"ebony". slave trade from Africa in the XVI-XVIII centuries. Arab slave trade in Africa

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Slavery in Africa known on the continent not only in the past, but continues to exist at the present time. Slavery was common in various parts of Africa, as it was in the rest of the ancient world. Many African communities, where slaves made up the majority of the population, they were endowed with certain rights, and were not the property of the owner. But with the advent of the Arab and transatlantic slave trade, these systems changed, and slaves began to be supplied as a living commodity to slave markets outside of Africa.

The slavery of Africa in historical times has taken various forms, sometimes not quite corresponding to the concept of slavery accepted in the rest of the world. Indentured bondage, war enslavement, military slavery, and criminal slavery occurred in various parts of Africa.

Even though some shipments of slaves were shipped from the sub-Saharan hinterland, the slave trade was not a prominent part of the economy and life of most African communities. Trafficking in human beings acquired a large scale after the opening of transcontinental routes. During the colonization of Africa, a new change in the nature of slavery took place, and at the beginning of the 19th century, a movement began to abolish slavery.

Forms of slavery

Numerous forms of slavery occur throughout African history. In addition to the use of local forms, the system of slavery of Ancient Rome, Christian principles of slavery, Islamic principles of slavery were successively borrowed, and the transatlantic slave trade was opened. Slavery has been, to varying degrees, part of the economy of many African countries for several centuries. , who visited Mali in the middle of the 16th century, wrote that local residents compete with each other in the number of slaves, and he himself received a slave boy as a sign of hospitality. In Sub-Saharan Africa, slaveholding had a complex structure that included rights and freedoms for slaves and restrictions on the sale and maintenance requirements for masters. In many societies, a hierarchy was established among the slaves, in which, for example, slaves by birth and slaves captured during the war were distinguished.

In many African communities there was almost no difference between the free and the feudal dependent farmer. Slaves in the Songhai Empire were mainly used in agriculture. They were obliged to work for the owner, but were little limited in personal terms. These unfree people, rather, constituted a professional caste.

African slavery was basically debt bondage, although in some parts of sub-Saharan Africa slaves were used in annual sacrifices, such as in the rituals of Dahomey. In many cases, slaves were not property and did not remain unfree for life.

African forms of slavery included the establishment of family ties. In many communities that did not involve land ownership, slavery was used to increase influence and expand ties. In this case, slaves became part of the family of their masters. The children of slaves could rise to high positions in such a community and even become leaders. But more often there was a strict boundary between free and not free people. The main forms of slavery in Africa:

Spread of slavery in Africa

For thousands of years, states in Africa have practiced slavery and forced labor. However, there is no exact evidence regarding the time before the advent of the Arab and transatlantic slave trade. Often complex forms of social relationships that do not meet the definition of slavery are called slavery.

In North Africa, traditional slavery spread during the Roman Empire (47 BC - c. 500). After the fall of Rome, slavery remained in the large Christian settlements of the region. After the Arab expansion, slavery spread to the states lying south of the Sahara (Mali, Songhai, Ghana). During the Middle Ages, the main directions of the slave trade were southern and western, and the source of slaves was Central and Eastern Europe.

There is only fragmentary evidence about Central Africa, judging by which only captured representatives of enemy tribes were slaves here.

Numerous forms of slavery were prevalent in Western practice prior to the opening of the transatlantic slave trade. After the beginning of the supply of living goods to America, the slave trade became the basis of the economy and politics of the large states of the region: Mali, Ghana and Songhai. However, other communities actively resisted the slave trade: the Mosi Kingdoms tried to capture key cities, and after failure continued to raid slave traders. However, in the 1800s they also joined the transatlantic slave trade.

Until the 17th century, slavery did not play a significant role in the African Great Lakes. Slaves were exported in small quantities to the Arab countries and India. The peak of the slave trade came in the 19th century, and Zanzibar became the center of slavery. The region also took part in the transatlantic slave trade.

