Introduction
Like most historians would put it, slave trade in Africa is linked to much of the external forces in western and European nations. The trends in development of slave trade provide the best foresight for understanding the political and socio-economic history of Africa. From an African view point, this essay presents a comparative history of slave trades across the Red Sea, Trans-Saharan and Indian Ocean. It explores the strategic positioning of the traders tools and the number of people captures and transported to foreign countries as slaves.
Red Sea slave trade
Red sea slave trade involve movement of slaves across the red sea to Asia territories mainly Arabia and the Middle East. It mainly involved Arabs as the primary merchants. In the period that spanned four last decades of the 15th century, the merchants took slaves from East Africa, North Africa and some parts of Europe such as South Italy and Iberia. This slave trade made no discrimination on the people taken for the trade as the market accepted people from any age, ethnicity, color or even creed. The most common victims of slave trade were mainly people from West African states.
Trans-Saharan slave trade
The Trans-Saharan Slave trade flourished in the 16th century as a result of the growth of European slave trade across the Atlantic. This was mainly influenced by weak Islamic laws that collapsed in some parts of the continent. Trans-Saharan slave trade was mainly practiced by individual com unities in West African states. The communities had a market share representative of their abilities to deliver slaves to the European traders. This was also one of the most conclusive forms of slave trade as it involved exchange of finished goods and available services that later on proceeded with cash business faster than both Indian Ocean and Red Sea slave trades.
Indian Ocean slave trade
Indian Ocean slave trade involved the trading of people across Indian Ocean. In this pattern of slave trade, people traded were taken from east Africa and the destination markets ended in Asia where the business had flourished from cheap slaves found in East Africa. Most of the victims of this slave trade were people abducted from their communities often with minimal knowledge of their authorities.
Comparative History of the slave trades
While Red Sea slave trade and Indian Ocean slave trade had a relatively slow and consistent influence on the spread of Islamic religion in West Africa, Trans-Saharan slave trade had minimal religious influence on the people’s culture but increased the demand for slaves in Europe and America considerably over the short period after it began. Trans-Saharan slave trade involved endorsements of local authorities such as monarchs in the exportations of civilians.
In Red Sea slave trade, the traders used galleries and small ships to move slaves from North Africa to Arabia, following Arab’s influence in North African states. In the case of Indian Ocean trade, the merchants who used large ships and boats steered by North easterlies and South west strong winds. Again the Indian Ocean slave trades only occurred periodically because the merchants’ movement’s depended on the trade winds and ocean tides that greatly limited their movements. Asian traders involved in the Indian Ocean trade often found themselves in conflict with the Dutch who also sought to control this same slave trade. Since they pioneered the trade in Asia before migrating to sell from the East African off-shore, the Dutch believed that they had the rights to take over the slave trade in the Indian Ocean.
Unlike Trans-Saharan slave trade, Indian Ocean Trade and red Sea trade had some open system that allowed the slave room for reasonable personal fulfillment. In Indian Ocean trade, slaves serving in high places such as palaces and royal residences would get promotion to serve at high levels in cosmopolitan areas1. However, in non-administrative settings, people continued to discriminate and stigmatize slaves as bond servants. The Dutch and Asian involvement in Indian Ocean trade was equally accompanied by exchange of material goods and money including cultural exchanges.
By mid 17th century, the Indian Ocean formed a major source of government revenue in many cities in Asia, while Trans-Saharan slave trade formed the hub of flourishing socio-economic changes in West Africa, America and Europe. As missionaries explored the world to spread Christianity, the trade counterparts who followed them quickly found new form of business flourishing in the South West Coast of Africa; slave trade therefore emerged as a priority as Europeans sought cheap labour from these new markets. The interaction between Red sea, Indian Ocean and Trans-Saharan trade in West Africa created an ideal market for Europeans with specific demand of gold gum and slaves. Thus, Tran-Saharan Trade as marked by Trans-Atlantic trade route further motivated the movement of slaves from West Africa into Europe.
While slaves in transported across the Red sea to the Arab World had the opportunity to serve in respected locations such as the King’s palaces, in Trans-Saharan slave trade, they were mainly dedicated to commercial activities such as the provision for labour requires in large industries2. This was also coupled by a myriad of socio-economic exchanges as opposed to the Indian Ocean slave trade. In transatlantic slave trade, the people would commonly be captured from the forest while in Indian Ocean; the traders captured the slaves from their homes. Thus transatlantic trade flourished following other major routes such as Transatlantic that facilitated the growth of the European market as caravan routes followed by ivory hides and skins, hostile slave’s ands and gold. In Indian Ocean trade and Red Sea movement of slaves little exchanges actually occurred that allowed for the growth of Africa in the now established slave trade.
The Trans-Saharan slave trade necessitated fast use of simple money as the volume of trade that accompanied slave trade in this region demonstrated the importance of using money as means of settling payments. Hence, in a period spanning the last two decades of the 19th century, Trans-Atlantic trade used minted coins as means of payment ahead of both Red Size and Indian Ocean trade that continued to trade on commodities such as cowry shells and other commodities.
Through spread of Christianity and religious teachings, trans-Saharan trade spread the doctrines of Islamic law and shuns other religions. The market share of slave trade and other commodities was controlled by communal on either side such that the older members based age while in the real sense this remain a strategy to keep other communities in check where they operate. Unlike Red Sea and Indian Ocean slave trade, in trans-Saharan slave trade, Africans also benefited from the business of slave trade by selling their fellow Africans to Americans and Europeans who would give them money and guns including gun powder in return3. As Trans-Saharan slave trade fell in the heart of elaborate routes of Trans Atlantic trade, Customers in Europe who demanded slaves to work in their firms and homes continued to more interest in cheap slaves from across the West African desert in exchange with finished commodities4 that included gold house hold materials and silver coins.
As the revenues of gold declined in the 18th century, it remained the optional responsibility of Europeans who invested in the Trans Atlantic system to put up their ships for slave movement across the red sea. Ideally Red Sea slave trade guaranteed the Portuguese significant returns relative to the trade in ivory and the declined gold products. Similarly, Indian Ocean slave trade provided a number of off-shore opportunities for the merchants as they could control the production activities in Asia to their own advantage.
Conclusion
Given Africa’s natural endowment of numerous resources, exploitation of its man power for suitability in the activities of other nations due to the processes of slavery at brim of colonization, at the chagrin of its pioneering leaders implied poverty from the onset of the continents civilization history. Clearly, slave trade dominated by Trans-Saharan and Indian Ocean Slave trade destabilized the economy of the continent as the royal leaders of various territorial locations promoted the act at utter disguise of their communities and societies. Nonetheless, the contribution of slave trade to the development of first world and second world nation remains the hallmark of the once booming business in humanity that created deliberate shift in capital and means of production.
Bibliography
- Austen, Ralph. Trans-Saharan Africa in world history. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.
- Lovejoy, Paul. Transformations in slavery: a history of slavery in Africa. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
- Solow, Barbara. Slavery and the rise of the Atlantic system. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Footnotes
- Lovejoy Paul, Transformations in slavery: a history of slavery in Africa (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 63
- Austen, Ralph. Trans-Saharan Africa in world history. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 47
- Solow, Barbara. Slavery and the rise of the Atlantic system. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 125.
- Lovejoy Paul, Transformations in slavery: a history of slavery in Africa (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 66