HISTORY 350 – lecture explained that the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade (TAST) was a component

Monday’s lecture explained that the Trans
Atlantic Slave Trade (TAST) was a component of the larger and older system of
plantation slavery. Plantation slavery, which was begun by Italian speaking
merchants on the island of Cyprus in the Levant (Eastern Mediterranean) in the
thirteenth century, was the driving force in the establishment and growth of
the TAST.

It is important to remember that the system
of plantation slavery was first and foremost a system of production. The
establishment of the system of plantation slavery by private individuals in the
13th century signaled the rise of the free enterprise system and global market
economy that we know today. It marked the start of the shift from feudal
economies, where basically self-sufficient societies produced what they
consumed and consumed what they produced, to the production of commodities for sale
and export. It marked the separation of the direct producers from the fruits of
their labor.

The system of plantation slavery, based on
mass production and enslaved labor, also created the world’s first global
commodity: sugar. The drive for profits was the central dynamic that fuelled
the system. Mass production of sugar dramatically lowered the price of sugar
and spectacularly increased the demand for sugar, which in turn produced an
insatiable demand for labor and land. The plantation became the model for the
modern business enterprise. As the center of sugar production migrated from the
Mediterranean into the Atlantic and then to the Americas, plantation slavery
would completely transform Europe, Africa and the Americas, destroying
societies in its wake, overturning the old ways of doing business and bringing
to the forefront new forces and social groups.

The TAST, which some have called ‘the
Middle Passage,’ was itself a very profitable outcome of the system of
plantation slavery. The TAST, which historian Colin Palmer has called the
fourth stream of the African Diaspora, lasted from the late fifteenth century
to the middle of the nineteenth century and involved the forcible removal of at
least 12 million West Africans from their homes and communities to work on plantations
in the Americas.

But the TAST did not merely result in the
forcible removal of millions of West Africans to the new world. It also had a
horrific effect on the people and civilizations of West Africa. Walter Rodney,
one of the most influential scholars of African history, has made several
arguments regarding the causes and impact of the TAST on West African
societies. In the excerpt that you will read, Walter Rodney provides his
perspectives on this topic. Your task is to be prepared to answer the following
questions, based on your reading of the Walter Rodney material, in order to
demonstrate your understanding of his arguments.

THESE
ARE THE QUESTIONS FOR THE QUIZ IN CLASS ON WEDNESDAY
The historian Walter Rodney posits several
factors in the development of the European run Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade
(TAST). The development and growth of the TAST was a slow process that went
through several stages. What began as a trickle at the end of the fifteenth
century became a flood by the middle of the eighteenth century. According to
Walter Rodney:

(1) How did the appearance and rise of a
new class of individuals in West African coastal communities allied to the
European slave trade contribute to this process of enslavement? And what name
did Rodney give this new group?

(2) How did the fragmented structure and
small size of many West African societies who were too small and vulnerable to
protect themselves from slave raiders contribute to the process? Your answer
must provide examples.

(3) How did the corruption of the old African
systems of government by the new breed of local African entrepreneurs
(businessmen) tied to and working on behalf of the global market contribute to
the process? Your answer must provide examples.

(4) How did the growth in the influence of
European slave traders and European slave trading companies like the Royal
Africa Company and the Dutch West India Company contribute to this process?

(5) How did constant warfare fuelled by the
TAST contribute to this process?