TOPIC.

1/ THE ORIGINS OF THE TRANSATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE

1. How did the Portuguese get their first cargo of slaves in Africa? In which

present country of the African coast?

In 1441, for the first time, Portuguese sailors obtained gold dust from traders on

the western coast of Africa. The following year, Portuguese explorers returned

from Africa with more gold dust and another cargo: ten Africans

Forty years after that first human cargo traveled to Portugal, Portuguese sailors

gained permission from a local African leader to build a trading outpost and

storehouse on Africa's Guinea coast. It was near a region that had been mined

for gold for many years and was called Elmina, which means "the mine" in

Portuguese. In the country of Ghana.

2. What is a “padrão”?

A padrão is a stone pillar left by Portuguese maritime explorers in the 15th- and

16th-centuries to record significant landfalls and thereby establish primacy and

possession. They were often placed on promontories and capes or at the mouths of

major rivers. Early markers were simple wooden pillars or crosses but they

deteriorated quickly in the tropical climate where they were often erected. Later,

padrões were carved from stone in the form of a pillar surmounted by a cross and

the royal coat of arms.

 3. What kind of trade network did the Portuguese maintain on the West

African coast during the first decades that followed their arrival in present

Ghana? What was then the main purpose of the Portuguese slave trade of

Africans?

The carabela. Slaves were a common African commodity in the Sub-Saharan African

trade transactions, they exchange them for gold.

4. Was slavery a new enterprise in Africa? Was the Portuguese maritime trade

the only route for human trafficking?

No, in medieval world slavery was a common practice in Africa and Europe.

No, there was also the Arab slave trade, across the Sahara desert and across the Indian

Ocean, that began after Muslim Arab and Swahili traders won control of the Swahili

Coast and sea routes during the 9th century

5. What kind of slave trade was taking place in Africa before the coming of

Europeans?

There was a considerable trading of Africans as slaves by Islamic Arab merchants in

North Africa since the year 900.

6. Were there slaves in Medieval Europe?

In medieval world slavery was a common practice in both Africa and Europe. Slavery

had existed in Spain and Portugal before 1492 and the starting of the Transatlantic

Slave Trade. In southern Europe classical-style slavery had continued for a more

extended period compared to Northern Europe.

 7. How could a free man become a slave in Africa?

War captive, judicial process or a way of discharging a debt

8. Why many scholars assert that slavery at this time did not have a racist

component. Why?

Because there was not a racial component of slavery in Medieval Europe. During the

Reconquista period, slaves were mostly captives taken in wars and sea raids. Religion

was the critical factor of enslavement in Christian and Muslim kingdoms.

9. Name at least three reasons that led the Europeans to start the

Transatlantic slave trade.

● The demand for labour was particularly high in the tropical parts of the New World:

The sugar demand boom was a driver of the upsurge of the slave trade. The

success of the sugar cane plantations in the Atlantic Islands and the in New

World raised the need of battalions of workers.

● Europeans did not enslave one another in spite of their many international and civil

wars, the severe persecution of minorities… their numbers could not nearly satisfy

the demand.

● The third reason for the transfer of slaves from Africa was the fact that on that

continent, slavery was widespread and the slave trade there had existed for

centuries, and was well organized with markets, brokers and plenty of experience of

how to move slaves from one area to another. This explains why the Europeans,

once they had arrived on the West coast of Africa, only needed to offer more than

the African and Arab buyers to obtain as many slaves as they wanted.
 10. When did the magnitude of the slave trade start to grow exponentially?

The slave trade reached its peak during the 18th century, with the enormous growth of

sugar production, the explosion of gold mining, and the development of new crops in

different parts of America.

11. Why did the slaves replace gold in the priorities of the Portuguese traders

in Africa?

It was not until about 1700 that slaves replaced gold as the West African coast ́s most

valuable export. There was a key event in the upsurge of the African slave trade and it was

in 1519 the beginning of direct shipments of slaves from Africa to the 16 Americas. The

European taste for surge and the discovery of Brazil in 1500 lead to the surge of numbers of

the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade.

12. Were the slaves taken into America, the result of Portuguese conducted

slave-raids on African communities?

13. Why have scholars outlined that slavery did not have a racist component

until the 17th century?

“Slave” meant “black,” and vice- versa. Many important men started to talk about white

supremacy in their speeches.

Because there was not a racial component of slavery in Medieval Europe. During the

Reconquista period, slaves were mostly captives taken in wars and sea raids. Religion

was the critical factor of enslavement in Christian and Muslim kingdoms.