Historical stages

The history of slavery in Afika is divided into three major phases: the Arab slave trade, the Atlantic slave trade, and the abolition movement of the 19th and 20th centuries. The transition to each stage was accompanied by significant changes in the forms, mass character and economic model of slavery. After the abolition of slavery, thousands of former slaves returned to their homeland and settled in Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Slave trade across the Sahara and the Indian Ocean

The Arab slave trade originated in the 8th century. The first routes brought slaves from regions east of the Great Lakes and from the Sahel. The laws of Islam allowed slavery, but forbade the enslavement of Muslims, therefore, mainly people from the African border of the spread of Islam were enslaved. The supply of slaves across the Sahara and the Indian Ocean dates back to the 9th century, when Afro-Arab slave traders took control of this route. According to existing estimates, only a few thousand slaves were exported from the coast of the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean annually. They were sold in the slave markets of the Middle East. The increase in volumes occurred with the development of shipbuilding, which made it possible to increase the volume of products supplied from the plantations, which necessitated the involvement of additional labor. The volume of the slave trade reached tens of thousands a year In the 1800s, there was a sharp increase in the flow of slaves from Africa to Islamic countries. In the 1850s, the supply of slaves from Europe stopped, there was a new jump in volumes. The slave trade ended only in the 1900s, after the start of European colonization of Africa.

Atlantic slave trade

The Atlantic slave trade began in the 15th century. This stage was another significant change in the life of Africans: previously constituting a small part of the slaves in the world, by the 1800s they began to make up the vast majority. In a short time, the slave trade has grown from an insignificant sector of the economy to its predominant component, and the use of slave labor on plantations has become the basis for the prosperity of many communities. Among other things, the Atlantic slave trade changed the traditional distribution of forms of slavery.

The first Europeans to arrive on the Guinean coast were the Portuguese. The first trade to buy slaves took place in 1441. In the 16th century, the Portuguese, who settled on the island of Sao Tome, began to use Negro slaves to cultivate sugar plantations, as the climate of the island turned out to be difficult for Europeans. With the discovery of America, the European settlement of São Jorge da Mina became an important center for sending slaves to the New World.

In America, the first Europeans who began to use the labor of African slaves were the Spaniards, who settled on the islands of Cuba and Haiti. The first slaves arrived in the New World in 1501. The Atlantic slave trade reached its peak at the end of the 18th century. The inhabitants of the interior regions of West Africa were turned into slavery, sending special expeditions after them. The need for slaves due to the growing European colonies was so great that entire empires arose in western Africa that existed at the expense of the slave trade, including Oyo and the Kingdom of Benin. The gradual abolition of slavery in the European colonies during the 19th century led to the disappearance of such states based on a militaristic culture and permanent war to ensure the supply of new slaves. As European demand for slaves declined, African slave owners began to use slaves on their own plantations.

abolition of slavery

In the middle of the 19th century, when European powers began large-scale colonization of Africa, laws came to the continent prohibiting slavery. Sometimes this led to controversy: the colonial authorities, despite the prohibition of slavery, returned fugitive slaves to their owners. In some cases, slavery continued in the colonies until their independence. Anti-colonial struggles often brought slaves and their masters together, however after independence they founded parties in opposition to each other. In some parts of Africa, slavery or forms of personal dependence similar to it still persist and prove to be an intractable problem for modern authorities.

Slavery, despite almost universal prohibition around the world, remains a problem. More than 30 million inhabitants of the planet can be considered slaves In Mauritania, up to 600,000 men, women and children, or 20% of the population are slaves, in most cases being in bondage Slavery in Mauritania was declared illegal only in August 2007. An estimated 14,000 to 200,000 people were enslaved during the Second Sudanese Civil War. In Niger, where slavery was abolished in 2003, almost 8% of the population remain slaves according to 2010 data.

