at Barbadoes, where the cargo is sold and dispersed.~ I hope the reader will not think I have trespassed on his patience in introducing myself to him with some account of the manners and customs of my country. They had been implanted in me with great care, and made an impression on my mind, which time could not erase, and which all the adversity and variety of fortune I have since experienced served only to rivet and record; for, whether the love of one's country be real or imaginary, or a lesson of reason, or an instinct of nature, I still look back with pleasure on the first scenes of my life, though that pleasure has been for the most part mingled with sorrow. I have already acquainted the reader with the time and place of my birth. My father, besides many slaves, had a numerous family, of which seven lived to grow up, including myself and a sister, who was the only daughter. As I was the youngest of the sons, I became, of course, the greatest favourite with my mother, and was always with her; and she used to take particular pains to form my mind. I was trained up from my earliest years in the art of war; my daily exercise was shooting and throwing javelins; and my mother adorned me with emblems, after the manner of our greatest warriors. In this way I grew up till I was turned the age of eleven, when an end was put to my happiness in the following manner:--Generally when the grown people in the neighbourhood were gone far in the fields to labour, the children assembled together in some of the neighbours' premises to play; and commonly some of us used to get up a tree to look out for any assailant, or kidnapper, that might come upon us; for they sometimes took those opportunities of our parents' absence to attack and carry off as many as they could seize. One day, as I was watching at the top of a tree in our yard, I saw one of those people come into the yard of our next neighbour but one, to kidnap, there being many stout young people in it. Immediately on this I gave the alarm of the rogue, and he was surrounded by the stoutest of them, who entangled him with cords, so that he could not escape till some of the grown people came and secured him. But alas! ere long it was my fate to be thus attacked, and to be carried off, when none of the grown people were nigh. One day, when all our people were gone out to their works as usual, and only I and my dear sister were left to mind the house, two men and a woman got over our walls, and in a moment seized us both, and, without

giving us time to cry out, or make resistance, they stopped our mouths, and ran off with us into the nearest wood. Here they tied our hands, and continued to carry us as far as they could, till night came on, when we reached a small house, where the robbers halted for refreshment, and spent the night. We were then unbound, but were unable to take any food; and, being quite overpowered by fatigue and grief, our only relief was some sleep, which allayed our\ misfortune for a short time. The next morning we left the house, and continued travelling all the day. For a long time we had kept the woods, but at last we came into a road which I believed I knew. I had now some hopes of being delivered; for we had advanced but a little way before I discovered some people at a distance, on which I began to cry out for their assistance: but my cries had no other effect than to make them tie me faster and stop my mouth, and then they put me into a large sack. They also stopped my sister's mouth, and tied her hands; and in this manner we proceeded till we were out of the sight of these people. When we went to rest the following night they offered us some victuals; but we refused it; and the only comfort we had was in being in one another's arms all that night, and bathing each other with our tears. But alas! we were soon deprived of even the small comfort of weeping together. The next day proved a day of greater sorrow than I had yet experienced; for my sister and I were then separated, while we lay clasped in each other's arms. It was in vain that we besought them not to part us; she was torn from me, and immediately carried away, while I was left in a state of distraction not to be described. I cried and grieved continually; and for several days I did not eat anything but what they forced into my mouth. At length, after many days travelling, during which I had often changed masters, I got into the hands of a chieftain, in a very pleasant country. This man had two wives and some children, and they all used me extremely well, and did all they could to comfort me; particularly the first wife, who was something like my mother. Although I was a great many days journey from my father's house, yet these people spoke exactly the same language with us. This first master of mine, as I may call him, was a smith, and my principal employment was working his bellows, which were the same kind as I had seen in my vicinity. They were in some respects not unlike the stoves here in gentlemen's kitchens; and were covered over with leather; and in the middle of that leather a stick was fixed, and a person stood up, and worked it, in the same manner as is done to pump water out of a cask with a hand pump. I believe it was gold he worked, for it was of a lovely bright yellow colour, and was worn by the women on their wrists and ancles. I was there I suppose about a month, and they at last used to trust me some little distance from the house. This liberty I used in embracing every opportunity to inquire the way to my own home: and I also sometimes, for the same purpose, went with the maidens, in the cool of the evenings, to bring pitchers of water from the springs for the use of the house. I had also remarked where the sun rose in the morning, and set in the evening, as I had travelled along; and I had observed that my father's house was towards the rising of the sun. I therefore determined to seize the first opportunity of making my escape, and to shape my course for that quarter; for I was quite oppressed and weighed down by grief after my mother and friends; and my love of liberty, ever great, was strengthened by the mortifying circumstance of not daring to eat with the free-born children, although I was mostly their companion. While I was projecting my escape, one day an unlucky event happened, which quite disconcerted my plan, and put an end to my hopes. I used to be sometimes employed in assisting an elderly woman slave to cook and take care of the poultry; and one morning, while I was feeding some chickens, I happened to toss a small pebble