 14. Why were the American populations not enslaved and employed for forced

labor?

Spanish queen Isabel la Católica banned slavery in newly conquered territories (Canary

Islands and the New World). In 1537 Pope Paul III forbade too the enslavement of the

indigenous peoples of the Americas called Indians with the papal encyclical Sublimis Deus

(The sublime God). Natives in the New World had experienced a demographic catastrophe

due to diseases imported to the Americas from the Old World.

15. Which was the European power that put an end to the Portuguese

monopoly of the African slave trade in the 17th century?

The Dutch became the slave trade's masters.

16. What European power dominated the slave trade in the 18th century?

The British

17. Did Spain get involved in this human traffic?

Spanish did not participate in the slave trade in Africa but bought the Portuguese slaves

for the Caribbean possessions (Cuba)

18. What is the triangular trade system? What was traded in the triangular

trade?

-Manufactured goods from Europe (cloth, metalware, firearms, beads, brandy...) were

exchanged for slaves in Africa.

-Slaves were sold or exchanged for sugar in Brazil and the Caribbean
-Raw materials such as rum, tobacco, molasses, and sugar, collected from the West

Indies were taken back to Europe and sold at a considerable profit.

19. What is the “middle passage”?

The journey from Africa to America

20. In which century took place the peak of the transatlantic slave trade?

18th century

21. What items rose as the most successful exports to Africa when the British

traders dominated the slave trade?

Tobacco, alcohol, metal goods and guns.

22. Which were the main destinations of the slave trade to the Americas?

USA, Brazil and islands of the Caribbeans

23. Most slaves taken to the Americas came from which present countries?

Senegal, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Ghana,

Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, both Congo, Angola,

Mozambique and Madagascar. (19)

24. Some African leaders tried to prevent the slave trade with the Europeans.

Why? Where in present Africa?

Benin closed its slave market and King Alfonso of Kongo bewailed the trade’s effects.

Given African concern to build up numbers, to sell people was uncongenial and

tragically ironic. Its logic lay in the divorce between collective and individual interest, for

powerful men sold slaves to acquire goods with which to attract still more personal

followers. They sold people in order to acquire people.

25. What is the controversy on reparation to the victims of the slave trade?

1) There are a number of movements calling for reparations (financial compensation) to

be made to the victims by the European countries that used to be slave trading nations.

2) Ghana, Nigeria and Uganda: voices calling for African tribal leaders to apologize for

the involvement of their people in the slave trade

26. What impact had the slave trade in Africa?

● Demographic consequences: Slave exports interrupted western Africa ́s

demographic growth for two centuries. Some experts say that had been no slave

trade the population of Africa in 1850 would have been 50 million instead of 25

million.

● The trade stimulated wider use of slaves within the continent and more brutal

attitudes towards sufferings

● Enslaving your enemy became less a consequence of war and more and more a

reason to go to war.
 ● Africans survived the slave trade with their political independence and social

institutions largely intact

TOPIC-2/ THE ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE + TOPIC-3/ EUROPEAN

PARTITION

1. When did Britain abolish the slave trade? Was this the end of slavery in the

British empire?

In theory in 1807 but is not until 1833 that UK abolishes slavery throughout most of the

British Empire.

2. What kind of initiatives took the British Government to prevent the slave

trade from Africa to the Americas?

The establishment of naval squadrons on the West African coast to stop and search any

ship suspected of carrying slaves, as Bioko > Key base of the campaign against slavery (1827-1843):

Britain establishment one of its bases to combat the slave trade on the island of Fernando Po.

The political pressure on Spain, Portugal France and the Netherlands to abolish slave

trade.
An anti-slavery campaign to show the suffer of slaves.

3. What kind of practice is considered similar to slavery and became very

common in territories where the British succeeded to stop the export of

slaves?

Palm Oil trade forced labour had supplanted after the slave trade British abolition the

slave trade traditionally developed in this area by British traders.

4. King Leopold II of Belgium became an advocate of the struggle against

slavery. What was his real purpose?

Leopoldo II, King of the Belgians and de facto owner of the congo Free State from 1885

to 1908. Since 1876 he used his private wealth to establish commercial stations in the

lower Congo. In 1889 Leopoldo II of Belgium came forward as the champion of African

freedom. He called an anti slavery congress in Brussels where he denounced the Arab

slave trade to have a cover while he was expanding the slave trade in Katanga.