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An excerpt characterizing Slavery in Africa

Just as it is difficult to explain why, where the ants rush from a scattered tussock, some away from the hummock, dragging motes, eggs and dead bodies, others back into the tussock - why they collide, catch up with each other, fight - just as difficult it would be to explain the reasons that forced the Russian people after the departure of the French to crowd in the place that was formerly called Moscow. But just as, looking at the ants scattered around a devastated tussock, despite the complete annihilation of the hummock, one can see from the tenacity, energy, and innumerable scurrying insects that everything has been destroyed, except for something indestructible, immaterial, constituting the entire strength of the tussock, so too and Moscow, in the month of October, despite the fact that there were no authorities, no churches, no shrines, no riches, no houses, was the same Moscow as it was in August. Everything was destroyed, except for something immaterial, but powerful and indestructible.
The motives of people striving from all sides to Moscow after its cleansing from the enemy were the most diverse, personal, and at first mostly wild animals. Only one impulse was common to all - it was the desire to go there, to that place that was formerly called Moscow, in order to apply their activities there.
A week later, there were already fifteen thousand inhabitants in Moscow, after two there were twenty-five thousand, etc. Rising and rising, this number by the autumn of 1813 had reached a figure exceeding the population of the 12th year.
The first Russian people who entered Moscow were the Cossacks of the Winzingerode detachment, peasants from neighboring villages and residents who fled from Moscow and hid in its vicinity. The Russians who entered devastated Moscow, finding it plundered, began to rob too. They continued what the French were doing. Convoys of peasants came to Moscow in order to take away from the villages everything that had been thrown along the devastated Moscow houses and streets. The Cossacks took away what they could to their headquarters; the owners of the houses took away everything that they found in other houses and transferred it to themselves under the pretext that it was their property.
But after the first robbers came others, third ones, and the robbery every day, as the number of robbers increased, became more and more difficult and took on more definite forms.
The French found Moscow, although empty, but with all the forms of an organically correct city, with its various branches of trade, crafts, luxury, government, and religion. These forms were lifeless, but they still existed. There were rows, shops, shops, storehouses, bazaars - most with goods; there were factories, craft establishments; there were palaces, rich houses filled with luxury items; there were hospitals, prisons, offices, churches, cathedrals. The longer the French remained, the more these forms of urban life were destroyed, and in the end everything merged into one indivisible, lifeless field of robbery.
The robbery of the French, the more it continued, the more it destroyed the wealth of Moscow and the strength of the robbers. The robbery of the Russians, from which the occupation of the capital by the Russians began, the longer it lasted, the more participants it had, the faster it restored the wealth of Moscow and the correct life of the city.
In addition to the robbers, the most diverse people, attracted - some by curiosity, some by duty, some by calculation - homeowners, clergy, high and low officials, merchants, artisans, peasants - from different sides, like blood to the heart - rushed to Moscow.
A week later, the peasants, who came with empty carts in order to take away things, were stopped by the authorities and forced to take the dead bodies out of the city. Other peasants, having heard about the failure of their comrades, came to the city with bread, oats, hay, knocking down the price of each other to a price lower than the previous one. Artels of carpenters, hoping for expensive earnings, entered Moscow every day, and new ones were cut down from all sides, burnt houses were repaired. Merchants in booths opened trade. Taverns and inns were set up in burnt houses. The clergy resumed service in many unburned churches. Donors brought looted church things. Officials arranged their cloth tables and filing cabinets in small rooms. The higher authorities and the police ordered the distribution of the good left after the French. The owners of those houses in which a lot of things brought from other houses were left complained about the injustice of bringing all things to the Faceted Chamber; others insisted that the French from different houses brought things to one place, and therefore it is unfair to give the owner of the house those things that were found from him. They scolded the police; bribed her; they wrote ten times the estimates for burnt state things; required assistance. Count Rostopchin wrote his proclamations.

