Describe West African society on the eve of the expansion of the Atlantic slave trade? What were the society’s strengths and weaknesses?
The era of the Atlantic slave trade witnessed the militarization of the West African societies as well as accompanying atmosphere of social and political disorder that approached chaos in certain regions (Hine & Harrold 17). This was historical milieu in which Islam in West Africa entered into a new phase marked by Islam popularization. Cheap labor demand from farmers in the New World instigated the Atlantic slave trade. However, prior to Atlantic slave trade, West African lived in hierarchically organized states headed by monarchs who claimed semi divine or divine status (Hine & Harrold 17). These monarchs had absolute power; they commanded armies and taxed commerce thereby accumulating substantial wealth.
Slavery was a portion of the hierarchical social structure in West African societies. Some monarchs sold off their people via corrupt justice systems in efforts of promoting their wealth status. Men and women captives and their children who were considerable to hold no rights were sold to slavery (Hine & Harrold 17). Most West Africans has served as peasant slaves to peasant farms. The Europeans vindicated African enslavement through stating that slavery began in Africa during the ancient times. In this view, the Atlantic slave trade only changed and interacted the ancient features of slavery in West Africa.
The strength of the West African society was the fact that the societies lacked social justice systems. Nearly all members of these societies were in the same way powerful. However, people from the West African societies had the desire to enhance their wealth status an aspect that led them into subjecting more of their people to slavery (Hine & Harrold 17). .
2. How could Africans resist the dehumanizing forces of the Middle Passage and seasoning and use their African cultures to build black cultures in the New World?
Despite the fact that African slaves experienced atrocious events as slaves such as death, sanitation issues, diseases, sexual abuse, there lack sufficient evidence supporting dehumanization of Africans by enslavement (Rodriguez, 194). The middle passage was brief, and crews of the slave ships that passed through Liverpool and many Europeans ports fed the slaves two times a day. This is because the slave captors needed to transport as many slaves in a healthy situation so as to make large profits. However, the food given to the slaves was insufficient and poor to prevent cases of malnutrition. Apparently, African peasants had gotten accustomed to slavery (Hine & Harrold 17). It was quite normal for people to face enslavement in exchange of foods. Africa had slaves taken every year by Arab people and so enslavement during the Atlantic Slave trade was normal. The slaves were more in numbers than the slave traders. As a result, Africans were submissive to enslavement.
Although the Africans had accepted their fate calmly, they had no power to say no to enslavement given that they had primitive weapons that could not function against slave traders. As a result, the Africans were not angered by the passage of slaves during the middle passage (Hine & Harrold 18). They endured the hardship of enslavements without complaining.
However, the Africans could have rejected dehumanizing forces during the middle passage as well as the oppressive forces experienced by slaves, through culture development. They could have ensured the preservation of their own languages and form pigeon language that could have saved their situation. They did nothing to develop their black culture, but instead developed a mixture of the African culture and that of the white people who colonized them.
3. How significant were black slaveholders in the history of slavery?
Since ancient times, Slavery was a part of hierarchical social structure. Black African held war captives who entailed men, women and children for enslavement (Hine & Harrold 17). The first slaveholder in the American history was a black person. The African slaveholders contributed enormously to slavery in America. The African slave business was remarkably lucrative for those involved apart from the slaves. The slave trade made money for slaveholders and others involved in shipping the slaves to the New World. Africans enslaved over 90 percent of slaves shipped during the middle passage (Rodriguez, 195). If there were no black slaveholders, the New World slave trade would not have been feasible. The slaveholders became filthily rich, and slavery formed a portion of the regional economy from the colony commencing through the culmination of civil war.
Black people engaged in slaveholding in order to buy their relatives out of oppression. Black slaveholders purchased their relatives to let them stay in America. Additionally, black slaveholders wanted to free black people to allow them function in White’s economic world. Slaveholding by black people also instigated the development of the class of colored people who freely mingled with the whites to form Mulatto children. These children inherited the property of their masters and eventually formed the growing list of free blacks in America. They wanted the slaves to enjoy equal opportunities as the white. By 1700, most black people who were free viewed themselves as more American than African (Rodriguez, 194). There were scores of reasons why black slaveholders held black slaves. While they contributed to the development of the slave trade in the ancient time, they also contributed considerably to stoppage of the slave trade.
Work Cited
Hine, Darlene, Harrold, Stanley. African Americans: a concise history. New York: Pearson, 2012
Rodriguez, Junius. Slavery in the United States (2 volumes): A social, political, and Historical encyclopedia. Texas: ABC-CLIO, Mar 30, 2007.