5. The British, too, used the crusade for non-humanitarian purposes. How?

To assert itself both commercially and territorially in Africa.

6. Why was Spain resistant to the abolition of slavery?

The legal abolition of slavery in peninsular Spain came in 1837 and excluded the

overseas territories due to the pressure exerted by the oligarchy of Cuba and Puerto

Rico serving the United States. The slaves in these areas were subservient labor that

works on the sugar, tobacco, and cotton plantations. In addition this practice gave rise

to great fortunes but the beginning of the revolutions or the stage of restoration in
Spain finally succeeded in ending this practice in 1880 in Cuba with the release of some

30,000 slaves.

7. Did the abolition achieve to put into an end the shipping of African slaves

across the Atlantic?

No, in fact during the 19th century 3 million slaves were shipped across the Atlantic

(28% of the total shipped between 1450 and 1900)

8. Why did the missionary and explorer David Livingstone promote Commerce

in Africa?

Livingstone was strongly influenced by the abolitionist arguments that supported the

idea that the African slave trade might be destroyed (a través) through the influence of

"legitimate trade" (in goods) and the spread of Christianity. In addition, he had a close

relationship with the tribes of Africa, becoming part of one and establishing his own

family as one more in El Cabo. For this reason it is also to be assumed that they reject

any act against Africans.

9. Did the new activities of the “legal” commerce with Africa introduce better

life conditions for the Africans during the 19th century?

No because the legal commerce was based on forced labour which supplanted the slave

trade. This practice required a village to provide men to work on roads and other public

works. Also during the 19th century about 3 million slaves were shipped across the

Atlantic despite the British initiatives against the slavery trade.

 10. In what present country are the Oil Rivers located? Why did they receive

this name?

In Nigeria, because the Niger Delta is the center of Nigeria’s oil industry.

11. What kind of interests had the British in the Oil Rivers?

Palm Oil trade had supplanted after the slave trade British abolition the slave trade

traffic traditionally developed in this area by British traders. Palm oil became a highly

sought-after commodity by British traders, for use as an industrial lubricant for

machinery during Britain’s Industrial Revolution.

12. Why was it so difficult to put an end to the slave trade?

Because, even though the general population of Africans were against being sold and being

enslaved, there was a part of the population (kings, rich men, prime merchants…) who had

interests on having slaves. So, africans in general opposed slave trade but some of them

had interests of selling people to acquire goods.

13. What other reasons kept high the numbers of Africans exported to the

Americas in the 19th century?

14. The effects of abolition in Africa. What was the reaction of the Africans?

30 TO 50% (even 80%) of all people living in the great swathe of Sahelian grasslands

extending from the Atlantic coast of Senegal to the shores of Lake Chad were slaves.

The slave population of central Asante became so large that it aroused fears of revolt

Asante rulers adopted a deliberate policy of dispersing the slave population through the
country (La población esclava del centro de Asante se hizo tan grande que despertó

temores de revuelta Los gobernantes de Asante adoptaron una política deliberada de

dispersión de la población esclava por todo el país)

15. Why did Zanzibar become so important in the 19th century?

Zanzibar, in the 19th century, became the most significant commercial center on the coast of

East Africa, a meeting place for slave traders, ivory dealers and spice merchants. It was also

a base from which Europeans explorers could venture into the vast uncharted territories of

the African interior.

16. What kind of activities in Zanzibar led to the surge of the slave trade after

the British abolition?

Omanis and the exports boom. By 1820s, cloves were being harvested on several Omani-

owned plantations on Zanzibar the use of slave labour. As the plantations expanded, so the

demand for slave labour increased, providing another stimulus for traffic from the mainland.

17. Where is Zanzibar located?

It is a semi-autonomous region of Tanzania. Zanzibar is on an island off the east

coast of Africa called Unguja.

 18. Where in Africa is caste discrimination most widespread?

Caste systems exist in pockets in some African countries. It is found in parts of

Sahelian Africa, particularly in certain West African communities (Senegal,

Mauritania, Mali, Nigeria, Niger), and among populations in Somalia, Ethiopia and

Kenya.

19. Was slavery in Africa a phenomenon related exclusively to Islam?

No. Greater Ethiopia and Amharic and Tigreans (can’t slave Christians so they did with

another non-C groups).

