History Detectives Case File no.9: The Transatlantic Slave Trade

The Transatlantic Slave Trade

9

HISTORY DETECTIVES CASE FILE NUMBER:

Look out for our posts about Education and Equality appearing on our website and social media posts throughout October

The Transatlantic Slave Trade All over the world, October is Black History Month.

Every year, Black History Month celebrates the achievements of black people and recognises the role that they have played throughout history.

October shouldn’t be the only time that we talk about different cultures in our community but having Black History Month means we can reflect on why everyone’s history is important.

This month’s History Detectives Case File is all about the European Slave Trade (between 1500 and 1850). We will find out the truth about the slave trade and as much as we can about the lives of enslaved people.

In this Case File you might read about things that make you feel sad, angry or uncomfortable.

What is slavery?

Slavery is when one person is 'owned' by another. A slave is not treated as a person.

Instead, they are treated like property that can be bought and sold. The people who think of themselves as slave ‘owners’ force their slaves to work for nothing. Slavery has existed throughout human history and across many different civilisations.

Slavery existed in Africa before the arrival of Europeans, but the Transatlantic slave trade massively changed the scale of the trade in human beings and the way it was done.

History can make us all feel like that sometimes. It's important that you talk with other people and share how you feel.

glossary

Here is a list of words connected to the slave trade and what they mean.

Colonialism: when one country takes control of another by taking land and using its people.

Colony: a country or area controlled by another country and occupied by people of that country. For example, a British colony in India is controlled by Britain and lived in

by British people. Indigenous people that lived there had to work for the British.

Empire: a group of states or countries that are all ruled over by an Emperor or Empress.

Exploit: to greedily use a person or thing for profit.

Indigenous people: people who originally lived in a particular place.

Oppression: cruel and unjust treatment over a long period of time.

What was the Transatlantic slave trade?

The Transatlantic slave trade involved the capture and enslavement of millions of Africans. They were transported across the Atlantic Ocean where they were made to work for free, for the rest of their lives, often for cruel masters and in terrible conditions.

This Transatlantic slave trade had three stages:

Source:openendedsocialstudies.org

Evidence from History Map of the Transatlantic slave trade routes.

Why do you think that it was it called the Triangle trade?

1. Manufactured goods from Europe such as cloth, beads and guns were taken to Africa where they were exchanged for captured people.

2. The captured Africans were transported to the Americas. This was known as the middle passage.

3. Finally, raw materials and goods produced by slave labour such as cotton, sugar, rum, mahogany (wood) and tobacco were brought back to Europe from the Americas.

Britain replaced Portugal and Spain as the most active slave-trading nation during the 1700s.

Evidence from history Look at the picture of the slave ship on the left.

What does this show you about the way slaves were treated? How do you think they felt?

Claustrophobic?

Seasick?

Hungry?

Thirsty?

Frightened?

Angry?

Can you think of more?

Context Context is really important when learning History. It means thinking about everything that surrounds something at a particular time. When we think about things 'in context' it helps us to better understand things.

How would we know how big an elephant is without seeing it in its surroundings (or next to a big ruler!)? It could be 10cm or 1000cm tall. Seeing the elephant next to a person would help us understand how big it is.

When we think about historical events, we need to consider the specific time and place that it took place. It can be difficult to do this, especially when something terrible has happened in the past. To try and understand why people let slavery happen, we should consider the context of the trade.

In modern times, we all know that slavery is wrong and that the slave trade was an awful thing. But when Britain was trading in millions of slaves, ordinary people like us didn’t think of it as we do now. They didn’t have social media, televisions, phones, or any way of knowing what the conditions were like for slaves.

Many people didn’t know what was really happening, and other people chose to look the other way in exchange for cheap sugar, tobacco and cotton. When people started to learn the truth, many people became angry and fought to stop it.

Think about it!

During cotton harvest time, adult and child slaves would work between 18- and 48-hour shifts.

That’s like you starting work at 7am on Monday and finishing work at 1am on Tuesday! They were beaten if they didn’t work hard enough, their food had hardly any nutrients to keep them healthy, and they usually lived in poor, dirty conditions.

Is it any wonder that in 1736 around 40% of slaves died shortly after arrival in the colonies!

Why don't we know much about who the enslaved people were?

