Essay
As we have seen in previous modules, there has been an explosion of interest in studying the Transatlantic Slave Trade, its volume, direction, and, as we will see in future modules, its effects on Europe and Africa. Nevertheless, a glaring gap remains in the literature on the role of West Africa. In Module 3, we examined African societies and states prior to and during the Transatlantic Slave Trade era. While the readings for that module present a concise narrative of a larger region of Africa, the information can be daunting and difficult to understand on its own. Students in the United States often have only a limited knowledge of African history, a topic that is not studied sufficiently in American schools. Furthermore, Africa in the period 1500 to 1800 consisted of thousands of different languages and ethnic groups, dozens of kingdoms and other political entities, and various regional climates.
A new approach to understanding Africa’s history of the slave trade is to take micro or regional approaches. The Voyages database now allows scholars to estimate which particular regions of Africa supplied most of the captives in the trade. Using this information, scholars conducted case studies of individual regions of West Africa, or, in the case of the historian we will study in this present module, an individual port town.
Africa is perhaps the most diverse continent in the world, consisting of a multitude of languages, ethnic groups, climates, and geographies. These differences shaped the continent’s history. Moreover, prior to and during the era of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, there were massive political changes in the Western portion of the continent (new political entities rose and fell with significant regularity, for example) that shaped the evolution of the trade.
Compounding the complexities of studying the trade, European nations had shifting experiences in trading with West Africa. Some European ships traded mainly with one particular region of West Africa in order to develop relationships and establish ties with communities. For example, Portuguese merchants tended to trade predominantly in the region in the modern nation of Angola, while English merchants traded heavily in the regions in the modern nations of Ghana and Nigeria. The French, on the other hand, traded overwhelmingly with the regions in the modern nation of Senegal. However, some European traders took the opposite approach and visited several different regions during individual voyages to diversify the ethnic origins of their slaves.
Individual African communities also had shifting experiences in the trade, exporting many captives in one era, tapering off their connection to the trade in another era, and re-entering the trade again decades later. Given the number of variables involved, arriving at a cohesive narrative of African history during this era is rather complicated.
Randy Sparks’ Where the Negroes Are Masters (2014) represents a new and innovative approach to the study of Africa’s involvement in the slave trade. Sparks examines Anomabo (also known as Anomabu or Annamaboe), a single port town on the Gold Coast, which was one of the major regions of West Africa supplying captives to the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Today, the Gold Coast is part of the Republic of Ghana (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. . During the 1400s, European merchants (primarily the Portuguese) began exploring this part of the coast for the opportunity to develop profitable trading relationships. Essentially, European merchants were looking for products that Europe could not produce, including spices, tropical foodstuffs such as cocoa, and gold. Europeans discovered plentiful gold resources in this area of West Africa, resulting in the moniker the “Gold Coast.” British, Dutch, Danish, Prussian, Swedish, and Portuguese traders then came to the region to trade goods like guns and rum for gold, making the area one of the largest suppliers of gold on Earth. By the late 1600s, however, traders’ attention shifted from gold to captives who would be shipped to the Americas.
Sparks’ study focuses on this transformation, from trading gold to trading for humans, in the port town of Anomabo. He details African responses to the trade, its development, expansion, and ultimate collapse through examinations of the relationships between a few key individuals. Such a micro approach allows students to gain a greater understanding of how the Transatlantic Slave Trade operated within Africa. It also presents a detailed description of how Africans participated in the trade and its effects on the sociopolitical conditions of one port town. Such a focused approach also aids students’ comprehension of the trade during this complex era.