at one of them, which hit it on the middle and directly killed it. The old slave, having soon after missed the chicken, inquired after it; and on my relating the accident (for I told her the truth, because my mother would never suffer me to tell a lie) she flew into a violent passion, threatened that I should suffer for it; and, my master being out, she immediately went and told her mistress what I had done. This alarmed me very much, and I expected an instant flogging, which to me was uncommonly dreadful; for I had seldom been beaten at home. I therefore resolved to fly; and accordingly I ran into a thicket that was hard by, and hid myself in the bushes. Soon afterwards my mistress and the slave returned, and, not seeing me, they searched all the house, but not finding me, and I not making answer when they called to me, they thought I had run away, and the whole neighbourhood was raised in the pursuit of me. In that part of the country (as in ours) the houses and villages were skirted with woods, or shrubberies, and the bushes were so thick that a man could readily conceal himself in them, so as to elude the strictest search. The neighbours continued the whole day looking for me, and several times many of them came within a few yards of the place where I lay hid. I then gave myself up for lost entirely, and expected every moment, when I heard a rustling among the trees, to be found out, and punished by my master: but they never discovered me, though they were often so near that I even heard their conjectures as they were looking about for me; and I now learned from them, that any attempt to return home would be hopeless. Most of them supposed I had fled towards home; but the distance was so great, and the way so intricate, that they thought I could never reach it, and that I should be lost in the woods. When I heard this I was seized with a violent panic, and abandoned myself to despair. Night too began to approach, and aggravated all my fears. I had before entertained hopes of getting home, and I had determined when it should be dark to make the attempt; but I was now convinced it was fruitless, and I began to consider that, if possibly I could escape all other animals, I could not those of the human kind; and that, not knowing the way, I must perish in the woods. Thus was I like the hunted deer: --"Ev'ry leaf and ev'ry whisp'ring breath Convey'd a foe, and ev'ry foe a death." I heard frequent rustlings among the leaves; and being pretty sure they were snakes I expected every instant to be stung by them. This increased my anguish, and the horror of my situation became now quite insupportable. I at length quitted the thicket, very faint and hungry, for I had not eaten or drank any thing all the day; and crept to my master's kitchen, from whence I set out at first, and which was an open shed, and laid myself down in the ashes with an anxious wish for death to relieve me from all my pains. I was scarcely awake in the morning when the old woman slave, who was the first up, came to light the fire, and saw me in the fire place. She was very much surprised to see me, and could scarcely believe her own eyes. She now promised to intercede for me, and went for her master, who soon after came, and, having slightly reprimanded me, ordered me to be taken care of, and not to be ill-treated. Soon after this my master's only daughter, and child by his first wife, sickened and died, which affected him so much that for some time he was almost frantic, and really would have killed himself, had he not been watched and prevented. However, in a small time afterwards he

recovered, and I was again sold. I was now carried to the left of the sun's rising, through many different countries, and a number of large woods. The people I was sold to used to carry me very often, when I was tired, either on their shoulders or on their backs. I saw many convenient well-built sheds along the roads, at proper distances, to accommodate the merchants and travellers, who lay in those buildings along with their wives, who often accompany them; and they always go well armed. From the time I left my own nation I always found somebody that understood me till I came to the sea coast. The languages of different nations did not totally differ, nor were they so copious as those of the Europeans, particularly the English. They were therefore easily learned; and, while I was journeying thus through Africa, I acquired two or three different tongues. In this manner I had been travelling for a considerable time, when one evening, to my great surprise, whom should I see brought to the house where I was but my dear sister! As soon as she saw me she gave a loud shriek, and ran into my arms--I was quite overpowered: neither of us could speak; but, for a considerable time, clung to each other in mutual embraces, unable to do any thing but weep. Our meeting affected all who saw us; and indeed I must acknowledge, in honour of those sable destroyers of human rights, that I never met with any ill treatment, or saw any offered to their slaves, except tying them, when necessary, to keep them from running away. When these people knew we were brother and sister they indulged us together; and the man, to whom I supposed we belonged, lay with us, he in the middle, while she and I held one another by the hands across his breast all night; and thus for a while we forgot our misfortunes in the joy of being together: but even this small comfort was soon to have an end; for scarcely had the fatal morning appeared, when she was again torn from me for ever! I was now more miserable, if possible, than before. The small relief which her presence gave me from pain was gone, and the wretchedness of my situation was redoubled by my anxiety after her fate, and my apprehensions lest her sufferings should be greater than mine, when I could not be with her to alleviate them. Yes, thou dear partner of all my childish sports! thou sharer of my joys and sorrows! happy should I have ever esteemed myself to encounter every misery for you, and to procure your freedom by the sacrifice of my own. Though you were early forced from my arms, your image has been always rivetted in my heart, from which neither _time nor fortune_ have been able to remove it; so that, while the thoughts of your sufferings have damped my prosperity, they have mingled with adversity and increased its bitterness. To that Heaven which protects the weak from the strong, I commit the care of your innocence and virtues, if they have not already received their full reward, and if your youth and delicacy have not long since fallen victims to the violence of the African trader, the pestilential stench of a Guinea ship, the seasoning in the European colonies, or the lash and lust of a brutal and unrelenting overseer. I did not long remain after my sister. I was again sold, and carried through a number of places, till, after travelling a considerable time, I came to a town called Tinmah, in the most beautiful country I have yet seen in Africa. It was extremely rich, and there were many rivulets which flowed through it, and supplied a large pond in the centre of the town, where the people washed. Here I first saw and tasted cocoa-nuts, which I thought superior to any nuts I had ever tasted before; and the trees, which were loaded, were also interspersed amongst the houses, which had commodious shades adjoining, and were in the same manner as ours, the insides

