The Slave Trade: The African Slave Catchers

The Slave Trade: The African Slave Catchers


"The European slave trading companies and also independent slave traders carried out their slave

collecting in western Africa in the areas of Senegal, Gambia, the Gold Coast, the Niger delta, and

even as far south as the Congo River and Angola. The captains of slave ships traded directly

with African chiefs or through "factors" who were European agents in charge of slave

collecting centres. At these centres, the slaves were kept in enclosed areas known as baracoons.

The slave ship travelled for about three months along the coast of west Africa stopping at slave

collecting stations along the way to purchase additional slaves. Finally, the ship, with its full

cargo of slaves packed closely together in the hold, turned west and sailed away towards the

American continent."

"All over western Africa, domestic slavery existed within various tribes. Actually, the lowest

caste within these tribes were born and lived as slaves and performed the task as servants in

households. Merchants who also owned slaves used them for carrying heavy loads through the

forest and savannah."

"Prisoners of war" captured during inter-tribal warfare and raids were generally sold to European

slave traders. In many cases, groups of African "slave catchers" were employed by the factors to

raid villages and capture the residents who became part of the growing slave collection in the

baracoons."

"Many slaves were obtained very far inland where they were collected in a "coffle" and marched to

the coast. Two slaves were chained together around the leg and groups of four were secured by a

rope. At times, a Y-shaped stick was fastened with the fork round the neck of the slave walking in

front and the stem resting on the neck of the slave walking behind. Free Africans employed by the

slave catchers guarded the coffle."

A fairly concise, yet accurate description. But I am not sure of the point the poster is trying to make by the emphasis on ship captains trading for slaves through African Chiefs or "Factors" or what it has to do with the American Civil War; as I understand it, almost 90% of those slaves were sold in S. America and the Carribbean.

Slavery, as viewed by myself, is the central issue that brought about the Civil War.

And it's complicity, by the North, who were the great carriers of slave, and by the South, who were great users of slaves, bear the responsibility for the institution for becoming the single issue that brought on the war.

Any information about how the institution was created, operated, etc., is of enormous interest to me, personally.

Sincerely,
Unionblue

Sort of on topic for this thread... Is there any handy resource to connect African demographics with American demographics? In other words, if a mother and young son came from Africa around the 1780s and wound up in Essex County, Virginia, is there any way to guess where in Africa they were likely to have come from, without finding actual importation records, or what route was typical to get them there?

Another excellent thread of historic significance. Would love to learn about how and where they came from or maybe their real african names.

Mulejack

Would slavecatchers even bother recording their African names? I just don't see why they would even care. In the end, they were simply cargo.

R

I've only looked at shipping information later, along the U.S. coast and waterways in the 19th century, but at that time, names and often ages and heights were recorded, similar to how freight is checked on and off today, since the cargo was valuable. Somebody was paying to have a person shipped from Point A to Point B, and somebody else was expecting to receive the shipment safely, so it was important who got on, and who got off. For example, here.

Coming from overseas, there would also be the issue of--nooooo!--the tariff. At the link above, you can see the ships being checked at the Custom House to certify they weren't bringing slaves from Africa, but when that was legal, would they need to be checked through the custom house and pay a tariff, or at least be inspected to make sure no taxable goods were also on board? No idea how the Africa slave trade worked.

My question in the previous post isn't hypothetical, as I'm interested in a man whose family may have arrived under those circumstances. Probably never find out more than a general area of Africa that might have been typical, but I'm just curious what records of importation from overseas are available.

"Slavery, as viewed by myself, is the central issue that brought about the Civil War.

And it's complicity, by the North, who were the great carriers of slave, and by the South, who were great users of slaves, bear the responsibility for the institution for becoming the single issue that brought on the war.

Any information about how the institution was created, operated, etc., is of enormous interest to me, personally."

Sincerely,
Unionblue

Well said Unionblue. I've known the proceeding which I quoted, which made slavery, much more complicated, than I studied it originally. We read of slavery, as if it only existed in the U.S., not noting that slaves existed in North America before the U.S. even existed, and existed in Africa itself. Not only that, I was aware when young that slavery still existed in countries around the world, in my part of the 20th Century.
Facts don't always mesh with perceived reality. The end owner made the slave a slave, and they have that responsibility, but I've wondered how many slaves would ever have seen the U.S. or North America, if slavery hadn't been already established in Africa, before slaves were even sent on ships.

Such complications.

Lincoln certainly understood that the issue of slavery and the ensuing war was not judgment upon the South only, but upon the entire nation.

What is apparent in reading these accounts of the early colonies is how it seems everyone accepted the fact negroes were of lower class and could be herded like cattle and put to work as slaves for the profit of their masters.

Mulejack

With the knowledge they had at the time, it was accepted fact.

Yep, I agree completely, but I wonder sometimes how did we caucasians arrive at that particular point.

Mulejack

And, how did we ever leave that point and "discover" anything different? Maybe when they were strange foreigners living halfway around the world, we could believe anything, but once they were living among us, waiting on us, and occasionally sleeping with us, I think there had to be some deliberate blindness or denial.

I always thought it odd that the black power advocates of the 60s and 70s chose to study Swahili, the lingua franca of the Arab slave catchers, as an exercise to regain their racial identity.

Yep, that's hard to explain, was it our arrogance maybe .

Mulejack

Hit the nail on the head. They were not Europeans and they were not Christians. And they didn't look like Europeans either. Three strikes and they were out.

Not to mention that sub-Saharan Africa didn't have any civilizations as Europeans saw it. For the most part, they were pastoralists with a little subsistence agriculture. Indeed, there were still some hunter-gatherer tribes around. This allowed Europeans to look down on the backward Africans.

R

Prejudice has existed in this world since mankind was first able to distinquish one tribe from another and decide that the group was inferior. Human civilization has always faced the issues of intolerance and prejudice and deciding that a group of people are different or weaker allows justification to enforce the manacles of oppression. Once a group has been defined, it opens the door to fear, ignorance, and arrogance, when another group does not look, act, or think the same. I suspect that this flawed characteristic in human beings, to dislike and fear the unknown, is the down-side of the freedom to think and speak your mind.