Summary
Highlights
The Atlantic slave trade forcibly moved 10 to 12 million African slaves to the Americas between 1500 and 1880 CE, with 15% dying during the journey. Most slaves went to the Caribbean (48%) and Brazil (41%), with only 5% coming to the U.S. This trade built upon a long history of European slave trading, notably after the 4th Crusade when Italian merchants imported thousands of slaves to process sugar. The demand for non-essential goods like sugar, tobacco, and coffee drove this consumer-driven slavery.
Europeans obtained African slaves through trade with other Africans, exchanging goods like metal tools and guns. Slaves were a valuable form of property and a significant source of private wealth in many African societies. Conditions on slave ships were horrific, with slaves having only four square feet of space. Once in the Americas, slaves were branded and subjected to extreme labor, especially in sugar plantations where they worked ten months a year, often 48 hours straight during harvest, leading to a life expectancy of 23 years in 18th-century Brazil. In the U.S., slave populations grew naturally, a horrific reality meaning slave owners profited from reproduction.
Slavery is a complex concept. While some historical figures like Zheng He were technically slaves yet held great power, Atlantic slavery was distinct as chattel slavery, meaning slaves were movable property. The video critiques the casual use of the word 'slave' in rhetoric. Sociologist Orlando Patterson defines slavery as "the permanent, violent and personal domination of natally alienated and generally dishonoured persons," leading to 'social death' and dehumanization, where slaves were seen as commodities like 'cattle'.
Atlantic slavery combined the worst aspects of previous models of slavery. The Greeks introduced the idea of 'otherness' and distant origins for slaves, with Aristotle believing some were naturally slaves. The Romans expanded on this with the plantation system (latifundia) and used slaves for 30% of their population. The Judeo-Christian world, particularly the Bible's curse of Ham, provided justifications for hereditary slavery and the idea that slavery was a result of human sin, specifically used to rationalize the enslavement of Africans.
Muslim Arabs were among the first to import large numbers of Bantu-speaking Africans (Zanj) as slaves, distinguishing them by skin color. The devastating Zanj revolt in 869 CE might have discouraged large-scale plantation agriculture for the Abbasids but also linked Aristotelian ideas of 'natural slaves' with Sub-Saharan Africans. The Spanish and Portuguese, with their close ties to the Muslim world, inherited these racist attitudes and, as the first colonizers of the Americas, helped define the beliefs that characterized Atlantic slavery.
Atlantic slavery was a monstrous tragedy in which the entire world participated. It was the culmination of millennia of dehumanizing others. Blaming a single group exonerates others, including ourselves. The difficult truth is that a vast array of our ancestors believed fellow human beings could be mere property.