HIS295H5
Sarah Medeiros
Wednesday, April 2nd, 2014
Neil Marshall
999681704
Book Review: An African Slaving Port on the Atlantic, by Mariana Candido
The impact of the trans-Atlantic slave trade on the people living in Angola during the seventeenth century onwards was monumental. The Portuguese presence in the Benguelan harbour caused disorder, social strain, and sociocultural transformation for the people specifically residing in Benguela. In the study An African Slaving Port on the Atlantic, Mariana Candido outlines the progression of Benguela starting from the primary Portuguese voyage in the seventeenth century until the mid-nineteenth century. She illustrates Benguela’s inauspicious beginnings and their growth into one of the
…show more content…
She attempts to set herself away from the classic studies done on African slavery and colonization, and “rather than relying on ethnographic data from the early twentieth century, [she] uses contemporary evidence, such as parish records, slave registers, and colonial reports to explore how people in Benguela identified themselves.8 Her insight, mixed with her vigorous research, makes her study emerge compelling and stronger than others, even if the reader has never read into Benguelan slave history previously.
The volume is written in chronological order, and covers over two-hundred years. It begins before the arrival of the Portuguese, when Benguela was only known for their copper inland and had good relations with the neighboring populations. After giving an insightful background on Benguela before colonialism, Candido moves into the imposing Portuguese period, where the Portuguese begin to take advantage of the Benguelan resources, and turned their harbor into one of the largest trans-Atlantic slave ports. As the book continues, Candido opens up about the political issues between the Umbantu people and the colonies settling within the hinterland. She describes trade networks, British and Portuguese laws, and allows for the largest portion of the book to describe the mechanics of the slave trade. The political reconfiguration after Benguela gained their
Abina and the Important Men is the tale of an west African woman from Ashantee who was abducted twice and sold multiple times as a slave. The book is about her trial at court and her prosecution against Quamina Eddoo. Quamina Eddoo is a wealthy man that farms palm oil that owns young slaves. Slavery in the Gold Coast at the time was illegal due to British colonization and their abolition of slavery. Enforcing British rule against slavery was difficult in the Gold Coast. British rule clearly dictates that slavery is illegal, however, slavery was what kept the Gold Coast economy going and was apart of their tradition. At the time, palm oil was one of the staples of their economy, in which the British profited from significantly, and child slaves did the field work. If the British enforce their slavery laws against all the rich landowners who produce this oil, it would destroy the economy and relations with the powerful locals. Abina’s case was one of horrible circumstance, but provides a unique approach of historical significance.
Within this review of Gomez’s work is a comparison of the “truth” I knew and the “truth” I now know. Upon completing Reversing Sail, I argued with my own thoughts regarding Africans and their status prior, and post, enslavement.
There are different experiences of the slave trade that are reflected in these documents such as those of an enslaved person (Olaudah Equiano), a European slave trader (Thomas Phillips – an English merchant), an African monarch (King Jao) whose kingdom and personal authority suffered from the slave trade, and an African monarch (Osei Bonsu) who opposed the ending of the slave trade. Of all the commercial ties that linked the early modern world into global network of exchange, none had more profound or enduring human consequences than the Atlantic Slave Trade. And in all these documents, we can see how people reacted differently to this system based on how they encountered it and how it affected them.
In the late fifteenth century the Portuguese were expanding its kingdom in Africa where it tapped into the existing gold and slave trades of the western Sudan and West Central Africa (Ehret 339). By the early sixteenth century, the Americas became a major player in the global commerce system as the Spanish and Portuguese began to carve at the land and importing and exporting sugar, tobacco, and slaves. Slaves in this moment were the chief commodity that the Portuguese sought from West Central Africa as they provided the free labor that was needed to cultivate and maintain sugar plantations in the Americas. However, the slave trade was not a one-sided system, in fact many African elites, like King Afonso a Nzinga of the Kongo allowed for the buying and selling of African people to Europeans. In other words, Europeans traded with Africa because Africa allowed it to happen, however, there are moment when the demand overshadowed the supply. The slave trade and its many complications is one way in understanding the expanding commercial exchanges between Europeans and West Central Africans during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This essay will analyze the letters King Afonso Nzinga wrote to the King of Portugal, Joao
The documentary Goree: Door of No Return puts the trans-Atlantic slave trade into a greater historical and geographic perspective. The film is set in Goree, an island off the coast of Senegal. Goree is where the "door of no return" was located, and seeing the actual door leaves an indelible image stamped on the viewer's brain. Through this door passed countless men and women who were being bought and sold on the island. Goree was a Portuguese holding for hundreds of years. What is most astonishing about Goree is that the slave warehouse there was only dismantled a hundred and fifty years ago; this is not ancient history. The film reveals the stunning, sunbaked atmosphere of the West African coast and also captures the languid pace of life. The viewer wonders how such brutality ever could have taken place here, especially when the palm trees sway gently in the breezes and we learn about the complex, ancient, and "highly structured civilizations" that once thrived along the West coast of Africa.
