Paradox of the Slave Trade The paradox of the slave trade is knowing that slave trade negatively impacted Africans yet some volunteered in slave trade even though there was such negative and longstanding effects The paradox of it was why did they do this Sources of Slaves Slaves were being shipped from African trade markets by sea in the atlantic They would be on ships for up to six months tightpacked There were three main sources of enslavement which was war external markets where they would be purchased and judicial processes through crimes Historiography of the Slave Trade Eurocentrists Black Nationalists Revisionists There were many impacts of slave trade on African Societies and this was from the eurocentrists the black nationalists and the revisionists The eurocentrists were apologists for slavery they Christianized civilized African people The Black Nationalists disapproved of the African slave trade Walter Rodney a historian argued that slave trade caused problems within colonies and wanted slave trade to end because wars were meant for kidnapping Rodney had a theory that more criminals were created so they could be traded in for slaves The Revisionists said that the slave trade negatively impacted African societies Olaudah Equiano s Descriptions of Africa African People Olaudah Equiano was a former slave who helped turn british narrative against slave trade because he tells people about getting slave captured Equiano believed that Africa was a self sufficient culture and society before the invasion of the whites His descriptions of African people showed readers that they were human beings and should not have been degraded Although in my belief Equiano believed he was European because they had more power and he wanted to have that which is why he became a British citizen So I do believe that he may think that he is better than some Africans Kingdom of Benin The Kingdom of Benin was conquered by the British in the 1800s and is today Nigeria The kingdom traded with other African kingdoms and with the Dutch and Portuguese traders who came by sea But if you didn t trade the way they wanted to trade then they wouldn t trade with you so it wasn t very easy They bought and sold slaves from other African kingdoms and they were well treated in Benin and they didn t realize that other people might treat slaves differently Slaves could get out of slavery if they gave their master an equivalent offer such as marrying their daughter of the household They didn t participate in the slave trade and if they did it was only with an occasional woman and never a man Job Ben Solomon He was a muslim who spent a brief time in slavery in Annapolis Maryland when he was shipped there to a tobacco plantation after being kidnapped He was on his way to sell two enslaved Africans to an English trader when he was captured by Mandingo warriors and sold His father tried to ransom but the ship already left He eventually escaped then caught and put in jail where he was allowed to write his father a letter in Arabic England then paid for his freedom and he got to return home Henry Tucker John Kabes He was a prominent African Trader in Komenda Major British ally and as a trader he became a main economic and political force in the early 1700s He played an active role in the expansion of British involvement in West Africa and the beginning of the slave trade Captain Lemma Lemma He owned war canoes and was big slave trader He would capture men and trade them in so he was a very important slave supplier to Europeans If anyone ever saw his canoes they would run from them because he was very good at capturing and trading Antera Duke He was a African slave dealer in the 18th century He wrote a diary which was published that records his interactions with British merchants to whom he sold slaves The Bobangi Society living on the river where trade was very important to thme Slaves and ivory were what they were mostly involved in They were powerful due to their involvement in the slave trade They became major exporters due to the slave trade and became major traders when the Europeans came Louis Asa Asa African slave who was captured and kidnapped and then put on the boat to be sold to whites When he eventually arrived in England and he recorded his experiences in a narrative He tells about his journey and the tortures he had and how he wished he was dead rather than alive when he saw the slaves in front of him get killed Ukawsaw Gronniosaw He was a slave who became free after being raised Christian by the minister he was sold to and then wrote an autobiography on his life which was the first published by an African Congolese Envoy to Brazil c 1643 Congolese force attacked Brazil bases on the Bengo River in 1643 in retaliation for Portuguese harassment Slavery Modernity What is the Connection Modernity socially culturally and economically made and mobilized in crucial ways by the slave trading economy constituted as much by its colonial impact as by the implications of the slave trade on its economies socio cultural conditions complex banking system laissez faire economics rise of industrial capitalism Triangular Trade The triangular trade is the transatlantic slave trade from late 16th to early 19th centuries The triangular trade carried slaves and other manufactured and expensive items between West Africa Caribbean or American colonies An example of trade would be sugar from the Carribean to Europe where it was distilled into rum The profits from the sugar sale was then shipped to West Africa where they bartered for slaves and the slaves were then brought back to the Carribean to be sold to sugar planters Profits from slaves were then used to buy more sugar which was shipped to Europe The first leg of the triangle was from a European port to Africa in which ships carried supplies for sale and trade and then when the ship arrived what was in it would be sold or bartered from slaves The second leg of the triangle was the ships journey of the middle passage from Africa to the new world When it got to the new world the slaves that survived were sold in the carribean or American colonies The ship then returned to Europe to complete the triangle Mining Main economic activity for the slaves in Brazil Encomienda Legal system that was employed mainly by the Spanish crown during the Spanish colonization of the Americas to regulate Native American labor autonomy The difference between encomienda and slavery is very small