20. Who are the "harratine"? Where are they usually located?

MAURITANIA.Known as the “black moors”. The Harratines are made up of slaves and ex-

slaves belonging to the Bidan. They form the largest ethnic group and account for as much

as 40% of the Mauritanians. They are of black heritage but they have adopted the language

and culture of their Berber or Arab masters and they consider themselves as “moors” and

not black africans. Harratines make up an ethnically distinct group of largely settled, speak

Arabic Hassaniya (talked in Mauritania and W.Sahara by the “white moors”)

21. Where in Africa is the legacy of slavery more persistent?

In Mauritania. According to the Global Slavery Index there are over 155 mil people trapped

in modern slavery in the country, 4% of the entire population. This makes Mauritania the

country with the highest prevalence of slavery in the world. Despite outlawing slavery three

times and making it a criminal offence in 2007, the Mauritarian government has failed to

genuinely tackle the problem. Slavery was banned in 1981 but owning a slave was not a

crime until 2007

 22. Where are Mauritania and Mali located?

No me deja pegar el mapa :(, Mauritania está al lado de western sahara y Mali es

el siguiente país.

23. What is the diaspora?

The transatlantic slave trade led to the greatest forced migration of a human population

in history. Millions of Africans were transported to the Caribbean, North and South

America, as well as Europe and elsewhere. An 'African Diaspora' or dispersal of Africans

outside Africa was created in the modern world.

(Aquí os pego los apuntes del año pasado de los tres temas por si queréis rescatar.

Hay preguntas iguales, si no os queréis leer todo simplemente buscar la palabra)

THE ROOTS OF THE ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE

• Are the roots of slavery an exclusive African phenomenon?

No, in medieval world slavery was a common practice in both Africa and Europe. Slavery

had existed in Spain and Portugal before 1492 and the starting of the Trans-Atlantic

Slave Trade. In southern Europe classical-style slavery had continued for a more

extended period compared to Northern Europe.

• What kind of slave trade was taking place in Africa before the coming of

Europeans?
There was a considerable trading of Africans as slaves by Islamic Arab merchants in

North Africa since the year 900.

• Describe the use and situation of slaves in African societies:

Many societies in Africa with kings and hierarchical forms of government traditionally

kept slaves. But there were mostly used for domestic purposes. They were an indication

of power and wealth and not used for commercial gain. However, with the appearance

of Europeans desperate to buy slaves for use in the Americas the character of African

slave ownership changed.

• In what current country did the Portuguese build the fortress of Elmina? Why?

What is the significance of this castle? How did the Portuguese call this part of the

African coast?

In Ghana. Portuguese built the trading outpost of Elmina. In 1482 they erected a castle

(São Jorge da Mina), the oldest European building below the Sahara. For more than 100

years Elmina was the center of a thriving trade in gold, ivory, and peppers, which the

Africans supplied, and cloth, beads, metals and hardware, which the Portuguese

brought from Europe. GOLD was still then the priority of the Portuguese African trade

and the Atlantic slave trade.

• What reason led the Europeans to start the Atlantic slave?

The Portuguese shipped the majority of the Africans slaves to the Gold Coast that

satisfied the African demand, in exchange for gold. Slaves were also shipped to the

Cape Verde Islands and Madeira to supply labour for the sugar plantations established

by Europeans.
• When did the slave trade replace the priority for the African gold of Portuguese

traders? Why?

It was not until about 1700 that slaves replaced gold as the West African coast ́s most

valuable export. There was a key event in the upsurge of the African slave trade and it was

in 1519 the beginning of direct shipments of slaves from Africa to the 16 Americas. The

European taste for surge and the discovery of Brazil in 1500 lead to the surge of numbers of

the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade.

• What kind of factors caused the need for African slaves in the Americas?

The sugar demand boom was a driver of the upsurge of the slave trade. The success of

the sugar cane plantations in the Atlantic Islands and the in New World raised the need

of battalions of workers.

• What is the "Triangle trade"?

it was a trade established between the west coast of Africa and the Americas. This trade

brought a triple round of profits to European merchants: -Manufactured goods from

Europe (cloth, metalware, firearms, beads, brandy...) were exchanged for slaves in

Africa. -Slaves were sold or exchanged for sugar in Brazil and the Caribbean, -Raw

materials such as rum, tobacco, molasses, and sugar, collected from the West Indies

were taken back to Europe and sold at a considerable profit.

• Why is it said that slavery did not have a racist component until the 17th

century?
Because there was not a racial component of slavery in Medieval Europe. During the

Reconquista period, slaves were mostly captives taken in wars and sea raids. Religion

was the critical factor of enslavement in Christian and Muslim kingdoms.

• Why were the American populations not enslaved and employed for forced

labor?