At the end of January, Pierre arrived in Moscow and settled in the surviving wing. He went to Count Rostopchin, to some of his acquaintances who had returned to Moscow, and was going to go to Petersburg on the third day. All were celebrating the victory; everything was seething with life in the devastated and reviving capital. Everyone was glad to Pierre; everyone wanted to see him, and everyone asked him about what he had seen. Pierre felt especially friendly towards all the people he met; but involuntarily now he kept himself on guard with all people, so as not to bind himself in any way. He answered all the questions that were put to him, whether important or the most insignificant, with the same vagueness; Did they ask him where he would live? will it be built? when he is going to Petersburg and will he undertake to bring a box? - he answered: yes, maybe, I think, etc.
He heard about the Rostovs that they were in Kostroma, and the thought of Natasha rarely came to him. If she came, it was only as a pleasant memory of the past. He felt himself not only free from the conditions of life, but also from this feeling, which, as it seemed to him, he had deliberately put on himself.
On the third day of his arrival in Moscow, he learned from the Drubetskys that Princess Marya was in Moscow. Death, suffering, the last days of Prince Andrei often occupied Pierre and now came to his mind with new vivacity. Having learned at dinner that Princess Marya was in Moscow and living in her unburned house on Vzdvizhenka, he went to her that same evening.
On his way to Princess Marya, Pierre kept thinking about Prince Andrei, about his friendship with him, about various meetings with him, and especially about the last one in Borodino.
“Did he really die in that evil mood in which he was then? Was not the explanation of life revealed to him before death? thought Pierre. He remembered Karataev, his death, and involuntarily began to compare these two people, so different and at the same time so similar in love, which he had for both, and because both lived and both died.
In the most serious mood, Pierre drove up to the house of the old prince. This house survived. Traces of destruction were visible in it, but the character of the house was the same. The old waiter who met Pierre with a stern face, as if wanting to make the guest feel that the absence of the prince did not violate the order of the house, said that the princess was deigned to go to her rooms and was received on Sundays.
- Report; maybe they will," said Pierre.
- I'm listening, - answered the waiter, - please go to the portrait room.
A few minutes later, a waiter and Dessalles came out to Pierre. Dessalles, on behalf of the princess, told Pierre that she was very glad to see him and asked, if he would excuse her for her impudence, to go upstairs to her rooms.
In a low room, lit by a single candle, sat the princess and someone else with her, in a black dress. Pierre remembered that the princess always had companions. Who and what they are, these companions, Pierre did not know and did not remember. “This is one of the companions,” he thought, glancing at the lady in the black dress.
The princess quickly stood up to meet him and held out her hand.
“Yes,” she said, peering into his changed face after he kissed her hand, “this is how we meet. He often talked about you lately, too,” she said, turning her eyes from Pierre to her companion with a shyness that struck Pierre for a moment.
“I was so glad to hear of your salvation. This was the only good news we have received since a long time ago. - Again, even more restless, the princess looked back at her companion and wanted to say something; but Pierre interrupted her.
“You can imagine that I knew nothing about him,” he said. “I thought he was dead. Everything I learned, I learned from others, through third parties. I only know that he ended up with the Rostovs ... What a fate!
Pierre spoke quickly, animatedly. He glanced once at the face of his companion, saw an attentive, affectionately curious look directed at him, and, as often happens during a conversation, for some reason he felt that this companion in a black dress was a sweet, kind, glorious creature who would not interfere with his heartfelt conversation with Princess Mary.
But when he said the last words about the Rostovs, the confusion in the face of Princess Marya expressed itself even more strongly. She again ran her eyes from Pierre's face to the face of the lady in the black dress and said:
- You don't know, do you?
Pierre glanced once more at the pale, thin face of his companion, with black eyes and a strange mouth. Something familiar, long forgotten and more than sweet looked at him from those attentive eyes.
But no, it can't be, he thought. – Is it a strict, thin and pale, aged face? It can't be her. It's just a memory of that." But at this time Princess Marya said: "Natasha." And the face, with attentive eyes, with difficulty, with effort, like a rusty door opens, smiled, and from this open door it suddenly smelled and washed over Pierre with that long-forgotten happiness, which, especially now, he did not think about. It smelled, engulfed and swallowed him all. When she smiled, there could no longer be any doubt: it was Natasha, and he loved her.
In the very first minute, Pierre involuntarily told both her and Princess Mary, and, most importantly, to himself a secret unknown to him. He blushed happily and painfully. He wanted to hide his excitement. But the more he wanted to hide him, the more clearly—more clearly than in the most definite words—he told himself, and to her, and to Princess Marya that he loved her.
“No, it’s so, from surprise,” thought Pierre. But as soon as he wanted to continue the conversation he had begun with Princess Marya, he again looked at Natasha, and an even stronger color covered his face, and an even stronger excitement of joy and fear seized his soul. He got lost in words and stopped in the middle of a speech.
Pierre did not notice Natasha, because he did not expect to see her here, but he did not recognize her because the change that had taken place in her since he had not seen her was enormous. She lost weight and turned pale. But this was not what made her unrecognizable: it was impossible to recognize her at the first minute he entered, because on this face, in whose eyes a secret smile of the joy of life had always shone, now, when he entered and looked at her for the first time, there was also a shadow of a smile; there were only eyes, attentive, kind and sadly inquiring.
Pierre's embarrassment was not reflected in Natasha's embarrassment, but only with pleasure, slightly perceptibly illuminating her whole face.

