Africa and the Atlantic World (The Slave Trade) Flashcards
What was the African Diaspora?
The dispersal of Afrian peoples and their descendants throughtout the western hemisphere.
What main crops were plantations used for in the Americas?
Sugar and tobacco
Examples of cash crops produced in plantations in the Americas:
Sugar, tobacco, rice, indigo, cotton, coffee
How did plantations function?
They specialized in one specific crop but also produced food for their local communities. Their purpose was to profit from their cash crops.
Who were the physical laborers of the plantations?
African and African-American slaves
Which peoples governed the plantations?
European and Euro-American peoples
What were the main causes of death for slaves on the plantations?
Yellow fever, malaria, brutal working conditions and horrible sanitation and nutrition.
What was a reason why slaves had low rates of reproduction?
Plantations owners mostly imported male slaves.
In what place were the conditions for slaves “better” than in South American plantations and why?
North America. Less disease and less harsh conditions in some ways. However, only about 5% of people were sent to North America.
What did North American planters encourage?
They encouraged the slaves to form families by importing large numbers of female slaves.
Why did the North Americans support these slave families?
Because the prices of fresh slaves rose dramatically by the 18th century.
Who was Thomas Peters?
One of the many slaves who resisted against slavery.
What was a mild way of slaves rebelling against their masters?
Working slowly in the plantations and occasionally sabotaging plantation equipment. This was costly to the slave owners.
What was a serious way for slaves rebelling against their masters?
They ran away.
What were slave runaways called?
Maroons.
What did the slave runaways do after they ran away?
They gathered in mountainous, forested, or swampy areas and built their own self-governing communities.
How did maroons retaliate against plantations?
They often raided nearby plantations for weapons, tools, provisions, and fellow slaves to increase their numbers or to provide labor within their own communities.
What made the maroons militarily successful in the Americas?
Many of them had gained military experience in Africa.
Where today has descent from 18th century maroons?
Saramaka people of Suriname.
Why did slave revolts scare the slave owners?
The slaves outnumbered the supervisors of plantations and brought a lot of death. However, the slave revolts did not help that much in ending slavery because the ruling elites had guns and military forces.
What is Saint-Domingue?
A French sugar colony that abolished slavery as an institution after a slave revolt. (1793)
What modern day country is Saint-Domingue in?
Haiti.
Did any other slave revolts bring the same results as the Haitian revolution?
No.
Island of Hispaniola: two modern day countries and year Spanish established plantations there
Haiti and Dominican Republic (1516)
What did the Portuguese refer to the kingdom of Ndongo as?
Angola
How would the Portuguese come up with the name Angola?
from the title of the king, ngola
How did Ndongo grow from a small chiefdom to a powerful regional kingdom?
Because it was able to attract lots of wealth by trading directly with Portuguese merchants
When did Portuguese merchants found a small coastal colony in Ndongo
1575
Queen Nzinga years of reign
1623-1663
What did Queen Nzinga dress as?
She dressed as a male warrior when leading troops in battle
What was Queen Nzinga’s goal
To drive the Portuguese from her land, then expel the Dutch, and finally create a vast central African empire
What happened when Queen Nzinga died
Portuguese forces faced less capable resistance and they both extended and tightened their control over Angola
What kingdom was built by 1300
Great Zimbabwe
Why did Europeans strike alliances with local peoples and intervene in disputes?
In search of commercial opportunities
What group did the Dutch mariners encounter when building a trading post at Cape Town?
The Khoikhoi people
Where was Islam most popular in Africa?
Commercial centers of west Africa and the Swahili city-states of east Africa
What was the result of African Muslims?
A syncretic brand of Islam that not only made a place for African beliefs in spirits and magic but also permitted men and women to associate with each other.
What did the Fulani do for Islam?
They led a series of military campaigns to establish Islamic states and impose their own brand of Islam in west Africa
What did the Portuguese community in Kongo and Angola support?
priests and missionaries who introduced Roman Catholic Christianity to central Africa
Which class of people were made crucial contributions to the building of new societies and the making of the early modern world as a whole.
Slaves.
Were slaves rewarded for their hard work?
No.
What languages were dominant in slave societies of the western hemispheres?
European languages
What language did the slaves speak amongst each other?
Creole, which was a mixture of several African and European languages.
Percentage of population enslaved in Georgia:
75%
What creole languages did slaves from South Carolina and Georgia speak?
Gullah and Geechee
What syncretic faith was practiced in Haiti?
Voudou
What syncretic faith was practiced in Cuba?
Santeria
What syncretic faith was practiced in Brazil?
Candomble
For which social class were syncretic faiths popular?
African and African american slaves
What religion did syncretic faiths draw inspiration from?
Christianity
What beliefs did these syncretic faiths have?
Beliefs in spirits and supernatural powers: magic, sorcery, witchcraft, and spirit possession.
Name two African influenced foods/ingredients:
Okra and Gumbos
Where do the words Okra and Gumbo derive from?
They are both African words.
Which two revolutions stimulated the abolishing of slavery cause?
American and French revolutions.
The AMERICAN call for __ appealed to the universal human right to freedom and equality
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness
The French appeal to __ suggested the universal human right to freedom and equality.
Liberty, equality and fraternity
Who was Olaudah Equiano?
(1745-1797) Was a slave who purchased his freedom in 1766. His efforts strengthened the antislavery movement in England.
What did music do for the African American slaves?
Brought a sense of home/community and cultural grounding and belonging.
What instruments did African Americans play to play their music?
Instruments like the banjo and drums.
How were drums used in plantations in ways other than playing music?
Slaves used drums to signal one another to rise up during the Stono rebellion of 1739.
What present day musics have been influenced by African American music?
Work songs, spirituals, blues, jazz, and soul.
What format found its way into the music of spirrituals that blended Christian, European, and African influences?
Call-and-response format.
Portuguese colony that emerged in former Ndongo and origin of name
Angola and origin is from the title of the king, ngola
What did some Africans regard Christian missionaries as?
They regarded them as magicians and wore crosses and other Christian symbols as amulets to ward off danger from angry spirits
When did the Antonian movement in Kongo flourish?
early eighteenth century
How did the Antonian movement begin?
It began when an aristocratic woman named Dona Beatriz proclaimed that St. Anthony of Padua had possessed her and chosen her to communicate his messages