The Past

As early as 1440 the movement of African people as slaves started. Before this time the Portuguese, Dutch and Spanish countries ruled the slave trade and predominately traded in Muslim slaves from the North African coast. However there were too many rebellions which had a financial impact on the slave traders. Replacement slaves were found along the Western coast of Africa from; Ghana, Sierra Leone, Benin, Nigeria, Gambia, Ivory Coast and Cameroon. Were these chosen because they were thought to be not as educated as their counter-parts in the North? Innocent and unsuspecting people, mainly men, young women and some children were forcefully taken from their homes, farms, streets and families. They were bound hand and feet in chains, joining them together with other now captured slaves, who like them hadn’t run fast enough from the potential slave master. They were taken many miles away to the waiting ports, where they were often brutally whipped, raped and abused by their captors. They were afraid and often tried to escape, those that were caught were tortured or even killed to quell any thought of rebellion or escape in the other captives. They remained at the ports repairing the ships as they came in, almost creating a new community, not realising that this time was a short lived period of freedom.

Soon they were bound and forced aboard the ships that they had helped to repair. These ships were not luxury cruise liners; they were over crowded prisons, in which they would have to live for up to 6 weeks on their journey to a new continent before they landed in the West Indies, Americas and Brazil, to work on the sugar, cotton and tobacco plantations. The ships would then return to Europe packed with the goods produced by the slaves. Liverpool became a major trading port for African slaves, as well as Bristol and London. The Earl of Warwick, Robert Rich was one of the founders of the London-based company of Adventurers to Guinea and Benin. The company was established to trade with West Africa and supply enslaved Africans to the Americas. Charles I granted a licence to a group of London merchants in 1632 for the transportation of enslaved people from West Africa. This journey became known as ‘The Transatlantic Slave Trade.’

They called this a ‘trade’ but in reality there was no trading with the people who provided the labour. These people had no choice in where they would go, they were forced to adopt the culture and language of the slave owners. They were often whipped and flogged in public and were treated worse than cattle. For their wages they received little money and were housed with other male slaves in a small hut or little slave village. They were not allowed to speak or meet with the women as the women were solely for the master. They were raped by the white slave master and forced to have regular sex with him. Some of the cultural traditions survived such as language, religious beliefs, oral traditions and crafts.

This covered 4 continents and lasted for over 4 centuries. It is estimated by some historian that approximately 4.5 million people lost their lives during this time, others estimate over 10 million. No one can put a figure on the amount of lives lost during capture or during the ‘Middle Passage’ on British ships. Records that would provide a clearer history has been lost, stolen, destroyed and even suppressed by those who benefited most out of the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

This period in our history was the most harrowing and dehumanisation of one nation, no one realised how far and how long the effects of these times would impact upon the lives of black people all over the globe. And yet still no justice.

Where did we go from there…….. See the next instalment; Black History – The Present.

Website visited & websites of Interest

http://library.thinkquest.org/13406/ta/2.htm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/africa/features/storyofafrica/index_section9.shtml

http://hitchcock.itc.virginia.edu/Slavery/index.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gambia

http://africanhistory.about.com/library/weekly/aa080601a.htm

http://wassumbee.blogspot.com