Most African people who were abducted into slavery were not able to read or write – they hadn’t needed to in their own culture. Their stories are rarely written down, but some were passed down through beautiful songs. We know when and how African people were transported and what they were expected to do in the colonies because this was written down by the slaving companies and ship captains. We also have facts such as the numbers and ages of the people who were enslaved (this is called data and it does not tell us anything about individual people; who they were). There are some stories that tell us about slaves who rebelled or ran away, and about some of the tricks that slaves played to get their own back on the cruel slave owners but generally, a person's name was changed and they became 'invisible' to us. So, this part of history was not told by the enslaved Africans, but by their captors. We now know that it was not the whole story and why context is important.

10 Horrid Facts about the African Slave Trade 1. Slavery had existed for thousands of years before the Transatlantic slave trade started. The first known law that refers to slaves was written by Hammurabi (a king of Babylon), around 3700 years ago.

2. The Portuguese were the first Europeans to profit from the African slave trade. They began trading people in the 1400s.

3. African kings and merchants sold captured enemies or criminals to the European traders. Sometimes they had to sell slaves or risk being taken captive themselves.

4. Slaves were often captured inland and walked for many weeks to reach the coast, where they were imprisoned in forts called factories awaiting shipping across the Atlantic.

5. Approximately 12 million people were enslaved as a result of the Atlantic slave trade. The majority (48%) went to the Caribbean islands (West Indies), with the rest going to South and North America. These were ‘chattel’ slaves.

6. The journey between Africa and the Americas (known as the middle passage) took an average of seven weeks (around 50 days).

7. Slaves were tightly packed on board ships which could carry between 350 and 600 people, with hardly any space to move. The dirty conditions led to the spread of disease and many slaves tried to jump overboard.

8. Approximately 15% of slaves died whilst being transported to the Americas.

9. Nearly 40% of people taken in slavery came from West Central Africa – the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Angola.

10. Most (70%) of the slaves worked to produce sugar with others producing tobacco, coffee or cotton.

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Talk about it!

During the Transatlantic slave trade people were pursued, enslaved and treated this way because of the colour of their skin. It is difficult to understand the numbers of African people (including children) who suffered at the hands of the European traders, or the way that they were bought and sold as property.

Slave Ship crews threw ill people overboard to drown. One instance is when 133 enslaved Africans were thrown from the Liverpool ship the Zong, so that the company could claim money from the insurance company for loss of 'cargo'.

Even many years after slavery was abolished black people were (and in some places are still) treated as lesser people.

This is illegal and goes against human rights.

It is important for us to talk about that so that we can continue to make positive change and make sure that everyone is treated equally.

Baako's Story Your name is Baako and you are eleven. You are the eldest male child in a happy family living in West Africa.

You have two younger sisters, who get on your nerves. Your father is an important man; he works making beautiful things out of gold. Your mother makes pots from the red clay. Your village is wealthy and creative and full of people of all ages; family is important, and you respect and look after your elders. The history of your people and your small village is passed down through song and dance. Life has been this way for hundreds of years.

One night during a violent raiding party you were captured by tribal slave dealers. They didn’t care about your freedom, or for the lives of the older people in your village. You were chained to other people, some from your village and others who had been captured from different villages. Shackled to your fellow captives, you were taken on a long trek overland to the West African coast. You had never seen the ocean before, and it stretched out in front of you in its blue, glistening beauty. Your view of the ocean did not last long, as you were separated from your mother and sisters and crammed into a large, dark, fortress-like prison, which you heard them call a ‘factory’. Where is your father? You couldn’t see him in the line of people as you were marched here and couldn’t see him in the crowd either.

No one asked your name. You were given what looked like a number instead. You were alone among strangers.

For weeks you were imprisoned in the most terrible conditions. Most slavers picked only fit and healthy people to take on the slave ships, and you wondered what happened to the older people, or those who were ill; those who were not chosen. You were quickly selected and put with others of all ages, then pushed and shoved onto a waiting ship, the likes of which you had never seen before. It was so frightening. You could hear people crying and begging to be set free, or to be with their children, but you didn’t want to show others that you were scared.

On the huge ship, you were put into cramped and filthy spaces below decks, where there was no light, and the air was putrid. For 56 days you were kept like this, shackled to the people either side of you. Each day you were given only half a litre of water to drink and vegetable mush to eat. Many others became ill because diseases spread quickly on the ship. At least you were in the centre which did not rock as much as each end of the ship, as it crashed through the roaring waves. You could hear others being sick. You dreaded the times when the sailors would take away anyone who was very ill or had died. It was always followed by a large splashing sound, and you knew what that meant. You were determined that would never happen to you!