“She came to visit me,” said Princess Mary. The Count and Countess will be here in a few days. The Countess is in a terrible position. But Natasha herself needed to see the doctor. She was forcibly sent away with me.
- Yes, is there a family without its grief? said Pierre, turning to Natasha. “You know that it was on the very day we were released. I saw him. What a lovely boy he was.
Natasha looked at him, and in response to his words, her eyes only opened more and lit up.
- What can you say or think in consolation? Pierre said. - Nothing. Why did such a glorious, full of life boy die?
“Yes, in our time it would be difficult to live without faith…” said Princess Mary.
- Yes Yes. This is the true truth,” Pierre hastily interrupted.
- From what? Natasha asked, looking attentively into Pierre's eyes.
- How why? - said Princess Mary. One thought of what awaits there...
Natasha, without listening to Princess Marya, looked inquiringly at Pierre again.
“And because,” Pierre continued, “that only the person who believes that there is a god who controls us can endure such a loss as hers and ... yours,” said Pierre.
Natasha opened her mouth, wanting to say something, but suddenly stopped. Pierre hastened to turn away from her and turned again to Princess Mary with a question about the last days of his friend's life. Pierre's embarrassment is now almost gone; but at the same time he felt that all his former freedom had disappeared. He felt that there was now a judge over his every word, action, a court that was dearer to him than the court of all people in the world. He was speaking now, and together with his words, he understood the impression that his words made on Natasha. He didn't say anything on purpose that might please her; but whatever he said, he judged himself from her point of view.
Princess Mary reluctantly, as always happens, began to talk about the situation in which she found Prince Andrei. But Pierre's questions, his animatedly restless look, his face trembling with excitement, gradually forced her to go into details, which she was afraid for herself to renew in her imagination.
“Yes, yes, so, so ...” said Pierre, bending forward with his whole body over Princess Mary and eagerly listening to her story. - Yes Yes; so did he calm down? relented? He was always looking for one thing with all the strength of his soul; be quite good that he could not be afraid of death. The faults that were in him, if there were any, did not come from him. So he softened up? Pierre said. “What a blessing that he saw you,” he said to Natasha, suddenly turning to her and looking at her with eyes full of tears.
Natasha's face twitched. She frowned and lowered her eyes for a moment. She hesitated for a minute: to speak or not to speak?
“Yes, it was happiness,” she said in a quiet chesty voice, “for me, it must have been happiness. She paused. - And he ... he ... he said that he wanted this, the minute I came to him ... - Natasha's voice broke off. She blushed, clasped her hands in her lap, and suddenly, evidently making an effort on herself, raised her head and quickly began to say:
– We didn’t know anything when we were driving from Moscow. I didn't dare ask about him. And suddenly Sonya told me that he was with us. I didn’t think anything, I couldn’t imagine what position he was in; I only needed to see him, to be with him,” she said, trembling and panting. And, not allowing herself to be interrupted, she told what she had never told anyone before: everything that she experienced during those three weeks of their journey and life in Yaroslavl.
Pierre listened to her with his mouth open and never taking his eyes off her, full of tears. Listening to her, he did not think about Prince Andrei, nor about death, nor about what she was talking about. He listened to her and only felt sorry for her for the suffering she now experienced as she spoke.
The princess, grimacing with a desire to hold back her tears, sat beside Natasha and listened for the first time to the story of those last days of love between her brother and Natasha.
This painful and joyful story, apparently, was necessary for Natasha.
She spoke, mixing the most insignificant details with the most intimate secrets, and it seemed that she could never finish. She repeated the same thing several times.
Desalle's voice was heard outside the door, asking if Nikolushka could come in and say goodbye.
“Yes, that’s all, that’s all ...” said Natasha. She quickly got up, while Nikolushka entered, and almost ran to the door, knocked her head against the door, covered with a curtain, and with a groan of pain or sadness escaped from the room.
Pierre looked at the door through which she went out and did not understand why he was suddenly left alone in the whole world.
Princess Marya called him out of absent-mindedness, drawing his attention to his nephew, who entered the room.
Nikolushka's face, resembling his father, in a moment of spiritual softening in which Pierre was now, had such an effect on him that, having kissed Nikolushka, he hastily got up and, taking out a handkerchief, went to the window. He wanted to say goodbye to Princess Mary, but she restrained him.

