Name: Atlantic Slave Trade DBQ

Directions. Write an essay that: - Has a relevant thesis and supports that thesis with evidence from the documents. - Uses all the documents. - Analyzes the documents by grouping them in as many appropriate ways as possible. Does not simply summarize the documents individually. - Takes into account the sources of the documents and analyzes the author’s point of view. - Explains the need for at least one type of additional document.

1. Using the documents, analyze the causes and consequences of the Atlantic Slave Trade from 1500 to 1850. Explain how another type of document would help you analyze the causes and consequences of the Atlantic Slave Trade.

Historical Background Document 1. King Afonso I of Kongo, Letter to King Jao of Portugal, 1526.

Our country is being completely depopulated, and your Highness should not agree with this nor accept it as in your service. And to avoid it we need from (you) no more than some priests and a few people to teach in the schools, and no other goods except wine and flour for the holy sacrament. That is why we beg of Your Highness to assist us in this matter, commanding your factors that they should not send here either merchants or wares, because it is our will that in these Kingdoms there should not be any trade of slaves nor outlet for them…

Moreover, Sir, in our Kingdoms there is another great inconvenience which is of little service to God, and this is that many of our people, keenly desirous as they are of the wares and things of your Kingdoms, which are brought here by your people, and in order to satisfy their voracious appetite, seize many of our people, free and exempt men; and very often it happens that they kidnap even noblemen and sons of noblemen, and our relatives, and take them to be sold to the white men who are in our Kingdoms…

Document 2. John Campbell, Scottish missionary and traveler, Candid and Impartial Considerations on the Nature of the Sugar Trade, 1763

The inhabitants of the sugar colonies are composed of Whites and Blacks, or in other words of British subjects and African slaves. It is from the skill and industry of the former, supported by the painful and indefatigable labour of the latter, that not only sugar, but various other commodities are raised in those countries, and exported to different parts of the world. It is to the cheapness of the labour of these poor people that those costly and extensive works, which are necessary in a sugar plantation, are derived, as well as… the affluence of our countrymen in these isles, who are their masters.

Document 3. Thomas Phillips, British slave trader. A Journal of a Voyage Made in the Hannibal of London, 1694.

Then the noblemen each brought out his slaves according to his degree and quality, the greatest first, etc. and our surgeon examined them well in all kinds, to see that they were sound wind and limb, making them jump, stretch out their arms swiftly, looking in their mouths to judge of their age; for the noblemen are so cunning, that they shave them all close before we see them, so that let them be never so old we can see no grey hairs in their heads or beards; and then having liquored them well and sleek with palm oil, ‘tis no easy matter to know an old one from a middle-aged one…

Then we mark’d the slaves we had bought in the breast, or shoulder, with a hot iron, having the letter of the ship’s name on it, the place being before anointed with a little palm oil, which caus’d but little pain, the mark being usually well in four or five days, appearing very plain and white after…

Having bought my compliment of 700 slaves, viz. 480 men and 220 women, and finished all my business at Whidaw, I took my leave of the old king… being forced to promise him that I would return again the next year with several things he desired me to bring him from England… I delivered alive at Barbados to the company’s factors 372, which being sold, came out at about nineteen pounds per head.

2 Document 4. British records, 1748-1776

Average purchase price of adult male slave on West African coast: 1748 14 pounds 1768 16 pounds

Average purchase price of adult male slave in the British Caribbean: 1748 32 pounds 1768 41 pounds

Document 5. Anonymous British writer, Remarkable Extracts and Observations on the Slave Trade, London, 1791

For why is the Slave Trade carried on? To supply the West India planters with hands to cultivate the islands. Andy why are the islands cultivated? To furnish the inhabitants of Europe with sugar! If sugar was not consumed it would not be imported—if it were not imported it would not be cultivated, if it was not cultivated there would be an end to the Slave Trade; so that the consumer of sugar is really the prime mover, the grand cause of all the horrible injustice which attends the capture, of all the shocking cruelty which accompanies the treatment, of the wretched African slave.

Document 6. James Ramsay, ship’s surgeon, Anglican priest, and leading abolitionist. Essay on the Treatment and Conversion of African Slaves in the British Sugar Colonies, 1784.

The ordinary punishments of slaves, for the common crimes of neglect, absence from work, eating the sugar cane, theft, are cart whipping, beating with a stick, sometimes to the breaking of bones, the chain, an iron crook about the neck... a ring about the ankle, and confinement in the dungeon. There have been instances of slitting of ears, breaking of limbs, so as to make amputation necessary, beating out of eyes, and castration...

In short, in the place of decency, sympathy, morality, and religion; slavery produces cruelty and oppression. It is true, that the unfeeling application of the ordinary punishments ruins the constitution, and shortens the life of many a poor wretch.

Document 7. William Dillwyn, Quaker and abolitionist, The Case of our Fellow Creatures, the Oppressed Africans, 1784

This traffic is the principal source of the destructive wars which prevail among these unhappy people, and is attended with consequences, the mere recital of which is shocking to humanity. The violent reparation of the dearest relatives, the tears of married and parental affection, the reluctance of the slaves to a voyage from which they can have no chance of returning, must present scenes of distress which would pierce the heart of any, in whom the principles of humanity are not wholly effaced. This, however, is but the beginning of sorrows with the poor captives.

3 Document 8. Slave Population and Sugar Production in Selected Colonies, 1703 to 1817

Year Slave Population Tons of Sugar Produced Jamaica (British) 1703 45,000 4,782 1730 74,500 15,972 1754 130,000 23,396 1789 250,000 59,400 Saint-Domingue (French) 1764 206,000 60,000 1777 240,000 76,000 1791 480,000 78,696 Cuba (Spanish) 1774 44,300 10,000 1792 85,900 18,571 1817 199,100 43,415

Document 9. Olaudah Equiano, freed slave and prominent abolitionist, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, 1789

Another negro man was half hanged, and then burnt, for attempting to poison a cruel overseer. Thus, by repeated cruelties, are the wretched first urged to despair, and then murdered, because they still retain so much of human nature about them as to wish to put an end to their misery, and retaliate on their tyrants. These overseers are indeed for the most part persons of the worst character of any denomination of men in the West Indies. Unfortunately, many humane gentlemen, but not residing on their estates, are obliged to leave the management of them in the hands of these human butchers, who cut and mangle the slaves in a shocking manner on the most trifling occasions, and altogether treat them in every respect like brutes.

Document 10. A conversation between Osei Bonsu, Asante king, and British diplomat Joseph Dupuis, 1820.

Taking up one of my observations, he remarked, “The white men who go to council with your master, and pray to the great God for him, do not understand my country, or they would not say the slave trade was bad. But if they think it is bad now, why did they think it good before? Is not your law an old law, the same as the Muslim law? Do you not serve the same God, only you have different fashions and customs?

“If the great king would like to restore this trade, it would be good for the white men and for me too, because Asante is a country for war, and the people are strong… In the white country, if you go there, I will give you plenty of gold, and I will make you richer than all white men. I cannot make war to catch slaves in the bush, like a thief. My ancestors never did so. But if I find a king, and kill him when he is insolent, then certainly I must have his gold, and his slaves, and the people are mine too… I killed Dinkera, and took his gold, and brought more than 20,000 slaves to Coomassy… Unless I kill them or sell them, they will grow strong and kill my people. Now you must tell (your king) that these slaves can work for him, and if he wants 10,000 he can have them. And if he wants fine handsome girls and women to give his captains, I can send him great numbers.”

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