One day, there was a lot of shouting, and the sailors were busier than usual. You realised that it might mean that the ship was arriving at the other end of its journey. You and the other captives were finally led off the ship into bright painful sunlight. It was hot, but a different kind of hot than at home. The brightness of the sunshine, the damp and humid air, and the different sounds and smells were overwhelming. You could hear different languages, and strange bird and animal calls.

You were held in a cage in a yard. Plantation owners and slave buyers rushed into the yard during what was called a ‘scramble’ to choose the fittest captives. Families and friends would be separated and never reunited.

You saw people being whipped, pushed, and chained and you heard mothers crying as their children were taken away from them. You lost sight of your mother and your sisters; your beautiful, silly, giggling sisters, who loved their straw dolls and playing pretend. You were branded with red-hot metal which almost made you faint with the pain as it burned and scarred your skin. This mark would last the rest of your life – forever reminding you that you were no longer Baako, but someone else’s property - a slave.

You had arrived in Jamaica and this is where you would live and work as a slave on a sugar plantation for the rest of your life....Your name is now William.

(This is not a true story but represents the real experiences of millions of young African people)

Robert's Story My name’s Robert Smith and I’m 7. I live in Lancaster. My father is Robert too and he works at Gillow’s furniture workshop (but he isn’t Robert Gillow!)

Me, I spend my days earning on the Quay. It’s busy and they like to use me because I can run fast and don’t complain. I take messages, do odd jobs, and I’m especially good at getting into the tight spaces that the haulers can’t get to. The best job is to help with the loading and unloading when I can, ‘cause that pays the best and it’s always so exciting to see what’s coming in and going out on the boats. Sometimes it’s wood, special types that come from the hot islands across the sea. Those go up to Gillow’s for making tables and the like for rich folk. I also like to see the sugar come off in the big bales and get taken up to the sugarhouse by the horses.

The older boys and men like to see the rum and tobacco arrive, but I don’t much care for it.

I wouldn’t say life is easy here, ‘cause I have to work all day, and after dark even, to bring home enough to help my family. Mother says we all have to do our best but I’m always hungry by the time I get home, and, in the winter, I’m chilled to the bone as well; my feet are even blue sometimes! When it’s like that, we have to work extra hard for enough money to buy a bit of coal for the fire, and father can sometimes fetch a few bits of wasted wood home from the factory.

I have bread and butter and sweet tea before I head down to the Quay. At least we can nearly always afford a bit of bread and sugar for a sugar butty; the butter we sometimes go without. If I’m lucky I can work all day and head home a bit early if I have enough coins to bring back.

Sometimes though there’s not a lot doing, and I go home hungry and tired, and everyone is fed up. Usually, we all have something to eat in the evening - there’s nowt worse than going to bed hungry. Some others in the town are only a day away from the workhouse, but not us, we are mostly okay ‘cause we all can find something to be paid for most days. Those with no father, and the ones who have their old folk to look after are the far worse off.

I’ve heard it’s too hot to sleep over there, where the ships come from, and that there’s a lot to kill a person (insects and illnesses). I also hear the workers on the Quay talking about ships taking people across the sea to do the work even if they don’t want to. I don’t know what that means but I do know that no one wants to work on those ships because the conditions are so bad.

All I know is what the sailors tell me – I think they are trying to scare me, because they even say that boys like me are taken on those ships and will never go home again.

I have nightmares about it sometimes.

(Like Baako's, this is not a true story but represents the real experiences of so many young people in England at the time.)

Think about it!

Consider Baako and Robert’s stories; two boys from different places. How different would each of their lives be?

This painting from our collection shows a tall ship on the River Lune around the time that Robert would be working on the Quay.

Who would you rather be?

Why is that?

What has this got to do with Lancaster?

Between 1700-1800 at least 122 ships sailed from Lancaster to the coast of Africa.

Merchants with Lancaster connections were involved in the capture and sale of around 30,000 people, making the city the fourth-largest port in Britain involved in the Transatlantic slave trade.

Slave ships were built at Brockbank's shipyards in the early 1700s.

Lancaster slave traders and merchants imported slave-produced goods from the West Indies such as mahogany, sugar, dyes, rice, spices, coffee, rum, and later cotton for Lancashire’s mills.

Fine furniture, gunpowder, woollen, and cotton garments were produced in and around Lancaster and then traded in Africa for slaves or sent back to the colonies.