being neatly plastered and whitewashed. Here I also saw and tasted for the first time sugar- cane. Their money consisted of little white shells, the size of the finger nail. I was sold here for one hundred and seventy-two of them by a merchant who lived and brought me there. I had been about two or three days at his house, when a wealthy widow, a neighbour of his, came there one evening, and brought with her an only son, a young gentleman about my own age and size. Here they saw me; and, having taken a fancy to me, I was bought of the merchant, and went home with them. Her house and premises were situated close to one of those rivulets I have mentioned, and were the finest I ever saw in Africa: they were very extensive, and she had a number of slaves to attend her. The next day I was washed and perfumed, and when meal- time came I was led into the presence of my mistress, and ate and drank before her with her son. This filled me with astonishment; and I could scarce help expressing my surprise that the young gentleman should suffer me, who was bound, to eat with him who was free; and not only so, but that he would not at any time either eat or drink till I had taken first, because I was the eldest, which was agreeable to our custom. Indeed every thing here, and all their treatment of me, made me forget that I was a slave. The language of these people resembled ours so nearly, that we understood each other perfectly. They had also the very same customs as we. There were likewise slaves daily to attend us, while my young master and I with other boys sported with our darts and bows and arrows, as I had been used to do at home. In this resemblance to my former happy state I passed about two months; and I now began to think I was to be adopted into the family, and was beginning to be reconciled to my situation, and to forget by degrees my misfortunes, when all at once the delusion vanished; for, without the least previous knowledge, one morning early, while my dear master and companion was still asleep, I was wakened out of my reverie to fresh sorrow, and hurried away even amongst the uncircumcised. Thus, at the very moment I dreamed of the greatest happiness, I found myself most miserable; and it seemed as if fortune wished to give me this taste of joy, only to render the reverse more poignant. The change I now experienced was as painful as it was sudden and unexpected. It was a change indeed from a state of bliss to a scene which is inexpressible by me, as it discovered to me an element I had never before beheld, and till then had no idea of, and wherein such instances of hardship and cruelty continually occurred as I can never reflect on but with horror. All the nations and people I had hitherto passed through resembled our own in their manners, customs, and language: but I came at length to a country, the inhabitants of which differed from us in all those particulars. I was very much struck with this difference, especially when I came among a people who did not circumcise, and ate without washing their hands. They cooked also in iron pots, and had European cutlasses and cross bows, which were unknown to us, and fought with their fists amongst themselves. Their women were not so modest as ours, for they ate, and drank, and slept, with their men. But, above all, I was amazed to see no sacrifices or offerings among them. In some of those places the people ornamented themselves with scars, and likewise filed their teeth very sharp. They wanted sometimes to ornament me in the same manner, but I would not suffer them; hoping that I might some time be among a people who did not thus disfigure themselves, as I thought they did. At last I came to the banks of a large river, which was covered with canoes, in which the people appeared to live with their

household utensils and provisions of all kinds. I was beyond measure astonished at this, as I had never before seen any water larger than a pond or a rivulet: and my surprise was mingled with no small fear when I was put into one of these canoes, and we began to paddle and move along the river. We continued going on thus till night; and when we came to land, and made fires on the banks, each family by themselves, some dragged their canoes on shore, others stayed and cooked in theirs, and laid in them all night. Those on the land had mats, of which they made tents, some in the shape of little houses: in these we slept; and after the morning meal we embarked again and proceeded as before. I was often very much astonished to see some of the women, as well as the men, jump into the water, dive to the bottom, come up again, and swim about. Thus I continued to travel, sometimes by land, sometimes by water, through different countries and various nations, till, at the end of six or seven months after I had been kidnapped, I arrived at the sea coast. It would be tedious and uninteresting to relate all the incidents which befell me during this journey, and which I have not yet forgotten; of the various hands I passed through, and the manners and customs of all the different people among whom I lived: I shall therefore only observe, that in all the places where I was the soil was exceedingly rich; the pomkins, eadas, plantains, yams, &c. &c. were in great abundance, and of incredible size. There were also vast quantities of different gums, though not used for any purpose; and every where a great deal of tobacco. The cotton even grew quite wild; and there was plenty of redwood. I saw no mechanics whatever in all the way, except such as I have mentioned. The chief employment in all these countries was agriculture, and both the males and females, as with us, were brought up to it, and trained in the arts of war. The first object which saluted my eyes when I arrived on the coast was the sea, and a slave ship, which was then riding at anchor, and waiting for its cargo. These filled me with astonishment, which was soon converted into terror when I was carried on board. I was immediately handled and tossed up to see if I were sound by some of the crew; and I was now persuaded that I had gotten into a world of bad spirits, and that they were going to kill me. Their complexions too differing so much from ours, their long hair, and the language they spoke, (which was very different from any I had ever heard) united to confirm me in this belief. Indeed such were the horrors of my views and fears at the moment, that, if ten thousand worlds had been my own, I would have freely parted with them all to have exchanged my condition with that of the meanest slave in my own country. When I looked round the ship too and saw a large furnace or copper boiling, and a multitude of black people of every description chained together, every one of their countenances expressing dejection and sorrow, I no longer doubted of my fate; and, quite overpowered with horror and anguish, I fell motionless on the deck and fainted. When I recovered a little I found some black people about me, who I believed were some of those who brought me on board, and had been receiving their pay; they talked to me in order to cheer me, but all in vain. I asked them if we were not to be eaten by those white men with horrible looks, red faces, and loose hair. They told me I was not; and one of the crew brought me a small portion of spirituous liquor in a wine glass; but, being afraid of him, I would not take it out of his hand. One of the blacks therefore took it from him and gave it to me, and I took a little down my palate, which, instead of reviving me, as they thought it would, threw me into the greatest consternation at the strange feeling it produced, having never tasted any such liquor before. Soon after this the blacks who brought me on board went off, and left me

