CSET Practice Test History Subtest I

History of African Slavery

Slavery in Africa began after the Bantu migrations spread
agriculture throughout Africa. African slaves worked
mostly as cultivators. Before the Europeans came to
Africa, Muslim merchants had already been trading slaves
because the system of capturing, selling, and distributing
slaves was already functioning effectively. The slaves
were transported from sub-Saharan Africa across the Sahara
and distributed throughout the Mediterranean basin. Also,
slaves were shipped to ports in east Africa for
distribution across the Indian Ocean.

The first European slave traders were Portuguese
explorers. They captured many slaves and developed a slave
market. Later, instead of delivering slaves to Europe,
slave traders were directly sending slaves to Portuguese
colonies in the Atlantic, such as Madeiras, Cape Verde
Islands, and Sao Tome. The island of Sao Tome had many
sugar planters who had to call for large quantities of
slaves to be shipped. As a result of the increasing number
of slaves on sugar plantations, the production of sugar,
along with its demand in Europe, had also increased. In
the 1520's about two thousand slaves were sent to Sao Tome
per year, and afterwards, the slave trade was extended by
the Portugeuse to South America. In the 1530's, Portuguese
slave traders were directly importing slaves from Angola
and Kongo to Brazil. Consequently, Brazil became the
wealthiest sugar-producing land in the western hemisphere.
Thus, it is evident that a larger quantity of slave labor
results in a larger quantity of sugar production.

In addition to the Portuguese, Spanish explorers also
imported African slaves to the Americas and the Caribbean.
The natives who were conquered by the Spanish could not
work on the land since their population had been destroyed
by disease. Therefore, the Spanish had to seek for labor
from Africa. Slaves were directly shipped from Africa to
not only work on sugar plantations in the Caribbean but
also to work as cultivators and miners in Mexico, Peru,
and Central America. By the seventeenth century, English
colonists had also introduced slavery to North America.

The slave trade was mostly organized in triangles. Mainly,
there were two intricate trade triangles that connected
the western hemisphere to the eastern hemisphere. The
first triangle involved Europe receiving raw materials
from American colonies; Africa receiving manufactured
products from Europe, such as firearms; and the colonies
receiving slave from Africa. The second triangle is
similar but does not include Europe. In the Caribbean,
molasses was produced and shipped to New England, where it
was then used to produce rum. The rum was subsequently
sent to Africa, and from Africa, slaves were transported
to the plantations in the Caribbean. Therefore, global
economic connections can be seen through the sugar
industry as plantations in America are tied to Europe,
where their motherlands are, and also are connected to
Africa, from where slaves are exported.

Atlantic slave trade brought a large involuntary migration
that influenced the development of different societies in
the Atlantic Ocean basin. The main impact that these trade
patterns had was a major demographic change. The African
population was dangerously declining in parts of Africa,
yet it was increasing rapidly in the Americas. In the
sixteenth century, two thousand slaves were exported from
Africa. In the seventeenth century, over twenty thousand
slaves were exported, but in the eighteenth century, when
slave trade was at its height, fifty-five thousand slaves
were exported from Africa. From the beginning of the slave
trade, over twelve million Africans were involuntarily
transported to the western hemisphere. However, because
American food crops improved diets, total African
population actually rose during early modern periods. The
slave trade had also created distorted sex ratios in
Africa. Because most slaves taken were males, many parts
of Africa were left with an uneven proportion of females
to males. In the eighteenth century Angola, two-thirds of
the population was female. As a result, this imbalance
encouraged polygamy and forced women to work in fields and
perform other masculine duties.

As Africa was being depleted of its population, Europe was
gradually gaining more and more economic power from its
sugar plantations that were powered by slave labor. It is
during the 1450 to 1750 period that Europe begins to
thrive in global trade, and the success of the European
economy was directly dependent on the African slave trade.
During this period in history, a shift in global trade
occurs. Before 1450 - 1750, trade was mostly concentrated
in the Indian Ocean basin and Southeast Asia, but now, the
focus of global trade shifted west to Europe and the
Americas.