The first European country to export slaves from Africa was Portugal. In 1441 when Prince Henry’s Seamen reached the West African coast looking for the sea route to India, they captured 12 men, women and children and brought them back to Portugal as slaves. Within seven years nearly a thousand slaves had been taken away and sold at the Lisbon slave market. The Portuguese and Spanish explorers had originally set up provision stations for ship sailing South around the African continent enroute to the East Indies and mainland Asia.
With the discovery of the New World and the development of its vast resources, there was a demand for labourers for the mines and plantations. The provisioning stations of West Africa became slave trading Ports. Afolalu (1969) wrote:
But whereas at first the discovery of the route to India made the collection of slaves comparatively unprofitable, Columbus discovery of the West Indies and America made the trade most profitable venture. The discovery of America therefore was responsible for the greatest increase in the slave trade that the world had known.
(p.67).
Following the discovery of America, many Europeans left their own homes to settle in the New World. The English, the Dutch, the French and others founded colonies on the Island of the West Indies and in North America. From the very beginning, these European settlers started to open up rich gold and silver mines in the New World. They began cultivating sugar cane, tobacco, cotton, ginger, indigo and coffee in a large scale in the tropical and sub-tropical areas of the land.
As the work in the mines and on the plantations increased, the demand for labourers became immense. Neither the Spaniards nor the Portuguese could provide enough people. They equally realized that the nations of the Americans and the Island were not strong enough to undertake such heavy work. Firstly, as depicted by Afolalu (1969) they turned to Indians, but the Indians were too weak to stand up to the rigours of the work involved. Many died because they did not have the strength required. The situation was saved by the importing of negroes from West Africa. The first of these negroes arrived in 1510. Rodney (1972) confirms that:
The massive trade in human beings from Africa was a response to external factor. At first, the labour was needed in Portugal, Spain and in Atlantic Islands such as Saotome, Cape Verde and the Canaries, then came the period when the Greater Antilles and the Spanish American mainland needed replacements for the Indians who were victims of genocide, and then the demands of Carribean and mainland plantation societies to be met. (p.90).
Some religious men like Las Casas, the first Bishop of Mexico spoke out against the ill-treatment of the natives whose sufferings were immense and whose fate was at the danger of extermination. They persuaded the owners of the mines and plantations to look elsewhere for men and women to replace the American Indians. The Portuguese traders having taken slaves from West Africa back to Portugal, found them to be very strong. Thus, when the European
adventurers, miners and farmers decided to look elsewhere for workers, they decided to use the people of Africa.
It is on record that Portugal inaugurated the slave trade between Western Africa and Europe.
They had the first of many chartered companies to trade in African gold and slaves. The slave trade grew rapidly when the New World was discovered and a few negro slaves admitted to the West Indies proved such a success that the traffick grew enormously and became so competitive. Portugal was leading in the slave trade from Africa to the Western hemisphere in the 16th century. In the 17th century, the English and the Dutch successfully challenged the Portuguese monopoly of the overseas trade and quickly displaced them in West Africa.
The trade routes between Europe, West Africa, and the New World soon formed a triangle.
From the European posts, manufactured goods were shipped to West Africa and traded for slaves. The slaves were carried to the countries of the New World and traded for such produce as sugar, coffee, tobacco, cotton, silver, and gold. This cargo was then sold to the European markets.
The above figure as illustrated by Ogunsola (1977) depicts the triangular nature of the slave trade.Falk (1997) vented his lamentation thus:
The slave trade developed into an enormous blemish on modern history. Greed dominated the scene and power ruled; there was no consideration for the next person. African chiefs and European and Arab traders used their power for material gain without compunction for the lives lost, the families disrupted, and the agony of parents who lost their children. The world was seemingly struck with blindness and failed to perceive the inhumanity of the slave trade. (p.96).
Map 1 Showing the Bight of Biafra: An old slave centre
Source: Microsoft Encarta 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation.
Bight of Biafra, also Bight of Bonny, bay in western Africa, in the eastern part of the Gulf of Guinea, 600 km (400 mi) long. The Bight of Biafra extends from the mouth of the Niger River in Nigeria to Cape Lopez, Gabon, and is fed by the Niger, Cross, and Sanaga rivers. Islands in the bay include Bioko (formerly Fernando Póo), São Tomé, and Príncipe. Principal ports include Malabo, Equatorial Guinea;
Port Harcourt and Calabar, Nigeria; Douala, Cameroon; and Libreville, Gabon. From the 16th century to the 19th century, the Bight of Biafra was a slave trading centre. However, after the British outlawed the practice in 1807, palm oil trade became a chief economic activity. In the 1950s petroleum was discovered in the Bight of Biafra and has become an important economic resource for the region.
It was estimated that over 20 million Africans were taken into slavery. The percentage distribution of slaves by origin to few areas are shown in the table below:
Origin North America
%
Jamaica 1655 – 1800
France 1751 – 1800
Angola 24.5 17.5 45.2
Bight of Benin 4.3 13.8 28.0
Bight of Biafra 23.3 28.4 8.5
Gold Coast 15.9 25.5 6.4
Mozambique – Madagascar
1.6 -- 1.6
Senegambia 13.3 3.7 5.4
Sierra Leone 5.5 10.9 0.9
Windward Coast 11.4 -- 2.3
Unknown 0.2 0.3 1.6
Total 100.0 100.0 100.0
Table 1: Old Slave Trade Percentage distribution
Source: Extract from George E. Simpson’s book ‘Black Religions’ in the New World, New York: Columbia University Press, 1978 p.7.
Simpson (1978) noted that slaves were shipped from eight coastal regions in Africa, even though the actual origins in the interior were uncertain: 1. Senegambia, including the Gambia and Senegal of today; 2. Sierra Leone, a region somewhat larger than the present country; 3. a region consisting mainly of the present Ivory Coast and Liberia; 4. The Gold Coast roughly coterminous with the present day Ghana; 5. The Bight of Benin region from the Volta to the Benin River , the core of which in the eighteenth century was the more limited area known as the “slave coast” of present day Togo and Dahomey; 6. The Bight of Biafra, centreed on the Niger-Delta and the mouths of the Cross and Duala rivers to the east; 7. Central Africa, corresponding roughly with the present day Angola; and 8. South eastern Africa from the Cape of Good Hope to Cape Delgado and including Madagascar. The real centre of the slave trade was tropical America. Approximately half of the slaves were brought to South America, 42 per cent to the Caribbean Islands, 2 percent to Middle America, and 7 percent to British North America. According to Simpson (1978), “probably the Atlantic fringe from Brazil through the Guianas to the Caribbean Coast and Islands received 90 percent of the trade”
(p.5).