abandoned to despair. I now saw myself deprived of all chance of returning to my native country, or even the least glimpse of hope of gaining the shore, which I now considered as friendly; and I even wished for my former slavery in preference to my present situation, which was filled with horrors of every kind, still heightened by my ignorance of what I was to undergo. I was not long suffered to indulge my grief; I was soon put down under the decks, and there I received such a salutation in my nostrils as I had never experienced in my life: so that, with the loathsomeness of the stench, and crying together, I became so sick and low that I was not able to eat, nor had I the least desire to taste any thing. I now wished for the last friend, death, to relieve me; but soon, to my grief, two of the white men offered me eatables; and, on my refusing to eat, one of them held me fast by the hands, and laid me across I think the windlass, and tied my feet, while the other flogged me severely. I had never experienced any thing of this kind before; and although, not being used to the water, I naturally feared that element the first time I saw it, yet nevertheless, could I have got over the nettings, I would have jumped over the side, but I could not; and, besides, the crew used to watch us very closely who were not chained down to the decks, lest we should leap into the water: and I have seen some of these poor African prisoners most severely cut for attempting to do so, and hourly whipped for not eating. This indeed was often the case with myself. In a little time after, amongst the poor chained men, I found some of my own nation, which in a small degree gave ease to my mind. I inquired of these what was to be done with us; they gave me to understand we were to be carried to these white people's country to work for them. I then was a little revived, and thought, if it were no worse than working, my situation was not so desperate: but still I feared I should be put to death, the white people looked and acted, as I thought, in so savage a manner; for I had never seen among any people such instances of brutal cruelty; and this not only shewn towards us blacks, but also to some of the whites themselves. One white man in particular I saw, when we were permitted to be on deck, flogged so unmercifully with a large rope near the foremast, that he died in consequence of it; and they tossed him over the side as they would have done a brute. This made me fear these people the more; and I expected nothing less than to be treated in the same manner. I could not help expressing my fears and apprehensions to some of my countrymen: I asked them if these people had no country, but lived in this hollow place (the ship): they told me they did not, but came from a distant one. 'Then,' said I, 'how comes it in all our country we never heard of them?' They told me because they lived so very far off. I then asked where were their women? had they any like themselves? I was told they had: 'and why,' said I,'do we not see them?' they answered, because they were left behind. I asked how the vessel could go? they told me they could not tell; but that there were cloths put upon the masts by the help of the ropes I saw, and then the vessel went on; and the white men had some spell or magic they put in the water when they liked in order to stop the vessel. I was exceedingly amazed at this account, and really thought they were spirits. I therefore wished much to be from amongst them, for I expected they would sacrifice me: but my wishes were vain; for we were so quartered that it was impossible for any of us to make our escape. While we stayed on the coast I was mostly on deck; and one day, to my great astonishment, I saw one of these vessels coming in with the sails up. As soon as the whites saw it, they gave a great shout, at which we were amazed; and the more so as the vessel appeared larger by approaching nearer. At last she came to an anchor in my sight, and when the anchor was let go I and my countrymen who saw it were lost in astonishment to observe the vessel stop; and

were not convinced it was done by magic. Soon after this the other ship got her boats out, and they came on board of us, and the people of both ships seemed very glad to see each other. Several of the strangers also shook hands with us black people, and made motions with their hands, signifying I suppose we were to go to their country; but we did not understand them. At last, when the ship we were in had got in all her cargo, they made ready with many fearful noises, and we were all put under deck, so that we could not see how they managed the vessel. But this disappointment was the least of my sorrow. The stench of the hold while we were on the coast was so intolerably loathsome, that it was dangerous to remain there for any time, and some of us had been permitted to stay on the deck for the fresh air; but now that the whole ship's cargo were confined together, it became absolutely pestilential. The closeness of the place, and the heat of the climate, added to the number in the ship, which was so crowded that each had scarcely room to turn himself, almost suffocated us. This produced copious perspirations, so that the air soon became unfit for respiration, from a variety of loathsome smells, and brought on a sickness among the slaves, of which many died, thus falling victims to the improvident avarice, as I may call it, of their purchasers. This wretched situation was again aggravated by the galling of the chains, now become insupportable; and the filth of the necessary tubs, into which the children often fell, and were almost suffocated. The shrieks of the women, and the groans of the dying, rendered the whole a scene of horror almost inconceivable. Happily perhaps for myself I was soon reduced so low here that it was thought necessary to keep me almost always on deck; and from my extreme youth I was not put in fetters. In this situation I expected every hour to share the fate of my companions, some of whom were almost daily brought upon deck at the point of death, which I began to hope would soon put an end to my miseries. Often did I think many of the inhabitants of the deep much more happy than myself. I envied them the freedom they enjoyed, and as often wished I could change my condition for theirs. Every circumstance I met with served only to render my state more painful, and heighten my apprehensions, and my opinion of the cruelty of the whites. One day they had taken a number of fishes; and when they had killed and satisfied themselves with as many as they thought fit, to our astonishment who were on the deck, rather than give any of them to us to eat as we expected, they tossed the remaining fish into the sea again, although we begged and prayed for some as well as we could, but in vain; and some of my countrymen, being pressed by hunger, took an opportunity, when they thought no one saw them, of trying to get a little privately; but they were discovered, and the attempt procured them some very severe floggings. One day, when we had a smooth sea and moderate wind, two of my wearied countrymen who were chained together (I was near them at the time), preferring death to such a life of misery, somehow made through the nettings and jumped into the sea: immediately another quite dejected fellow, who, on account of his illness, was suffered to be out of irons, also followed their example; and I believe many more would very soon have done the same if they had not been prevented by the ship's crew, who were instantly alarmed. Those of us that were the most active were in a moment put down under the deck, and there was such a noise and confusion amongst the people of the ship as I never heard before, to stop her, and get the boat out to go after the slaves. However two of the wretches were drowned, but they got the other, and afterwards flogged him unmercifully for thus attempting to prefer death to slavery. In this manner we continued to undergo more hardships than I can now relate, hardships which are inseparable from this accursed trade. Many a time we were near