One of the greatest stigmas held towards Christians is that they are very judgemental. Many people believe that Christians are too quick to judge someone and never really bother to figure out what those people actually think and why they think a certain way on something. Sadly, this stigma that is linked to Christians will always be a part of the word Christian. So why is it that when people hear the word Christian, they automatically think “judgemental”? There are many reasons one of them being that while many Christians are more concerned about looking good in front of other Christians and non Christians. Through my personal experience of being raised in a Christian home and being required to attend church, it is very easy for me to agree
The controversial scholarly journal of Robert S Wolff explores the history of the first trade encounters between the Portuguese in Africa and Asia, controversy lying in its separation from the Western narrative. Throughout the article, the author is trying to figure out the motives or other considerations playing a role behind the actions of Portuguese and other Europeans, such as choosing violent ways of making a profit in the lands of Africa and Asia, rather than using the existing trade networks, to emerge as the world ruler. In his view, Europeans had claimed themselves to be the “center of the world” way before they have risen to that title. European countries were looking for profitable trade in wealthy lands full of gold, consequently lack of resources and other valuable goods became a barrier to their success in the already existing channels.This is seen in da Gamma’s first encounter with the local ruler of Calicut, where his gifts were considered substandard to that of the poorest merchant, as seen by the local advisor.
The ‘scramble for Africa’ was a phenomenon in the world between the years 1880-1914. The ‘dark continent’ was relatively untouched by Europeans up until this point, with few ports of control on the coasts in the west, which were remnants of the slave trade, and in the south, Britain held the Cape, taken from the Dutch during the French Revolutionary Wars. So, during a period of 30 years, it came to pass that almost the whole of Africa was taken by Europeans. (Except Liberia a colony for freed American slaves, and Abyssinia managed to hold out against Italian aggression). It will be my objective in this essay to analyse the economic factors which resulted in the almost complete colonisation and takeover of Africa, and also to determine to
Throughout our reading in chapter five, “The Preservation of the Revelation: Inspiration,” of Erickson’s Introducing the Christian Doctrine we discovered that there are five different theories which people hold to about how the Bible was inspired. Though, roughly, I could see how each theory could be argued to be true there are only three which I agree with. Two of those theories I agree with fully. These theories are The Dynamic and The Verbal Theory.
When one queries the assessment of the European commercial activities and its impact in the Atlantic Islands and West Africa between the years 1415 and 1600, trickery, social violence, intrusion and the horrors of slavery comes to mind. There were many negative impacts such as population loss, loss of self worth and loyalty, the Europeans involved caused the demise of the European cloth industry. The Portuguese were the first Europeans to set foot in this area in the fifteenth century. During the history of Portugal (1415-1542), Portugal discovered an eastern route to India that rounded the Cape of Good Hope, established trading
This essay is analysis essay to the excerpt from a journal “The Journal of the first voyage of Vasco da Gama” written by an anonymous during the early modern period, translated and edited by E. G. Ravenstein and published by the Hakluyt Society in 1989. The article is primary source of travel journal by sea of Vasco da Gama, the Portuguese navigator, from Africa to India in 1497-1498, the era of European commercial and imperial expansion. The article written by anonymous who was an eyewitness that participated in the voyage of Vasco da Gama to seeks new sea route from Portugues to India.This essay will summarize and analyze
Throughout the history of mankind there has always been war. Nations have always had disagreements with one another and the result is the death of many young soldiers. Although many men die in war, not as many men die if the war was fought to win and not only to stop the enemy. However, the wars that have not been fought to win, but only to stop a force, have had much greater a loss than those fought to win. In the Korean War the United States did not fight to win but just to subjugate the North Korean forces that were annihilating the landscape and its people. Although the Korean War was fought to protect the defenseless people, the casualties and other catastrophes that were brought upon the United States soldiers
The changes in African life during the slave trade era form an important element in the economic and technological development of Africa. Although the Atlantic slave trade had a negative effect on both the economy and technology, it is important to understand that slavery was not a new concept to Africa. In fact, internal slavery existed in Africa for many years. Slaves included war captives, the kidnapped, adulterers, and other criminals and outcasts. However, the number of persons held in slavery in Africa, was very small, since no economic or social system had developed for exploiting them (Manning 97). The new system-Atlantic slave trade-became quite different from the early African slavery. The
The first chapter in Boahen’s book is titled “Eve of Colonial Conquest” and this section gives the readers a background of the colonialism in Africa through a look at the fundamental economic, political, and social changes that occurred just a few decades before colonialism took root. Boahen states that the trade of “natural products” is the most significant economic change in Africa by 1880. Just before the trading of “natural products” slave trades were abolished.
The Atlantic Slave Trade was a part of African history that had made one of it's biggest impact on Africa's relation with the world and more importantly on the inner workings of the country itself due to its large-scale involvement of many of the people in the continent. Although the slave trade was so long ago the impact can still be seen in Africa's social workings within the people, its economy in the local and global market, and within the political landscape of the countries.