The Atlantic Slave Trade Flashcards
1
Q
Living & Working Conditions on Plantations
6
A
- Slaves forced to work long hours - 12 hours and more at harvest time
- Watched closely by overseers and whipped if not working hard enough
- Families were split up on plantations when they were bought and sold on
- Food was poor quality - fed the cheapest food and rarely given meat
- Housing was very basic and often had to be built by the slaves themselves
- Work was backbreaking and very dangeous - cotton picking and sugar collection
2
Q
Impact of Slavery on West Indies / Carribean
6
A
- Diseases and enslavement killed native people - Arawaks
- Plantations took over smaller farms casuing a loss of livelihood for farmers
- The Slave Trade caused an over-reliance on sugar production, which would be damaging if sugar demand decreased
- Slave laws allowed for brutal punishment on enslaved people, causing an environment of fear on the islands
- Repressive rule by a white minority caused destructive slave rebellions
- Slaves were expected to follow Christianity, which became the main religion of the islands
3
Q
Middle Passage Conditions
6
A
- Slaves were chained together with very little space, sometimes including people who had died during the night
- Diseases were widespread, such as dysentry
- Slaves had to dance on the top deck so their muscles would not waste away and for the crew’s entertainment
- Not given much to eat, leading to malnutrition, and fed poor quality food which made them ill
- Female slaves were often raped by crew members
- Punishments such as being whipped or being thrown overboard were common as means of demonstration
4
Q
Effect on Britain
6
A
- Work was provided in many ports as men were employed as sailors, shipbuilders and dock workers
- The Slave Trade raised struggling ports to rich and prosperous trading centres - Bristol, London, Liverpool.
- Banking and insurance businesses grew as safe storage was needed for the money being produced
- Profits from the trade were invested into British indsutriesand fuelled the Industrial Revolution
- Glasgow’s economy benefited heavily from the tobacco trade
- Slave cotton provided work for the mills of Lancashire
5
Q
Success of Abolitionist Campaign
6
A
- Equina’s autobiography and speaking tours highlighted the plight of enslaved people
- Slave Trade eventually ceased to be profitable - sugar production cheaper in India
- Women refused to buy sugar produced by enslaved people and persuaded grocers not to tell it
- Religious belief changed attitudes towrds slavery - Quakers
- Clarkson collected evidence of the slave trade which horrified people - manacles, thumbscrews and the Brookes ship diagram
- Petitions being sent into parliament highlighted the support for abolishing the trade by the public
6
Q
Organisation of the Trade
A
- Slaves put on ships docked on the west coast of Africa
- Ships sailed to the west indies for slaves to be sold in slave auctions
- Slave produced items (cotton, tobacco, sugar) were sailed to Britian from the west indies
- In Britain, these items were sold to businesses to be resold or used for other goods
- Ammunitions and weapons were sailed to west Africa
- These items were traded with tribes such as the Ashanti in exchange for slaves
7
Q
Effect on British Ports
6
A
- Profits from the slave trade provided signifcant investment into the industrial revolution
- Trade helped pay for things like infrastructure and investment in boats, docks and ports
- Tobacco trade was very successful in Glasgow, ‘tobacco lords’ were tobacco merchants who made their money from dealing in tobacco, not slaves
- London Merchants found other ways to make money besides slave ships, wich lead to the development of merchant banking
- Liverpool’s cotton and linen mills as well as other subsidiary industries such as rope making created thousands of jobs supplying goods to slave traders
- Bristol merchants established strong trade links with West Africa, allowing for industry growth - sugar-refining
8
Q
Effect on African Societies
7, 4 headings
A
Loss of Population:
* Over twelve million people taken from Africa during the slave trade, six million Africans died on the way to the Coast to be sold
* Disease spread more easily due to the movement of captured enslaved people in Africa, further reducing population
Agriculture:
* Fewer young, strong, healthy Africans to grow food which led to famine
* To avoid slavers good farmland on the coast was abandoned leading to fewer crops and greater hunger
Conflict
* Villages were often destroyed or deserted - many did not have homes
* Conflicts become more common and violent as tribes aimed to capture slaves in exchange for ammunitions
Racism:
* Ideas of African inferiority remained among Europeans for many years as a result of the slave trade
9
Q
Conditions in Slave Factories
6
A
- No access to a toilet so the floor was covered in human waste (1ft thick of faeces)
- Punishment cell with no food for anyone who tried to rebel - left there to die
- Female slaves were subject to exploitation / sexual abuse
- Enslaved people fed twice a day with little amounts of food to keep them docile (submissive)
- Enslaved people passed as fit were branded on the chest with a hot iron to stop the African traders from switching bought slaves for unfit ones
- Enslaved people would be whipped for anything they did wrong
10
Q
Importance of sugar / why were Africans taken to the West Indies
5
A
- Sugar production was labour intensive and required many people to make it
- High demand for sugar in Europe grew even more as living standards improved and growing populations led to further economic change in the towns and cities
- Not enough of the native people of the west indies nor the bond workers sent from Britain to produce amount of sugar needed for markets at home
- Arawaks (natives) died out due to being overworked - 50-75% of bond servants succumbed to diseases
- Portugese grew cane in islands off African coast and had links with Africa
11
Q
Other Forms of Slavery (i.e: not farming on plantation)
4
A
- Working in the house within the plantation (maid/nanny/cleaner)
- Looking after children whilst younger slaves worked the land
- Skilled work - carpenter/weaver
- Overseer- in charge of slaves who worked the land
12
Q
Forms of Discipline
6
A
- Flogging with a whip
- Beatings for working slowly
- Branded with a hot iron
- Forced to wear heavy iron chains & muzzles
- Execution as an example to other slaves - burnt alive
- Mulitation - cutting off feet of runaways
13
Q
Forms of Resistance
9
A
- Escape
- Poison their owner
- Working really slow
- Breaking tools
- Learning to read & write
- Pretending not to understand
- Faking illness
- Stealing
- Keeping traditions
14
Q
Why Resistance Was Difficult
6
A
- Enslaved people were controlled by strict laws or codes
- Enslaved resistance crushed by the better armed and organised whites
- Punishments for escaping were very severe and acted as a deterrent
- Enslaved people lived in fear of being sold off / separated from family if they broke the rules
- Had little or no education and could be brainwashed into accepting plantation life
- Many islands were small and it was difficult for slaves to evade capture when hunted down
15
Q
Arguments for the Continuation of Slavery
6
A
- Thousands of jobs across the country rely on slavery, people will become unemployed and starve
- Britain had a strong military because of the money slavery made and the expertise it gave in shipbuilding - they needed this to fund wars with France
- Slaves are not fully human and so their suffering is as ethically important or unimportant as the suffering of domestic animals - Africans were inferior
- Slaves lack the ability to run their own lives so therefore are better-off and happier having their lives run by others and living as Christians.
- Slaves were seen as uneducated and savage, so being away from their homeland would benefit them in gaining skill
- Slavery was accepted in the bible, and it was suggested that it was tolerated and approved by God in the days of Abraham - it was wrong to inferfere with God’s belief