suffocation from the want of fresh air, which we were often without for whole days together. This, and the stench of the necessary tubs, carried off many. During our passage I first saw flying fishes, which surprised me very much: they used frequently to fly across the ship, and many of them fell on the deck. I also now first saw the use of the quadrant; I had often with astonishment seen the mariners make observations with it, and I could not think what it meant. They at last took notice of my surprise; and one of them, willing to increase it, as well as to gratify my curiosity, made me one day look through it. The clouds appeared to me to be land, which disappeared as they passed along. This heightened my wonder; and I was now more persuaded than ever that I was in another world, and that every thing about me was magic. At last we came in sight of the island of Barbadoes, at which the whites on board gave a great shout, and made many signs of joy to us. We did not know what to think of this; but as the vessel drew nearer we plainly saw the harbour, and other ships of different kinds and sizes; and we soon anchored amongst them off Bridge Town. Many merchants and planters now came on board, though it was in the evening. They put us in separate parcels, and examined us attentively. They also made us jump, and pointed to the land, signifying we were to go there. We thought by this we should be eaten by these ugly men, as they appeared to us; and, when soon after we were all put down under the deck again, there was much dread and trembling among us, and nothing but bitter cries to be heard all the night from these apprehensions, insomuch that at last the white people got some old slaves from the land to pacify us. They told us we were not to be eaten, but to work, and were soon to go on land, where we should see many of our country people. This report eased us much; and sure enough, soon after we were landed, there came to us Africans of all languages. We were conducted immediately to the merchant's yard, where we were all pent up together like so many sheep in a fold, without regard to sex or age. As every object was new to me every thing I saw filled me with surprise. What struck me first was that the houses were built with stories, and in every other respect different from those in Africa: but I was still more astonished on seeing people on horseback. I did not know what this could mean; and indeed I thought these people were full of nothing but magical arts. While I was in this astonishment one of my fellow prisoners spoke to a countryman of his about the horses, who said they were the same kind they had in their country. I understood them, though they were from a distant part of Africa, and I thought it odd I had not seen any horses there; but afterwards, when I came to converse with different Africans, I found they had many horses amongst them, and much larger than those I then saw. We were not many days in the merchant's custody before we were sold after their usual manner, which is this:--On a signal given,(as the beat of a drum) the buyers rush at once into the yard where the slaves are confined, and make choice of that parcel they like best. The noise and clamour with which this is attended, and the eagerness visible in the countenances of the buyers, serve not a little to increase the apprehensions of the terrified Africans, who may well be supposed to consider them as the ministers of that destruction to which they think themselves devoted. In this manner, without scruple, are relations and friends separated, most of them never to see each other again. I remember in the vessel in which I was brought over, in the men's apartment, there were several brothers, who, in the sale, were sold in different lots; and it was very moving on this occasion to see and hear their cries at parting. O, ye nominal Christians! might not an African ask you, learned you this from your God, who says unto you, Do unto all men as you would men should do unto you? Is it not enough that we are torn from

our country and friends to toil for your luxury and lust of gain? Must every tender feeling be likewise sacrificed to your avarice? Are the dearest friends and relations, now rendered more dear by their separation from their kindred, still to be parted from each other, and thus prevented from cheering the gloom of slavery with the small comfort of being together and mingling their sufferings and sorrows? Why are parents to lose their children, brothers their sisters, or husbands their wives? Surely this is a new refinement in cruelty, which, while it has no advantage to atone for it, thus aggravates distress, and adds fresh horrors even to the wretchedness of slavery.(6)

Attributions (6) The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African: Written By Himself by Olaudah Equiano is in the Public Domain.

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African Origins—History and Culture Module Introduction Module 1 explores the rich histories and diverse cultures of West African peoples from antiquity to the early nineteenth-century. In the process, it addresses such questions as:

• Who were the African people who migrated to the Americas, voluntarily and involuntarily? • What regions of Africa did they come from? • What were their African societies like? • What were their cultural patterns and everyday lives like before they came? (3)

It is important to learn about the history and heritage of African Americans that extends back into antiquity because throughout slavery and afterwards, people of European descent advanced what anthropologist Melville J. Herskovits called the “Myths of the Negro Past. (Drake 1990:1–14).” These myths were advanced particularly and primarily about African Americans as rationales to justify slavery, and later discrimination and segregation. (3) They advanced these myths, which portrayed Africa as a primitive and backward place, a ’Dark Continent,’ to justify slavery and create ideas of race and racial inferiority. Module 1 reveals how erroneous these myths were. It demonstrates how West Africa, the area that became the center of the Atlantic slave trade, nurtured and grew technologically and intellectually advanced, and economically powerful, civilizations well before the arrival of European slave traders. (1) Learning Outcomes This module addresses the following Course Learning Outcomes listed in the Syllabus for this course:

• To provide students with a general understanding of the history of African Americans within the context of American History.

• To motivate students to become interested and active in African American history by comparing current events with historical information.(1)

Additional learning outcomes associated with this module are: • The student will be able to discuss the origins, evolution, and spread of racial slavery. • The student will be able to describe the creation of a distinct African-American culture and how that

culture became part of the broader American culture. (1) Module Objectives Upon completion of this module, the student will be able to:

• Discuss the distinguishing features of West African civilizations. • Refute ideas of Africa as a “Dark Continent.” (1)

Readings and Resources Learning Unit: West African Histories and Cultures (see below) (1) West African Histories and Cultures Africans before Captivity