A great demographic blow was dealt to African civilization during the slave trade. Slavery and the slave trade in Africa is nothing but the genocide of black people. But what is slavery? Slavery is when a person is a commodity and does not have any rights in society, he is property that belongs to his master, slave owner, master or state.

If in other countries the slaves were primarily captives, criminals and debtors, then in Africa they were ordinary people who were forcibly torn from their families. The slave trade is the sale and purchase of people into slavery. One of the first who began to use black slaves for their own purposes were the ancient Egyptians. It was the slaves who built the beautiful pyramids and temples that have survived to this day.

The largest deliveries of slaves were just from African countries, it was in connection with this that a certain image of a black slave spread. It must be understood that the slave trade did not take place on the basis of race.

How many thousand people were taken to distant lands? Impossible to accurately calculate. According to many historians, before 1776, at least nine million Africans were captured, who were transported around the world and mostly to America. But many recent studies confirm the fact that these figures are significantly underestimated, too few records remain for this period of time.

The first transatlantic slaves for the slave trade were taken from Senegambia and near the lying coast. The region had a fairly long history of providing slaves for the Islamic trans-sugar trade. The expansion of European empires in the New World required one of the main sources of resources - labor. Africans, on the other hand, were excellent workers: they had a lot of experience in the agricultural industry and keeping livestock. They were also more resistant to heat, which helped them work in mines and rainforests.

What was the African Trilateral Slave Trade like?

All three stages of trading in the golden triangle in Africa were profitable. It worked according to the following scheme: goods from Europe were sent to Africa (cloth, alcohol, tobacco products, beads, cowrie shells, hardware, weapons). The weapon was used to expand the slave trade and obtain large supplies of slaves. Goods were exchanged for African slaves.

The second stage of the triangular trade is the delivery of slaves to America.

The third and final stage of the tripartite trade included the return of ships to Europe with products from slave labor on plantations: sugar, tobacco, rum, cotton, etc.

Slaves for the transatlantic slave trade, as we said above, were originally exported from Senegambia. But trade and enslavement spread to west-central Africa. You can see all the regions that were enslaved in the picture.

Who started the three-way slave trade from Africa along the golden triangle?

Starting from 1460-1640, Portugal had a monopoly on the export of slaves from African countries. It is worth pointing out the fact that it was also the last country to abolish the slave trade. Europeans received permission most often from African kings. There were also attempts at military campaigns organized by Europeans to capture slaves.

As a result of all these inhuman acts, millions of African people died in slavery. According to some reports, the slave trade continues to exist in the world today. This is because people are looking for a better life in another country, but often fall into the trap of greedy entrepreneurs.

