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Chapter 14 the New Atlantic World System HISTORY 2 Chapter 14 The New Atlantic World System In 1789, members of England’s growing abolitionist movement, campaigning against the slave trade, provided an eager audience for a new publication, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. For many, it was the first time they heard an African voice narrate the horrors of slavery. The story of Olaudah Equiano (ca. 1745–1797) shows how he suffered as a slave, but also how he beat the odds. Equiano’s readers learned of the horrors of the infamous Middle Passage across the Atlantic: The first object which saluted my eyes when I arrived on the coast was the sea, and a slave-ship.… These filled me with astonishment, which was soon converted into terror.… I was now persuaded that I had gotten into a world of bad spirits, and that they were going to kill me.… [T]hey made ready with many fearful noises, and we were all put under deck … now that the whole ship’s cargo was confined together [the stench of the hold] was absolutely pestilential. The closeness of the place, and the heat of the climate, added to the number in the ship, which was so crowded that each had scarcely room to turn himself, almost suffocated us.… This wretched situation was again aggravated by the galling of the chains, now become insupportable; and the filth of the [latrines], into which the children often fell, and were almost suffocated. The shrieks of the women, and the groans of the dying, rendered the whole a scene of horror almost inconceivable. At least 12 million Africans had similar experiences between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, and unknown numbers perished in Africa even before they reached the coast. The historical importance of Equiano’s Interesting Narrative has been established, though some scholars question the authenticity of its earliest passages. Disputed evidence suggests that the author was born in the Americas and created his account of Africa and the voyage across the Atlantic by retelling other slaves’ stories. Whether Olaudah Equiano (oh-lah-OO-dah ek-wee-AHN-oh) actually experienced the terror he reports in the passage above or based the story on other 1 accounts, few other sources bring us closer to the reality faced by millions of Africans in this period or offer a more eloquent critique of slavery. By 1745, when Equiano’s life began, the Atlantic slave trade was at its height. Hundreds of thousands of Africans crossed the Atlantic every year. They lived in diverse environments—the Brazilian tropics, the temperate lands of Virginia, the rocky shores of Nova Scotia—and performed a great variety of tasks. Most were sent to the sugar plantations of the West Indies. Sugar was the foundation of the Atlantic economy and a source of immense profit and suffering. The interconnection of Africa, America, and Europe characterized the Atlantic system. The so-called triangular trade sent Africans to the Americas as slaves; sugar, tobacco, and natural resources from the Americas to Europe; and manufactured goods from Europe to both Africa and the Americas. Africans labored on American plantations whose profits enriched Europe, while in those parts of Africa affected by the Atlantic slave trade, life became much less secure. The Atlantic system fostered political competition. Warfare among West Africans increased, while European powers vied for Atlantic supremacy; Equiano himself participated in naval clashes between the French and English. The slave trade also had cultural repercussions. Africans arrived not merely as slaves but also as carriers of traditions that were to profoundly influence the development of American society. Finally, the abolition of slavery was itself a complex process involving actors from different parts of the Atlantic, including plantation slaves who resisted bondage and Europeans who grew uncomfortable with the contradiction between Christianity and slavery. It was to his readership of fellow Christians that Olaudah Equiano especially appealed. Focus Questions * How were existing African economic and political systems integrated into the Atlantic plantation system? What were the effects of this interaction on Africans and African societies? * What were the major social and economic features of the plantation complex in the West Indies and on the American mainland? What cultural patterns were associated with forced African migration to the Americas? 2 1. African History and Afro-Eurasian Connections, 1550–1700 The impact of the Atlantic slave trade on African history cannot be judged outside of Africa’s cultural and geographic context. Contrary to common assumptions, Africa was not an isolated continent; it had ancient connections to Europe and Asia across the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean. Africa’s diverse deserts, grasslands, and rainforests produced a variety of political systems. Some Africans lived in small bands of hunter-gatherers, while others were subjects of powerful monarchs. Equiano describes the Igbo-speaking villages in the Niger Delta region of West Africa as productive communities where yam-based agriculture supported a dense population. Other nearby societies had more centralized and hierarchical political structures, but in Igbo (ee-BWOH) society, men and women accumulated titles and authority on the basis of achievements rather than birth. As was nearly universal in Africa, clan elders made community decisions. Even when owing tribute or obeisance to more distant potentates, African villages retained their own mechanisms for keeping peace and administering justice. In the Great Lakes region of east-central Africa migration led to cultural interactions between Africans of different backgrounds. For example, Bantu-speaking migrants from the west brought knowledge of grain agriculture, as well as their sophisticated iron technology. In return, these farmers gained access to cattle from their pastoralist neighbors. Although tillage provided the bulk of calories and was the focus of work, cattle represented wealth and prestige. No proper marriage contract could be negotiated unless the groom’s family gave cattle to the family of his intended. Agriculture in the Great Lakes was also stimulated by the introduction of plantains (bananas), a Southeast Asian fruit from across the Indian Ocean. Supported by agricultural surpluses and dominated by clans wealthy in cattle, a number of powerful kingdoms such as Rwanda and Buganda emerged in the Great Lakes region. While these societies developed without direct contact beyond the continent, other African societies had formative contacts with external political systems, commercial markets, and religious traditions. For example, Ethiopia, Kongo, and South Africa all had connections to the wider Christian world. The Ethiopian Church was the oldest, already over a thousand years old when the Portuguese attempted a military alliance in the sixteenth century. 3 2. Africa and the Americas: The Plantation Complex European occupation of the Americas, the continuing decline of Amerindian populations, and new trade links with West Africa set the stage for the rise of the Atlantic plantation system. Slavery formed its basis. Millions of Africans were transported to the Americas and enslaved on plantations by Europeans who reaped huge fortunes. In the Americas, plantation regions were completely transformed. Imported plants and animals replaced indigenous ones, and Africans became a predominant population, as planters systematized the production of sugar and related products like molasses and rum on an industrial scale. As Equiano’s story describes, Africans were more than passive victims of the Atlantic slave trade and plantation system. Many resisted. And though mortality rates were high and survivors were often deprived of their own languages, many managed to keep much of their culture and contribute it to new societies arising in the New World. Meanwhile, societies on the continent of Africa were disrupted by their integration into the Atlantic system. The Ecology and Economics of Plantation Production When the Spanish conquered the Caribbean islands, they first tried to exploit Amerindians, who refused to cooperate and soon fell victim to the deadly diseases the Europeans brought with them. Later, European indentured servants were imported, but they were vulnerable to the tropical diseases such as yellow fever and malaria that had been brought from Africa. When sugar became the sole focus of West Indian agriculture, neither European nor Amerindian labor proved sufficient. Enslaved Africans filled the void. They were expensive, but they could survive the Caribbean environment. As natives of the Old World, they had developed resistance to the same diseases as Europeans, and as natives of the tropics, they were also more resistant to tropical diseases. Tragically, their ability to survive enhanced their value as slaves. Throughout history many societies have allowed for slavery; such “societies with slaves” were common in the Islamic world and in Africa itself. Equiano described a mild form of servitude in the Niger Delta region, where the slaves had a lower place in society but retained legal rights. “Societies with slaves” developed in the Americas as well, such as in Pennsylvania and Mexico. In fact, only 5 percent of 4 the Africans who crossed the Atlantic during the era of the Atlantic slave trade came to British North America. However, in real “slave societies” such as those created by the plantation system, slaveholding is the heart of social
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