Figure 1-1 : African Slave regions by Grin20 is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.5 . Map depicting major slave trading regions of Africa.Most Africans who came to North America were from West Africa and West Central Africa. (See Figure 1-1) Western Africa begins where the Sahara Desert ends. A short erratic, rainy season supports the sparse cover of vegetation that defines the steppe like Sahel. The Sahel serves as a transition to the Sudan and classic savanna where a longer rainy season supports baobab and acacia trees sprinkled across an open vegetative landscape dominated by bushes, grasses and other herbaceous growth. Next comes another narrow transitional zone, where the savanna and forest intermingle, before the rain forest is reached. Finally, there is the

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coast, fringed with mangrove swamps and pounded by heavy surf (Newman 1995:104). The Sahara is likened to a sea lying north of West Africa and the Sahel to its shore. The desert and the Sahel form geographical barriers to sub-Saharan West Africa that, like of the Atlantic Ocean, contributed to the comparative isolation of the region from civilizations in Europe and the Middle East until the 15th century. Knowledge of sub-Saharan West Africa is limited for the period before 800 A.D., after which the rise of Islam made Arabic records available, according to Phillip Curtin (1990:32). Evidence from Dar-Tchitt, an archeological site in the area of Ancient Ghana, suggests agricultural expansion and intensification gave rise to walled villages of 500–1000 inhabitants as early as 900–800 B.C. By 700 B.C. the settlement patterns changed to smaller, somewhat more numerous and unwalled villages. Jenne-Jeno, a second archeological site, was first settled around 250 B.C. Located around the inland delta of the Niger river, Jenne-Jeno probably started out as a place where local farmers, herders, and fisher folk brought

produce to exchange with one another. (See Figure 1-2) Over time the location became an interregional trade center. It might have been the first one in the region, but if so others soon followed and several of these became sites for a series of kingdoms and empires in the Sahel and Sudan. Eventually the region was densely populated by people who.had a social organization based on kinship ties and political forms that are properly called states, and cities based on Saharan trade, at least as far south as modern day Djenne, which is What we know comes from Berber travelers, who made their first visits to the region in the 8th century (Curtin 1990:45;

Figure 1-2 : Niger river map , a derivative of Niger river map by Wizardist is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 between Timbuktu and Bamako in southern Mali. Newman 1995:109–110). Oral sources included African poems, praise songs, and accounts of past events usually passed on through official oral historians such as Griots, who recite the histories from Ancient Mali and Map of the Niger River Basin and its inland delta. Songhai often while playing stringed instruments unique to West Africa such as the Kora and Ngoni. (3) Medieval West Africa Medieval West Africa

Figure 1-3 : African-civilizations-map-pre-colonial by Jeff Israel is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 . Map depicting major slave trading regions of Africa. When the Portuguese first explored the West African coastline, the cultures of African societies were highly evolved and had been so for centuries. In the millennium preceding Portuguese exploration, three large centers of medieval African civilization developed sequentially along the west coast of sub-Saharan Africa. (See Figure 1-3) The first polity that is known to have gained prominence was Ancient Ghana. Between 500 AD–1250 AD, Ancient Ghana flourished in the southern Sahel north of the middle Niger and middle Senegal Rivers. Ancient Ghana had a civil service, strong monarchy based on a matrilineal system of inheritance, a cabinet, an army, an

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effective justice system and a regular source of income from trade as well as tribute from vassal kings (Boahen 1966:4–9). As Ghana declined over the next 200 years, the ancient Mali Empire arose in the same area but descended territorially further along the Niger River. Mali encompassed a huge area stretching from the Lower Senegal and Upper Niger rivers eastward to the Niger bend and northward to the Sahel. Its great size made Mali an even more diverse state than Ghana. The majority of the people lived in small villages and cultivated rice or sorghums and millets, while some communities specialized in herding and fishing. Trade flourished in the towns, which housed a wide array of craftspeople, along with a growing number of Islamic teachers and holy men. The main commercial centers were its capitals Niani, Timbuktu, and Gao. Mansa Musa is the most remembered of the kings of Mali. During Musa’s reign 1307–1337, Mali’s boundaries were extended to their farthest limits. There were fourteen provinces ruled by governors or emirs who were usually famous generals. Berber provinces were governed by their own sheiks . They all paid tribute to Musa in gold, horses and clothes. Musa instituted national honors for his provincial administrators to encourage devoted service. He ruled impartially with a great sense of justice. To help in this work he had judges, scribes and civil servants. Musa established diplomatic relationships with other African states, especially Morocco, with whom he exchanged ambassadors. Mansa Musa is probably best known as the ruler who firmly established the Islamic religion in Mali along with peace, order, trade and commerce. Mansa Musa started the practice of sending students to Morocco for studies and he laid the foundation for what later became the city of Timbuktu, the commercial and educational center of the western Sudan (Boahen 1966:17–22). Present day Mande people trace their ancestry back to the great 13th century. Learn more about what archeology has uncovered in Jeno-Jenne about the past of the Mande people , Africans who helped settle America during the 17th and 18th centuries (Hall 1992:45). Around 1375, Gao, a small tributary state of Mali, broke away under the leadership of Sunni Ali and thus began the rise of the Songhai Empire. Over the next 28 years, Sunni Ali converted the small kingdom of Gao into the huge empire of Songhai. Songhai encompassed the geographic area of ancient Ghana and Mali combined and extended into the region of the Hausa states of ancient and contemporary northwest Nigeria. Mandinka, Wolof, Bamana, (also called Bambara) peoples, and others lived in the western reaches of the Songhai in the Senegambia area. Hausa and Fulani people lived in the region that is now northwest Nigeria. All of these cultures still exist. Islamic scholars and African oral traditions document that all of these states had centralized governments, long distance trade routes, and educational systems. Between the 13th and 17th centuries Mande and Mande-related warriors established the dominance of Mande culture in the Senegambia geographical region. Throughout the West African savanna where people migrated in advance of the Mande warriors, people spoke mutually intelligible Mandekan languages, and had a strong oral history tradition. In the 18th century people of the Mande culture were highly represented among those enslaved in the French Louisiana colony in North America (Hall 1992). By the time, Portugal and Spain embarked on exploration and conquest of the Western Hemisphere, Mohammed Askia I ruled over Songhai. Askia completed Mansa Musa’s project to create a great center of learning, culminating with the establishment of the Sankore University in Timbuktu. Sankore teachers and students were from all over sub-Saharan Africa and from the Arabic nations to the east. Leo Africanus, an eyewitness described Sankore University thus:

“[H]ere are great stores of doctors, judges, priests and other learned men that are bountifully maintained at the King’s (Muhammad Askia) costs and charges ([1600] 1896).”

