Over the period of the Atlantic Slave Trade, from approximately 1526 to 1867, some 12.5 million captured men, women, and children were put on ships in Africa, and 10.7 million arrived in the Americas.
The Atlantic Slave Trade was likely the most costly in human life of all long-distance global migrations. The first Africans forced to work in the New World left from Europe after the fall of the Moors in Europe at the beginning of the sixteenth century, not from Africa.
The first voyage carrying enslaved people direct from Africa to the Americas probably sailed in 1562. When John Hawkins encouraged the Africans to enter his boat “Jesus of Lubeck,” otherwise called “The Good Ship Jesus.” for salvation
The people who entered soon found out they could not leave the ship. Jesus of Lubeck was a cruising ship built in the City of Lübeck in the mid-sixteenth century. By the year 1540 the ship was purchased by Henry VIII, King of England, to expand his fleet. Jesus of Lubeck was later chartered to John Hawkins in 1562 by Queen Elizabeth I after it sank during a Battle
The ship became associated with the Atlantic slave exchange under John Hawkins. He effectively coordinated four journeys to West Africa and the West Indies somewhere in the range of 1562 and 1568. 300 Africans were captured from Sierra Leone and later sold to Spanish ranches in the Americas.
A record holds that Hawkins who professed to be a passionate Christian found the Sierra Leoneans harvesting their yields. He then, at that point, continued to tell the locals of a God named Jesus and of paradise and hell,.
A while later he asked those among them who tried to have Jesus as their saviour to enter his ship “Jesus of Lubeck,” otherwise called “The Good Ship Jesus.” The people who entered soon out found they were barred from leaving the ship. They were shipped to Spanish estates in the Americas. There Hawkins exchanged them for pearls and sugar.
When demands for slaves begin in the new world, the Portuguese and other Europeans first raided some Riverine and coastal towns and port they have been trading with who weren’t prepared for any resistance but living freely. They left some towns Isolated forcing several hundred of Coastal Communities down into thick forest.
That is why today many African names for white people in coastal areas are found to mean “they have carried”, “they will carry”, “they have divided us” and lastly “they divided and rule us”. Most of this names were coin by parents trying to warn their kids from going close to the Ocean and some names begin during colonial era.
The number of people carried off from Africa reached 30,000 per year in the 1690s and 85,000 per year a century later. More than eight out of ten Africans forced into the slave trade crossed the Atlantic between 1700 and 1850. The decade 1821 to 1830 saw more than 80,000 people a year leaving Africa in slave ships. Well over a million more—one-tenth of those carried off in the slave trade era—followed within the next twenty years.
By 1820, nearly four Africans for every one European had crossed the Atlantic; about four out of every five women who crossed the Atlantic were from Africa.
European traders captured Africans in raids along the coast, but bought most of them from trader or African-European dealers. These dealers had a sophisticated network of trading alliances collecting groups of people together for sale.
Most of the Africans who were enslaved were captured in battles in their homeland by invaders from afar mainly by night or were kidnapped during the day, though some were sold into slavery for debt or as punishment for crime.
captives were marched to the coast, often enduring long journeys of weeks or even months, shackled to one another. They were first sold to some African slave traders at the coast. At the coast they were imprisoned in large stone forts, built by European trading companies, or in smaller wooden compounds.
When the slave ships arrived from Europe they were laden with trade goods. Captains offered gifts to slave traders and paid taxes for the right to trade. They then began the serious business of barter and exchange, offering a wide variety of trade goods such as textiles, firearms, alcohol, beads, manillas and cowries.
By providing firearms amongst the trade goods, Europeans increased warfare and political instability in West Africa. Some coastal states, grew powerful and wealthy as a result. Meanwhile some other states were completely destroyed and their populations decimated as they were absorbed.
Millions of Africans were forcibly removed from their homes, and towns and villages were depopulated. Many Africans were killed in slaving wars.
"I verily believe that the far greater part of wars, in Africa, would cease, if the Europeans would cease to tempt them, by offering goods for sale. I believe, the captives reserved for sale are fewer than the slain." John Newton, former captain of an enslaver ship.
Many states, including Angola under Queen Nzinga Nbande and Kongo, strongly resisted slavery. However, the interests of those traders involved in the trade proved too great to overcome.
About two-thirds of the people sold to European traders were men. Fewer women were sold because their skills as farmers and craft workers were crucially important in African societies. The burden of rebuilding their violated communities fell to these women.
The majority of enslaved Africans brought to British North America arrived between 1720 and 1780. Africans carried to Brazil came overwhelmingly from Angola. Africans carried to North America, including the Caribbean, left mainly from West Africa.
Well over 90 percent of enslaved Africans were sent to the Caribbean and South America. Only about 6 percent of African captives were sent directly to British North America. Yet by 1825, the US population included about one-quarter of the people of African descent in the Western Hemisphere. The Middle Passage was dangerous and horrific.
The sexes were separated; men, women, and children were kept naked, packed close together; and the men were chained for long periods. About 12 percent of those who embarked did not survive the voyage. #Africa #europe