In 1537 Pope Paul III forbade too the enslavement of the indigenous peoples of the

Americas called Indians with the papal encyclical Sublimis Deus (The sublime God).

Natives in the New World had experienced a demographic catastrophe due to diseases

imported to the Americas from the Old World. Africans had proved some resistance to

European maladies.

• How could African become a slave?

34% were taken in war as captives, raids on their subjects, 11% enslaved by judicial

process (charges of adultery, witchcraft), a large number of people were kidnapped,

selling someone into slavery could be a way of discharging a debt, the area of Senegal,

in the 17th century, slaves were given to the king as part of a village's tribute to him.

• Which was the European power that was dominating the slave trade in the 17th

century?

In the first half of the 17th century, the Portuguese monopoly of the African trade was

eroded and supplanted by Dutch supremacy.

• What role did Spain play in this traffic?

Spanish did not participate in the slave trade in Africa but bought the Portuguese slaves

for the Caribbean possessions (Cuba).

THE EFFECTS OF THE ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE

• Which Europeans powers took part in the transatlantic slave trade?

In the 18th century the France and Britain supplanted the Dutch in the control of the

slave trade.

• Which powers seized the Elmina castle supplanting the Portuguese supremacy in

the transatlantic slave trade in the 17th and 18th century?

The Dutch seized the fort from the Portuguese. The great castle then became the

African headquarters of the Dutch West Indies Company, whose business was supplying

the needs of the New World's great plantations.

• What is the “middle passage”?

The voyage across the Atlantic Ocean to the West Indies was called the Middle Passage.

The journey took three to four months and, during this 8me, the enslaved people

mostly lay chained rows on the floor.

• What are the estimates of the Africans that were taken as slaves by the

Europeans to the New World from the 16th century to the 19th century?

10 to 15 millions African slaves were shipped across the Atlantic between 1451 and

1870 to the New World. Another million or more did not survive the voyage.

• What did slave ships carry to trade in Africa?

 Cloths, horses, corn, baubles, alcohol, tobacco, firearms and gunpowder. Textiles

constituted at least 50 percent by value of African imports.

• In which century took place the peak of the transatlantic slave trade?

18th century and part of the 19th century.

• By then which of the European powers was dominating the slave trade to the

Americas? Which were the main destinations of the slave trade to the Americas?

The main destinations were: Portuguese America 38.5%, British America (minus North

America)18.4%, Spanish Empire 17.5% and French Americas 13.6%

• What percentage of slaves were taken to South America?

Around the 53 percent, in which 38 were taken to Brazil.

• Most slaves taken to the Americas came from...?

Kingdom of Kongo and Angola (provided 44% of all slaves exported)

• How long did slave trade to the Americas last?

Until the 19th century, after UK and US abolition.

• How the European traders got the slaves in Africa?

90% of Africans shipped to the New World were enslaved by Africans and then sold to

European traders

• Some African leaders tried to prevent the slave trade with the Europeans. Why?

Where in present Africa? K

ing Nizinga Mbemba was baptized as Afonso in 1491 and took the throne as king Afonso

I of kongo in 1506. The Kongo catechism published in 1555 was the first printed

transcription of a bantu language. In 1526 afonso addressed a letter of complaint to his

“brother monarch,” the king of portugal asking to cease the slave trade from Kongo to

Sao tomé (3.000 a year). the answer was negative: it underlined that the Kongo had

nothing else to sell. Also, in 1516 the King of Benin banned the export of male slaves

fearing to lose manpower. He did keep domestic slaves.

• What is about the controversy on reparation to the victims of the slave trade?

There are two narratives for apologies:

1) Many movements are calling for reparations (financial compensation) to be made to

the victims by the European countries that used to be slave trading nations.

2) Ghana, Nigeria, and Uganda: voices calling for African tribal leaders to apologize for

the involvement of their people in the slave trade

• What impact had the slave trade in Africa?

1. Demographic consequences: Some writers state that slave exports interrupted western

Africa ́s demographic growth for two centuries. Some experts say that had been no slave

trade the population of Africa in 1850 would have been 50 million instead of 25 million.

2. The trade stimulated more extensive use of slaves within the continent and more

brutal attitudes towards sufferings.

3. Enslaving your enemy became less a consequence of war and more and more a

reason to go to war.
4. Africans survived the slave trade with their political independence and social

institutions mostly intact.

• What is the African diaspora?