345 years ago, on September 27, 1672, King Charles II of England granted the Royal African Company a monopoly on trading in live goods. Over the next 80 years, this company transported about a million African "tourists" across the Atlantic to the New World. It was the golden age of the slave trade.

This worthy business for several hundred years was engaged in almost all countries of Europe that had access to the sea. Of course, no one kept generalized statistics, so estimates of the volume of the slave trade are very vague. According to various sources, from 8 to 14 million slaves were taken from Africa to the American continent, of which 2 to 4 million died on the way. And the rest greatly changed the ethnic picture of the Western Hemisphere and no less strongly influenced its culture.

It should be noted that Russia was one of the few European states whose merchants did not trade in "ebony". Moreover, since 1845, the sea slave trade in the Russian Penal Code was equated with piracy and was punishable by eight years of hard labor. However, we had our own "log in the eye", because until 1861 the internal trade in serf souls, in principle not much different from the slave trade, was carried out on completely legal grounds.

Buying up slaves on the African coast and sending them to a slave ship. Painting by 19th-century French artist François-Auguste Bayard.

A typical scheme for placing slaves on a ship and means of calming them down.

Scheme of placement of live goods on the English slave ship "Brukis". It is not surprising that with such an arrangement, an average of 10 to 20% of "passengers" died during the voyage across the Atlantic.

Section of a 17th century Dutch slave ship. Blacks were placed in the space between the hold and the upper deck.

Cross sections of English and Dutch slave ships. A plank wall blocking the deck (on the "Dutchman" it has spikes) separates the team's territory from the platform on which the slaves were allowed to walk. This precaution was far from superfluous, since slaves sometimes started uprisings.

Suppression of a riot on an English slave ship.

Deck plans of a French merchant ship, for which slaves were one of the varieties of commercial cargo.

A small but well-armed slave ship, in which the "goods" are packed especially tightly. Surprisingly, even in such hellish conditions, most of the slaves, as a rule, survived a sea voyage that could last several weeks.

The main routes for the export of slaves from Central Africa in the XVII-XIX centuries

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Is its impact on the demographics of the continent. Although it is difficult to give exact numbers, it is safe to assume that during the four centuries of the existence of the slave trade, 20 million Africans were taken from Africa to the New World.

If we take into account the methods used in the enslavement of slaves, the losses suffered by Africa acquire terrible proportions. Of course, thieves, criminals, sorcerers and other rabble of the same sort were sold into slavery without any regret. However, the slaves got hold of mainly during the wars and predatory raids. In such cases, captured and exported slaves were added to the direct or indirect victims of the slave trade - people who died in battle or as a result of starvation, disease and epidemics that occurred after the destruction of the crop, the desecration of granaries and the violation of the fragile balance between the population and the environment.

Such horrific acts were commonplace in all the regions of Africa where the Atlantic trade took root. Oral literature is oversaturated with the groans of victims and descriptions of fires in the sky from burning villages. This constant state of war with an endless series of killings, destruction, looting and violence made fear "one of the dimensions of the African soul." It can be said that for every prisoner taken out by the ships of the slave traders, there are 6-7 Africans who died on the continent.

However, these losses, distributed over time, amount to no more than one percent of the black population. It may be asked why such a generally insignificant outflow of labor has paralyzed African society. The fact is that slave traders took out, as a rule, young people. The mass deportation of this stratum of society, full of strength and capable of bearing children, caused a demographic gap that, over time, newborn generations could not fill.

POLITICAL DISASTER

The political consequences of the slave trade were no better. The former political structures in northern Nigeria, Chad and the Congo began to fall because they could not adjust to the conditions created by the slave trade. The Congo, then in its prime, was unable to resist pressure from the Portuguese who, from their base on the island of Sao Tome, brought slaves to the colonies in Brazil, despite the fact that some of the ruling aristocracy, converted to Catholicism, treated them kindly. Guided by their own interests, the Portuguese incited local leaders to revolt and fomented a struggle for power among individual clans, so that, in the end, this country plunged into anarchy.