Young men from Lancaster’s slave-trading families worked as agents across the West Indies. Over generations, these families accumulated land, property, plantations and slaves. Slave traders and their descendants invested their inherited fortunes in mills and businesses that helped to power the Industrial Revolution.

If we trace these histories, we can see how the profits from slavery and the slavery business in the West Indies and the Americas, financed the city as we know it today.

Because it did so well because of slavery, Lancaster was one of the few towns in Britain that sent a petition to the government in favour of slavery!

In the 1700s and 1800s, if you were wealthy, your home would be filled with things produced on plantations worked by slaves.

Mahogany Furniture Coffee Rum Cotton Rice Tobacco Sugar

Sugar wasn't just for the rich. Poor people ate lots and lots of sugar.

The End of Slavery?

This is a portrait of Dodshon Foster. It is on display in the Lancaster Maritime Museum.

He was one of Lancaster's slave traders who grew very wealthy from trading in not just products but people too.

Towards the end of the 1700s, more Europeans disagreed with the slave trade. Some slaves were able to tell their stories in books and travel to Britain with their masters, where slavery wasn’t allowed. In 1807, after a lot of work by the abolitionists, George III signed the Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade which made it illegal to trade enslaved people in the British Empire. You might think that once George III banned slave trading in the British Empire that the slaves working in the colonies were freed. But you’d be wrong!

It wasn’t until 1834 that slavery itself was abolished. Even then, the ‘deal’ was that slaves still had to work for 4 more years after they were ‘freed’!

Right: Badge on display at the Maritime Museum, created to celebrate 200 years of the abolition of trading in enslaved people, in Britain.

Be a History Detective Your missions are: Walk the Slave Trade Trail The trail was created by the Lancaster Black History Group, Global Link and Prof. Alan Rice. You can find out more about the role Lancaster played in the slave trade. You can pick up copies from the museums.

Visit the Maritime Museum and look for a piece of abolitionist writing to have your History Detectives Time Travel Passport stamped.

We don’t know very much about this piece of writing. It was written around 1790 and shows us how people’s feelings towards slavery were changing. It was probably written in the North West of England because it mentions both Lancaster and Liverpool. We can also tell it was written by someone who was against slavery. It tells us about the cruelty of the trade and the bad treatment of Africans, as well as the bad effects the trade had on the sailors. The writer tells us that they are giving us ‘detached facts’ which means that they not talking from emotion, but that they believe their words are true and a real reflection of the trade.

Create a sculpture inspired by the feelings that you have had while reading this Case File.

This is called an ‘artistic response’. Make a salt dough maquette like the ones featured in Kevin Dalton Johnson’s sculpture Captured Africans. The figures in the sculpture represent the Africans captured and transported across the Atlantic into a life of slavery.

How might you represent the feeling of being enslaved in a sculpture?

To make the salt dough you will need: 250g plain flour 125g salt 125ml water (approx.)

Food colouring (optional)

Even though this is a very simple sculpture, look at the posture of the person. How has the sculptor created it to show you how this person might feel?

Remember the words we used when looking at the image of the slave ship?

Mix together the flour and salt and slowly add water to create a soft dough.

If it’s too stiff to model with then add a drop more water. If it's too soft, add a bit more flour. The salt in the dough will preserve it so you can dry your maquettes out and keep them for a long time. The salt also makes the dough taste awful, so don’t eat it!

When you are happy with your creation, ask an adult to help you pop it into an oven, set to the lowest temperature. It might need to stay in the oven for quite a while to make sure it is hard. If you didn’t include food colouring, maybe you would like to paint your figures bright colours used in beautiful African art or paint them to look like metal.

Don't forget to share your discoveries and makes on our Facebook Page!

Final Word-Talk about it!

Today, a lot of the clothes and toys we buy are made in factories in countries far away. The precious metals that are used in gadgets like smart phones are mined in very dangerous conditions. The workers are often treated badly and are paid very little. These people aren’t slaves, but they have very little choice about where they work and can’t change their working conditions. When you think about this, does it make you want to shop more carefully or give up your smartphone or tablet?

Do you think that understanding enslavement would make people in the 1700s change their mind about using goods produced by enslaved people? Does this make you want to know where and how your things are made and by whom?

With thanks this month to the members of the Lancaster Black History Group, who approved the text within this Case File.

If you are a teacher and would like to access the teaching resources that accompany this Case File please visit our website www.visitlancaster.org.uk/museums

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