Pre-Colonial African Slavery: An Analysis

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Growing up in the United States, many Americans have come to learn that the slave trade often started on the West African coast, but after reading Olaudah Equiano’s narrative and Reversing Sail written by Michael Gomez, we can see that the slave trade was already transpiring way before the trans-Atlantic trade. Before the European trade even occurred, there were systems of slavery that were happening already within different provinces or districts. Based on Equiano’s narrative, he observed “that their subjection to the king of Benin was little more than nominal; for every transaction of the government was conducted by chiefs or elders of the place” (Equiano 5). Based on that, we can see that there were designated chiefs, kings, and judges in …show more content…

The transatlantic slave trade paved the way for mass distribution of the human civilizations strongest labor force. The thought of using other humans as a means of production was first internal only within Africa but as other nations began to witness the degradation of one race, they saw an opportunity to tap into the weakened morals of one race which in turn allowed the Africans to fall into a lower class. Thus began the dispersion of slaves to other nations needing to fill the labor gap. An event that represents the beginning moment of the trans-Atlantic slave trade within the readings arise when Equiano was on watch with one of his sisters and was kidnapped by a group of people. Ever since Equiano was kidnapped, he was sold numerous times through different masters and traveled coast to coast. Equiano also witnessed the first time in his life a slave ship that was filled with black people of every description chained together with dejection and sorrowful expressions, and it was then that he realized the future that awaits him. Through the descriptions and Equiano’s wish for his former slavery in preference to the present condition he was in, we can imagine how awful and dehumanizing the slaves were being treated on shore. According to Equiano, many of the African slaves had the unpleasant personalities and traits that were similar with the white slave owners on the ship because of the close interaction that they had with each other. According to Gomez’s Reversing Sail, the beginning moment of the trans-Atlantic slave trade occurred because “Muslim forces in al-Andalus were never in control of the entire Iberian Peninsula and were continually threatened by Christian enemies during their nearly 800-year rule” (Gomez 59). As a result, “in both Iberia and the

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