The kingdoms of Oyo and Benin suffered a similar fate, having achieved a certain level of institutional stability before the arrival of the Europeans. They could not resist the continuous wars caused by the slave trade. Soon their provinces proclaimed themselves independent principalities. By the end of the 18th century, the extraordinary culture of more than two hundred years ago turned into a huge theater of continuous conflict, as a result of which Benin enjoys the infamous name of "bloody Benin".
However, the countries on and near the coast were able to rebuild their institutional structures and build solid power. For example, in the Senegambian region, traditional political structures have undergone profound transformations. The monarchy by God's grace, which separated the owner from his subjects and transferred power to his representatives, was replaced by autocracy. Although such a system, relying on a significant centralization of power, inevitably gave rise to abuses, it was precisely this system that made it possible to contain the slave trade within “permissible limits”.

The offshore state of Aqua used its commercial relations with slave traders to assert its dominant position in the region. By controlling domestic routes, it could exert pressure on commercial operations. At the end of the 18th century, it collected large taxes from its neighbors.

Aqua's appearance was not exceptional. The state of Denkier in the western part of this "golden coast" acquired the same amazing development thanks to trade with Europeans. Intermediary activity gave considerable income. She created a powerful army that allows taxing the Ashanti Confederacy, some of the provinces of which decided to unite against their powerful neighbor.
The Ashanti achieved political and spiritual unity in the late 17th century. Later, after a series of victorious campaigns against Denkiera, the confederation reigned on the main routes of the gold trade and opened the way to the coast. To manage the new territories, she created a bureaucracy, which, with its meekness, only strengthened the central power.

UNJUSTIFIED RESTRICTIONS

Despite the above, the Africans did not always obey the slave trade. Numerous local chiefs did everything they could to put an end to this trade. Slave uprisings often broke out. The uprisings of 1724 and 1749 on the Isle of Goré, 1779 in St. Louis, and 1786 in Galama were drowned in blood.

Numerous leaders and priests tried to organize resistance against the slave trade. In 1673-1677, a Moor named Nasser Eddin conquered the kingdoms of Futa, Valo, Zholof and Kayor, leading a real crusade against local rulers involved in the slave trade. It was only after the repressive actions of the post-Factory in St. Louis that the old regimes were brought back to power. In 1701, the lord of Kayor and Bavola, Latsukabe, seized a slave ship and released it only for a large ransom.

The activities of King Agadja of Dahomey were marked by decisiveness of measures and ambiguity of goals. Having paved the way to the coast in 1724, he took measures to limit the slave trade in his kingdom. Europeans were forbidden to load goods and leave the country without the permission of the king. Constantly keeping an army on the coast, Agadzhi made a royal monopoly of the slave trade and raised the price of slaves in order to have a greater profit. In terms of the sale, he gave instructions as to the goods he needed, as well as the number of slaves, which he considered sufficient for the exchange. To bring him to his senses, the Europeans armed King Oyo and encouraged him to attack Agaji.

However, no matter how glorious were numerous attempts, they could not put an end to the slave trade. Those African leaders who were hostile to the slave trade could not form a common front against it. Following them came the marabouts, inciting the local population to accept the Islamic faith, the only one capable of providing salvation. In 1725, the Marabout revolution was victorious in Fouta Jallon, in 1776 it was Fouta Toro's turn. In 1787-1817 Usman Dan Fodio founded the theocratic state of Sokoto. However, neither one nor the other could stop the slave trade, which disappeared only at the end of the 19th century.

At this time, all political associations lost their integrity. Indistinctly outlined in geographical terms, they combined two drawbacks - uneven settlement and demographic decline. The oppressive authoritarianism of the ruling aristocracy, combined with political isolation, social discrimination and extreme intolerance, created a state of constant tension everywhere that did not contribute to the emergence of peaceful societies. At a time when slavery was already dying out, these societies became extremely weak and vulnerable to the face that took over the baton of the slave trade.