Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade (Triangular Trade)

Lessons

Senior 1 · History and Citizenship

Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade (Triangular Trade)

4 lessons

Lesson 3 of 4

The effects on Africa, Europe and the Americas

25 min

A king writes to a king, 1526

On 6 July 1526, Afonso I, the Christian king of Kongo in West-Central Africa (in today's Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo), dictated a letter to King João III of Portugal. Kongo and Portugal had been allies for decades. Read part of the letter.

"… the said merchants carry off every day our people, children of the land, and the children of our nobles and vassals, and our relatives. For thieves and men of bad conscience steal them, because they want the things and goods of your kingdom; they steal them and bring them to be sold. So great, Sir, is this corruption and lawlessness that our land is being completely emptied of people … For it is our will that in these kingdoms there should be no trade in slaves, nor any outlet for them."
Letter of Afonso I of Kongo to João III of Portugal, 6 July 1526, printed in Paiva Manso, História do Congo (Lisbon, 1877), pp. 54–55. Translated from the Portuguese by Ganzaa. Public domain.

Definition

Depopulation: a large fall in the number of people living in an area, because of deaths, forced removal or people fleeing. Example: Afonso's complaint that Kongo was "being emptied of people".

Definition

Diaspora: a people scattered far from their homeland, who keep links with it through their culture and memory. Example: the African diaspora in Brazil, the Caribbean and the United States, descended largely from enslaved Africans.

Definition

Legacy: something handed down from the past that still affects the present. Example: racism in the Americas and Europe is a legacy of the slave trade.

Worked example: what does Afonso's letter really tell us?

Who, when, to whom? An African king, writing at the time of the events, to the king who could control the Portuguese merchants. It is a primary source from inside Africa.
What does he complain about? Free people, even nobles and royal relatives, were being kidnapped by "thieves" and sold, and the kingdom was losing its people.
What does he ask for? That no more merchants or trade goods be sent, only priests, teachers, and wine and flour for the Mass.
Read the context. Afonso himself had sent war captives to Portugal earlier in his reign. A few months after this letter, in October 1526, he allowed the trade to continue, but only if royal officials first checked that each captive had been lawfully enslaved. His main worry was that the trade was out of his control, and that it made his own nobles rich enough to disobey him.
Verdict. The letter is powerful evidence that the trade was already emptying villages and breaking the authority of African rulers only a few decades after it began. It also shows that African leaders were not powerless: Afonso tried to control and limit the trade, even though he could not stop it.

Effects on three continents

Continent	Effects
Africa	loss of millions of people, most of them young adults, in their working and child-bearing years; more men than women were taken wars and raids increased as rulers and raiders hunted for captives, and guns spread across the region families and communities were destroyed; fear and insecurity made farming and trade harder some states that controlled the trade grew rich and strong for a time, while others, like Kongo, were weakened by it imported cloth and metal goods competed with local crafts in some regions Europeans came to see Africa mainly as a source of captives, which fed racist ideas and, later, the conquest of the continent (colonialism)
Europe	great profits for merchants and ports such as Liverpool, Bristol, London, Nantes, Bordeaux and Lisbon growth of shipbuilding, banking and insurance; some of the wealth was invested in new industries sugar, tobacco, coffee and cotton became everyday goods racist ideas were developed to excuse enslavement in the late 1700s, a movement of Africans and Europeans arose to abolish the trade (lesson 4)
The Americas	plantation economies in Brazil, the Caribbean and the southern United States were built on the forced labour of enslaved Africans a large African diaspora whose music, food, languages and religions shaped the Americas: samba and capoeira in Brazil, reggae in Jamaica, jazz and blues in the United States deep racial inequality and racism that lasted long after slavery was abolished resistance and revolt by the enslaved, including the Haitian Revolution (lesson 4)

Families torn apart

Numbers and tables can hide what the trade did to people. Equiano remembered the sale that followed his own crossing to the Caribbean:

"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?"
Equiano, The Interesting Narrative (1789), chapter 2. Public domain.

Reading notes: "sold in different lots" means sold separately, to different buyers. "Nominal Christians" means people who call themselves Christians but do not live by Christian teaching. Equiano uses the Golden Rule, "do to others as you would have them do to you", to show that the buyers broke their own religion's teaching.

