Forced Migration of Slaves from Africa

Most African Americans are descended from Africans forced to migrate to the Western Hemisphere as slaves during the eighteenth century. Most Asian Americans and Hispanics are descended from voluntary immigrants to the United States during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, although some—notably many Vietnamese and Cubans—felt compelled for political reasons to come to the United States.

Slavery

Slavery is a system whereby one person owns another person as a piece of property and can force that slave to work for the owner’s benefit. The first Africans brought to the American colonies as slaves arrived at Jamestown, Virginia, on a Dutch ship in 1619. During the eighteenth century, the British shipped about 400,000 Africans to the 13 colonies that later formed the United States. In 1808 the United States banned bringing in additional Africans as slaves, but an estimated 250,000 were illegally imported during the next half-century

Slave Ship

This drawing, published in Harper’s Weekly, shows Africans who had been captured near the Congo River and transported to the United States in 1860 as slaves—illegally, because importing slaves into the United States had been prohibited since 1807. The slave ship was captured by an American steamer and brought into the port of Key West, Florida, where the captured Africans were freed. The magazine article’s author, who had boarded the slave ship, counted around 450 Africans, all entirely naked, sitting with their knees elevated to form a resting place for their heads and arms.

Diagram of the 'Brookes' slave ship

This diagram of the 'Brookes' slave ship is probably the most widely copied and powerful image used by those campaigning to abolish slavery in the late 18th century. Created in 1787, the image depicts a slave ship loaded to its full capacity – 454 people crammed into the hold. The 'Brookes' sailed the passage from Liverpool via the Gold Coast in Africa to Jamaica in the West Indies.

Thomas Clarkson commented in his History of the Rise, Progress, and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade (1808) that the 'print seemed to make an instantaneous impression of horror upon all who saw it, and was therefore instrumental, in consequence of the wide circulation given it, in serving the cause of the injured Africans'. By April 1787, the diagram was widely known across the UK appearing in newspapers, pamphlets, books and even posters pasted on the walls of coffee-houses and taverns.

Slavery was widespread during the time of the Roman Empire, about 2,000 years ago. During the Middle Ages, slavery was replaced in Europe by a feudal system, in which laborers working the land (known as serfs) were bound to the land and not free to migrate elsewhere. Serfs had to turn over a portion of their crops to the lord and provide other services as demanded by the lord.

Although slavery was rare in Europe, Europeans were responsible for diffusing the practice to the Western Hemisphere. Europeans who owned large plantations in the Americas turned to African slaves as an abundant source of labor that cost less than paying wages to other Europeans.

At the height of the slave trade between 1710 and 1810, at least 10 million Africans were uprooted from their homes and sent on European ships to the Western Hemisphere for sale in the slave markets. During that period, the British and Portuguese each shipped about 2 million slaves to the Western Hemisphere, with most of the British slaves going to Caribbean islands and the Portuguese slaves to Brazil.

The forced migration began when people living in the interior of Africa were captured and forcibly brought to coastal areas. The raiding expeditions were carried out primarily by Africans living along the east and west coasts, who took advantage of their superior weapons. The captives were sold to Europeans, who then shipped the captives to the Americas, where they were sold as slaves either on consignment or through auctions. The Spanish and Portuguese first participated in the slave trade in the early sixteenth century, and the British, Dutch, and French joined in during the next century.

Triangular Slave Trade

Different European countries operated in various regions of Africa, each sending slaves to different destinations in the Americas. At the height of the eighteenth-century slave demand, a number of European countries adopted a trading pattern called the triangular slave trade.

Origins and Destinations of Slaves

Ships sailed from Africa to the Western Hemisphere, from the Americas to Europe, and from Europe to Africa. From Africa, slaves and gold were transported to the Western Hemisphere, primarily to the Caribbean islands.

Triangular Slave Trade

Ships left Europe for Africa with cloth and other goods used to buy the slaves. The same ships transported the slaves across the Atlantic. Completing the triangle, the ships returned to Europe with sugar and molasses. Some ships carried molasses from the Caribbean to the North American colonies and rum from the colonies to Europe, forming a rectangular trading pattern.

The large-scale forced migration of Africans caused them unimaginable hardship, separating families and destroying villages. Traders generally seized the stronger and younger villagers, who could be sold as slaves for the highest price. The Africans were packed onto ships at extremely high density, kept in chains, and provided with minimal food and sanitary facilities. Approximately one-fourth died crossing the Atlantic.

In the 13 colonies that later formed the United States, most of the large plantations in need of labor were located in the South, primarily those growing cotton and tobacco. Consequently, nearly all Africans shipped to the 13 colonies ended up in the Southeast.

Attitudes toward slavery dominated U.S. politics during the nineteenth century. During the early 1800s, when new states were carved out of western territory, anti-slavery northeastern states and pro-slavery southeastern states bitterly debated whether to permit slavery in the new states. The Civil War (1861–1865) was fought to prevent 11 pro-slavery Southern states from seceding from the Union. In 1863, during the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing the slaves in the 11 Confederate states. The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, adopted eight months after the South surrendered, outlawed slavery.

Pause & Reflect 7.2.1

Which area of Africa appears to have been the place of origin for most slaves sent to the North American colonies?

Voluntary Migration from Latin America & Asia

Until the late twentieth century, quotas limited the number of people who could immigrate to the United States from Latin America and Asia, as discussed in Chapter 3. After the immigration laws were changed during the 1960s and 1970s, the population of Hispanics and Asian Americans in the United States increased rapidly. Initially, most Hispanics and Asian Americans were recent immigrants who came to the United States in search of work, but in the twenty-first century, most Americans who identify themselves as Hispanics or Asian Americans are children or grandchildren of immigrants.