The Atlantic Slave Trade
The Atlantic Slave trade The Atlantic slave trade was a part of the new word slave trade that took place across the Atlantic with slaves mostly being shipped to South and North America through Cargo ships. This took place within the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries with an estimated eighteen million Africans being involved but twelve million making it to the final destination. My focus is on the West Africans response to the slave trade and whether they were the willing powerless participants they have been constantly portrayed to be during the duration of the slave trade. The Portuguese, one of the first to start the exportation of Africans from the West African coasts into slavery. They did this by performing raids where they then transported the captured men, women and children into slavery. After a while of successfully capturing and selling these people, the Africans noticed and started to attack Portuguese ships sighted on their coast leading to the death of a number of Portuguese sailors and crew members, it was after this that the king of the Portuguese made connections with the rulers of these African countries for a sort of trading system where people where exchanged for other commodities. This is just an insight to the fact that Africans were not necessarily submissive to the slave trade but in fact initially resisted until they were convinced into thinking they were indeed involved in a fair trading system.
Most West African countries actually did resist the slave trade in some way. Maybe not through warfare or violence but through some other form of strategies. The overall purpose of these strategies was to protect ones own family or people. A lot of African communities did not at the time see themselves as one Africa therefore some of these strategies included accommodating slave traders in such a way that the people of such communities trade their prisoners of war or people that have been captured by them to the slave traders in exchange for merchandise. They were not selling their people except in situations where they believed it would be more profitable to sell a convicted murderer or criminal instead of killing him or putting him in prison where he would have to be maintained and kept alive by the community’s resources. Some communities, otherwise known as predatory states would go into weaker territories for the sole purpose of capturing people they considered as outsiders to be sold in to slavery. This at the time did not mean they were selling their own people, it was just them handling the slave trade in the way they new best, they were protecting their own people. The Balanta people of Guinea-Bissau are a great example of people who successfully resisted the Trans Atlantic slave trade. When the slave trace was beginning to affect their production of paddy rice which till date is their primary food crop and other foods such as cashews and yams, In order to resist the effects of the slave trade, they moved to another region where they built protective houses known as “Thebankas” which provided them with protection from the Mandingas and other European predators. The Mandigas usually gained control over territories by either conquering such territories through warfare or by marrying into the most powerful household therefore gaining access into the ruling power of such a community but since they were not able to conquer the Balantas, Their other option was to marry into the most powerful Balanta family, But since there was no single family where the seat of power rested, the Mandingas did not find this to be in any way effective. The Balantas in fact benefitted from the slave trade because the rice they produced was usually marketed to the slave ships and sold to slave traders who needed rice for the feeding of slaves aboard these ships. The most remarkable defense against slavery was the formation of age groups, this enabled the people to form a broader relationship with others outside of their household which led to a sort of support system where you had other people outside that were there to support you and also help you fight to protect your household if the need arose. The Balantas were not only able to survive but were also able to develop and strengthen their society. Instead of giving up and aligning themselves with the expectations of the Europeans, they stayed without a political system which involved kings and chiefs, Each Alante was the chief of his household and in this manner thy were never able to be conquered because there was no central power to be conquered.