Important

For Africa: loss of millions of young people, wars and insecurity, broken families and communities, the weakening of some states, and racist views of Africans that later helped to justify colonial rule.
For Europe: profits, the growth of ports, shipping, banking and industry, and cheap plantation goods.
For the Americas: plantation economies, a large African diaspora and its culture, and lasting racism and inequality.

Case study: what about Rwanda?

The Atlantic trade did not reach Rwanda. The kingdom lay far inland, more than 1,500 km from the Atlantic coast, and the captives sold on the West-Central African coast came mainly from the lands of Kongo, Ndongo and the regions behind them. In the 1800s, a different trade, in ivory and captives, was carried from the East African coast inland towards Lake Tanganyika and Buganda. As you read in Unit 1, a trader in Karagwe complained in 1876 that Rwanda had "never yet allowed an Arab to trade in their country". Rwanda's kings kept these caravans out.

So the story of the Atlantic trade is not Rwanda's own story. It is, however, a story about Africa, and it shaped how the rest of the world looked at every African country, including Rwanda, in the colonial period that followed.

Tip

Memory hook: "Loss, Loot, Legacy". Africa suffered the loss of its people; Europe took the loot (the profits); the Americas and the world still live with the legacy.

OER Project: "The Transatlantic Slave Trade: Ghana and Cape Coast Castle". The historian Trevor Getz visits Cape Coast Castle and talks with Ghanaian historians. Watch for the effects of the trade on the societies of the Gold Coast. The film shows the castle's dungeons; your teacher may watch it with you.

Discussion

Class discussion: Some effects of the trade ended long ago; others, such as racism, are still with us. Choose one effect from the table and explain whether you think it still matters today, and why.

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Practice

Who was Afonso I, and to whom did he write in 1526?
What two things did Afonso complain about in his letter?
Give three effects of the slave trade on Africa.
Give two effects of the trade on Europe and two on the Americas.
What is a diaspora? Give an example linked to this unit.
Afonso had himself sold war captives to the Portuguese. Does that make his letter useless as evidence against the trade? Explain.
Why was Rwanda not directly affected by the Atlantic slave trade?

Show answersHide answers

The Christian king of Kongo in West-Central Africa; he wrote to King João III of Portugal.
Merchants carried off free people every day, even nobles and royal relatives, who were kidnapped and sold; and his kingdom was being emptied of people.
Any three: loss of millions of young people; more wars and raids; spread of guns; destruction of families and communities; insecurity; weakening of some states; competition for local crafts; racist views that later helped justify colonialism.
Europe (any two): profits; growth of ports, shipping, banking and industry; cheap sugar and tobacco; racist ideas; the abolition movement. Americas (any two): plantation economies; the African diaspora and its culture; lasting racism and inequality; resistance and revolts.
A people scattered far from their homeland who keep links with it; for example, the millions of people of African descent in Brazil, the Caribbean and the United States.
No. It shows he was not against all slavery, but the letter is still first-hand evidence that the trade was kidnapping free people and emptying his kingdom, and that it was out of the control of African rulers.
It lay far inland, over 1,500 km from the Atlantic coast, away from the regions that supplied the Atlantic trade; and its kings kept out the caravans that came from the East African coast in the 1800s.

Sources and credits

Extract from the letter of Afonso I of Kongo to João III, 6 July 1526, as printed in Levy Maria Jordão (Visconde de Paiva Manso), História do Congo: documentos (Lisbon, 1877), Internet Archive copy, public domain; translated by Ganzaa.
Extract from Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative (1789), chapter 2, via Project Gutenberg, public domain.
The 1876 quotation is from Henry M. Stanley, Through the Dark Continent (1878), vol. 1, chapter 17, public domain (see Unit 1).
Image: Viewers at the monument in Ouidah, Benin, January 2018, Kulttuurinavigaattori, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Background facts checked against Afonso I of Kongo, Wikipedia contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, adapted by Ganzaa.
Background facts checked against Atlantic slave trade, Wikipedia contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, adapted by Ganzaa.
Video: "The Translatlantic Slave Trade: Ghana and Cape Coast Castle", OER Project, embedded from YouTube.

The rest of this lesson, its diagrams, tables, worked examples and practice items, and the unit exercises were written by Ganzaa.

This lesson adapts CC BY-SA material and is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.

1A king writes to a king, 1526

2Effects on three continents

3Families torn apart

4Case study: what about Rwanda?

5Discussion

A king writes to a king, 1526

Effects on three continents

Families torn apart

Case study: what about Rwanda?

Discussion