Leo Africanus was born, El Hasan ben Muhammed el-Wazzan-ez-Zayyati in the city of Granada in 1485, but was expelled along with his parents and thousands of other Muslims by Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492. Settling in Morocco, he studied in Fez and as a teenager accompanied his uncle on diplomatic missions throughout North Africa. During these travels, he visited Timbuktu. As a young man he was captured by pirates and presented as an exceptionally learned slave to the great Renaissance pope, Leo X. Leo who freed him, baptized him under the name “Johannis Leo de Medici,” and

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commissioned him to write in Italian a detailed survey of Africa. His accounts provided most of what Europeans knew about the continent for the next several centuries. West Africa, 1300 – 1800AD From the 14th through the 18th century, three smaller political states emerged in the forests along the coast of Africa below the Songhai Empire. The uppermost groups of states were the Gonja or Volta Kingdoms, located around the Volta River and the confluence of the Niger, on what was called the Windward Coast, now Sierra Leone and Liberia. Most of the people in the upper region of the Windward Coast belonged to a common language group, called Gur by linguists. They also held common religious beliefs and a common system of land ownership. They lived in decentralized societies where political power resided in associations of men and women. Below the Volta lay the Asante Empire in the southeastern geographical area of the contemporary nations of Cote d’Ivoire, Togo and modern Ghana. By the 15th century the Akan peoples, who included the Baule, and Twi-speaking Asante, reached dominance in the central region. Akan culture had a highly evolved political system. One hundred years or more before the rise of democracy in North America, the Asante governed themselves through a constitution and assembly. Commercially the Asante-dominated region straddled the African trade routes that carried ivory, gold and grain. As a result, Europeans called various parts of the region the Ivory Coast, Grain Coast and Gold Coast. The transatlantic slave trade was fed by the emergence of these Volta Kingdoms and the Asante Empire. During the 17th and early 18th centuries African people called from these regions were predominately among those enslaved in the British North American mainland colonies (Boahen 1966). Just below the Gold Coast lay the Bights of Benin and Biafra. Oral history and findings in archeological excavation attest that Yoruba people have been the dominate group on the west bank of the Niger River as far as their historical memory extends and even further into the past. The 12th century found the Yoruba people beginning to coalesce into a number of territorial city-states of which Ife, Oyo, and Benin dominated. Old loyalties to the clan or lineage were subordinated to allegiance to a king or oni. The Oni was chosen on a rotating basis by the clans. Below him was an elected state hierarchy that depended on broad support from the community. The people were subsistence farmers, artisans, and long distance traders in cloth, kola nuts, palm oil, and copper. Trade and the acquisition of horses were factors in the emergence of Oyo as the dominant political power among the Yoruba states by late 14th and early 15th century (Boahen 1966). Dahomey, or Benin, created by the Fon ruling dynasty, came to dominance in the 17th century and was a contemporary of the Asante Empire. As early as the 17th century the Oyo kingdom had an unwritten constitution with a system of political checks and balances. Dahomey, located in Southern Nigeria, east of Yorubaland and west of the Niger River also claimed to have obtained kingship from the Yoruba city of Ife. Oyo and Ife not only shared a common cultural history but also shared many other cultural characteristics, such as religious pantheons, patrilineal descent groups, urbanized settlement patterns, and a high level of artistic achievement by artisans, particularly in ivory, wood, brass and bronze sculpture. Relatively few Yoruba and Fon people, the two principal ethnic groups in the Oyo kingdoms, were enslaved in North America. Most were carried to Santa Domingo (Haiti) and Brazil. During and after the Haitian Revolution, some of the Fon people who were enslaved in Haiti immigrated voluntarily or involuntarily to New Orleans (Hall 1992). The Ibo people, the third principal group found around the Bight of Biafra in the southeastern part of the region, predominated among those enslaved in the Chesapeake region during the late 17th and early 18th century. Later in the 18th century Africans, whom the Europeans called the “Congos,” i.e. Kongos, and “Angolas,” predominated among those enslaved in Virginia and the Low Country plantations of colonial South Carolina (Curtin, 1969; Morgan 1998:63; Eltis et al 2002). (3)

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West Central Africa, 14th – 18th Centuries West Central Africa, 14 th — 18 th Centuries In the century before Portuguese exploration of West Africa, the Kongo was another Kingdom that developed in West Central Africa. In the three hundred years from the date Ne Lukeni Kia Nzinga founded the kingdom until the Portuguese destroyed it in 1665, Kongo was an organized, stable, and politically centralized society based on a subsistence economy. The Kongo is significant in exploring the historic contexts of African American heritage because the majority of all Africans enslaved in the Southern English colonies were from West Central Africa (Curtin 1969; Eltis et al 2001). The Bakongo (the Kongo people), today several million strong, live in modern Democratic Republic of the Congo, Congo-Brazzaville, neighboring Cabinda, and Angola. The present division of their territory into modern political entities masks the fact that the area was once united under the suzerainty of the ancient Kingdom of Kongo, one of the most important civilizations ever to emerge in Africa, according to Robert Ferris Thompson. The Kings of the Kongo ruled over an area stretching from the Kwilu-Nyari River, just north of the port of Loango, to the river Loje in northern Angola, and from the Atlantic to the inland valley of the Kwango. (See Figure 1-4) Thompson estimates the Kongo encompassed an area roughly equaling the miles between New York City and Richmond, Virginia, in terms of coastal distance and between Baltimore and Eire, Pennsylvania, in terms of inland breadth. Birmingham comments that by 1600, after a century of overseas contact with the Portuguese, the “complex Kongo kingdom…dominated a region more than half the size of England which stretched from the Atlantic to the Kwango (1981:29).”