The transatlantic slave trade led to the greatest forced migration of a human

population in history. Millions of Africans were transported to the Caribbean, North and

South America, as well as Europe and elsewhere. An 'African Diaspora' or dispersal of

Africans outside Africa was created in the modern world.

What other effects had the slave trade in European-African relations?

It was stablished the racist ideology. The enslavement of Africans was justified by the

ideology of racism - the notion that Africans were naturally inferior to Europeans. This

ideology was also perpetuated by colonialism.

THE BRITISH INITIATIVES

• When did Britain abolish the slave trade?

1807

What kind of initiatives took the British Government to prevent the slave trade

from Africa to the Americas?

1808. A naval squadron was stationed on the West African coast to stop and search any

ship suspected of carrying slaves. Moreover, from 1827 to 1843, British Navy Britain

established one of its bases to combat the slave trade on the island of Fernando Po

(Bioko). Spain leased the island to Britain until 1858.During this period Bioko becomes a
strategic point of the British antislavery squadron that put to an end the export of

Africans to the Americas.

• What European power dominated the slave trade in the 18th century?

GB

• The British created Sierra Leone in ...? With a specific purpose. Which one?

1787: Sierra Leone founded by Britain in West Africa as a colony for freed slaves. The

emigrants were assured of free land and will assistance in reestablish themselves in

Africa.

• What is the name of the capital of Liberia? By whom was created this country?

Monrovia, in honor to President J. Monroe.

• With what purpose? When did Liberia achieve its independence? Founded in 1821

by an American charity helping freed slaves across the Atlantic to return to Africa (“Back

to Africa” campaign). In 1847 was constituted as an independent republic.

• Why did the British Government support the anti-slave crusade? To assert itself

both commercially and territorially in Africa.

• Why the abolitionists like Livingstone thought that bringing Commerce to

Africans was crucial in the battle for putting an end to slavery? Livingstone was

strongly influenced by the abolitionist arguments that supported the idea that the

African slave trade might be destroyed (a través) through the influence of "legitimate

trade" (in goods) and the spread of Christianity.

• Where are the Oil Rivers located? Why did they receive this name? “”
• What kind of interests had the British in the Oil Rivers?

Palm Oil trade had supplanted after the slave trade British abolition the slave trade

traffic traditionally developed in this area by British traders. Palm oil became a highly

sought-after commodity by British traders, for use as an industrial lubricant for

machinery during Britain’s Industrial Revolution.

• Why was so difficult to put an end to the slave trade?

During the 19th century 3 million slaves were shipped (enviados) across the Atlantic

(28% of the total shipped between 1450 and 1900)

• What drivers kept the numbers of Africans exported to the Americas high?

90% of Africans shipped to the New World were enslaved by Africans and then sold to

European traders.

• What kind of practice is considered similar to slavery and was very common

colonial territories?

Under all the colonial powers, forced labor remained in place into the 1940s. This

practice required a village to provide men to work on roads and other public Works.

• The effects of abolition in Africa. What was the reaction of the Africans?

30 TO 50% (even 80%) of all people living in the great swathe of Sahelian grasslands

extending from the Atlantic coast of Senegal to the shores of Lake Chad were slaves.

The slave population of central Asante became so large that it aroused fears of revolt

Asante rulers adopted a deliberate policy of dispersing the slave population through the

country (La población esclava del centro de Asante se hizo tan grande que despertó
temores de revuelta Los gobernantes de Asante adoptaron una política deliberada de

dispersión de la población esclava por todo el país)

• Why did Zanzibar become so important in the 19th century?

Zanzibar, in the 19th century, became the most significant commercial center on the

coast of East Africa, a meeting place for slave traders, ivory dealers and spice

merchants. It was also a base from which Europeans explorers could venture into the

vast uncharted territories of the African interior.

• What kind of activities in Zanzibar led to the surge of the slave trade after the

British abolition?

Omanis and the exports boom. By 1820s, cloves were being harvested on several

Omani- owned plantations on Zanzibar the use of slave labour. As the plantations

expanded, so the demand for slave labour increased, providing another stimulus for

traffic from the mainland.

• Where in Africa is caste discrimination most widespread?

Caste systems exist in pockets in some African countries. It is found in parts of Sahelian

Africa, particularly in certain West African communities (Senegal, Mauritania, Mali,

Nigeria, Niger), and among populations in Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya.

• Was slavery in Africa a phenomenon related exclusively to Islam?

No. Greater Ethiopia and Amharic and Tigreans (can’t slave Christians so they did with

another non-C groups).