Figure 1-4 : KingdomKongo1711 by Happenstance is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license. The Kingdom of Kongo The Bakongo shared a common culture with the people of eight adjoining regions, all of whom were either part of the Kongo Kingdom during the transatlantic slave trade or were part of the kingdoms formed by peoples fleeing from the advancing armies of Kongo chiefdoms. In their records slave traders called the Bakongo, as well as the people from the adjoining regions, “Congos” and “Angolas” although they may have been Mbembe, Mbanda, Nsundi, Mpangu, Mbata,

Mbamba or Loango. Ki-Kongo-speaking groups inhabited the West Central African region then known as the Loango Coast. The term Loango coast describes a historically significant area of West Central Africa extending from Cape Lopez or Cape Catherine in Gabon to Luanda in Angola. Within this region, Loango has been the name of a kingdom, a province, and a port. Once linked to the powerful Kongo Kingdom, the Loango Kingdom was dominated by the Villi, a Kongo people who migrated to the coastal region during the 1300s. Loango became an independent state probably in the late 1300s or early 1400s. With two other Kongo-related kingdoms, Kakongo, and Ngoyo (present day Cabinda), it became one of the most important trading states north of the Congo River. A common social structure was shared by people in the coastal kingdoms of Loango, Kakongo, Ngoyo, Vungu, and the Yombe chiefdoms; the Teke federation in the east and the Nsundi societies on either side of the Zaire River from the Matadi/Vungu area in the west to Mapumbu of Malebo pool in the east. The provincial regions, districts, and villages each had chiefs and a hierarchical system through which tribute flowed upward to the King of the Kongo and rewards flowed downward. Each regional clan or group had a profession or craft, such as weaving, basket making, potting, iron working, and so on. Tribute and trade consisted of natural resources, agricultural products, textiles, other material cultural artifacts and cowries shells (Vansima 1962; Birmingham, 1981:28–30; Bentley, 1970:75).

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The “Kongos” and “Angolas” shared a “ lingua franca ” or trade language that allowed them to communicate. They also shared other cultural characteristics such as matrilineal social organization and a cosmology expressed in their religious beliefs and practices. Woman-and-child figures are visual metaphors for both individual and societal fertility among Kongo Peoples and reflect their matrilineal social organization, that is, tracing their kinship through their mother’s side of the family. (See Figure 1-5) Cosmology is a body of collective representations of the world as a whole, ordered in space and time, and a human’s place in it. Fu-Kiau, the renowned Kongo scholar, was the first writer to make Kongo cosmology explicit (Fu-Kiau 1969). According to Fu Kiau Bunseki,: “The Kongo cosmogram is the foundation of Kongo society. The circle made by the sun’s movement is the first geometric picture given to human beings. We move the same way the sun moves: we wake up, are active, die, then come back. The horizon line is the kalunga line between the physical and spiritual world. It literally means ‘the line of God.’ When you have a circle of the Kongo cosmogram, the center is seen as the eternal flame. It is a way to come closer to the core of the community. If someone is suffering, they say ‘you are outside the circle, be closer to the fire.’ To stand on the cosmogram is to tie a social knot, bringing people together. Dikenga is from the verb kenga, which means ‘to take care, to protect,’ but also the flame or fire from inside the circle, to build and give life” (Fu-Kiau 2001).

Figure 1-5 : KongoFemaleFigure by Cliff1066 is licensed under CC BY 2.0 Before the 1920s, male and female figures carved in stone served as Kongo funerary monuments commemorating the accomplishments of the deceased. The mother and child was a common theme representing a woman who has saved her family line from extinction. Kongo mortuary figures are noted for their seated postures, expressive gestures and details of jewelry and headwear that indicate the deceased’s status. The leopard claw hat is worn by male rulers and women acting as regents. Matrilineal social organization and certain cosmological beliefs expressed in religious ceremonies and funerary practices continue to be evident in the culture of rural South Carolina and Florida African Americans who are descendants of enslaved Africans (Brown 1987, 1988, 1989, 1994, 2000, 2001; Thompson 1984; Thompson and Cornet 1981). European slave trade led to internal wars, enslavement of multitudes, introduction of major political upheavals, migrations, and power shifts from greater to lesser-centralized authority of Kongo and other African societies. Most notably the slave trade destroyed old lineages and kinship ties upon which the basis of social order and organization was maintained in African societies (MacGaffey 1986).

The history and culture of West Central African peoples is important to the understanding of African American people in the present because of their high representation among enslaved peoples. It has been estimated that 69 % of all African people transported in the Transatlantic Slave Trade between 1517–1700 A.D. were from West Central Africa and, between 1701–1800, people from West Central Africa comprised about 38% of the all Africans brought to the West to be enslaved (Curtin 1969). In South Carolina, by 1730, the number of Africans or “salt-water negroes,” mostly from West Central Africa, and “native-born” African Americans, many descendant from West Central Africans, exceeded the white population. (3)