TO THE HISTORY OF THE EUROPEAN SLAVE TRADE FROM AFRICA
From 1441 to 1950s
Slave trade and racism as the Cradle of capitalism
The text is based on a series of articles published in
Proletären in the summer of 1997.
Autor Mario Sousa
mario.sousa@telia.com
A few words from the author
In the early 1960s, a number of
books on Africa's history and the Europe-Africa relationship began to be
published by authors from different continents. They suppressed old racial prejudices
and gave the world a new picture of the great African continent and its people.
Writers such as Basil Davidson, Charles R. Boxer, Walter Rodney, José Capela and others were then able to make the reality of
colonialism and the slave trade in Africa accessible to the general public for
the first time.
However, it is at many years since most of these books
were published and the knowledge of the subject has been nailed to the edge of
the time. The “Slave trade and racism as the cradle of capitalism” have
the ambition to give a description of the slave trade in Africa the greatest
emigration in human history and to get the reader interested in searching for
further knowledge on the subject.
Such knowledge is important for those who want to
orient themselves in the political battles that exist in the world in which we
live and, not least, in the fight against racism. I have also focused on the
actions of the Christian Church in Africa, which is one of the keys to the
victory of slave traders and colonialists and the rise of racism.
Part of the article may seem very focused on Portugal's actions in Africa. The
reason for this is that the Portuguese were the first Europeans to come to
Africa south of the Canary Islands and they were allowed, for a time, to
exploit large coastal areas alone.
Mario Sousa
mario.sousa@telia.com
Slave trade and racism - the cradle of capitalism
• They were hunted like animals,
captured in millions, branded, sold at auction and shipped across the Atlantic
for slave labor in mines and plantations. We are talking about 50 million
Africans who, over the course of 450 years from the mid-15th century to the end
of the 19th century, fell victim to the European slave trade.
• In the Proletarian's 1997 Summer Series, Mario Sousa
tells the story of the slave trade about how the trade in people laid the
foundation for wealth and capitalist development in Europe and how it shattered civilization and highly developed culture in
Africa.
• It is a dramatic and despicable story, with many
victims and many villains. Christianity plays a special and unflattering role
in this context. The Christian Church blessed the slave trade. "To
everyone who participates in this war, full forgiveness shall be given for all
his sins," as it was called in a papal bul. But not only that,
the Church also participated with life and desire in the slave trade.
• And not just the Church. Every king in Europe made
sure to make money from the slave trade
So also, the Swedish king. In fact, Sweden's current
royal house, the Bernadotte family, through his ancestor Karl XIV Johan, had
large private income from the slave trade in the Caribbean.
"To everyone who participates in this war,
complete forgiveness shall be given for all his sins ..."
Pope Eugenius IV, 1441
Prince Henry the Navigator and the caravels
Everything began in 1441. Before that, the slave trade
had been a successful and profitable business for many years on the European
continent. The rich in Europe bought slaves, white and black, from the North
African slave traders to exploit in households and on country estates.
In turn, the Europeans, including in Venice and Genoa,
sold Christian slaves to the kings of Egypt and to other countries in North
Africa. No one had had the power or the will to end the trade in people. Not
even with Christian slaves.
Popes Clement V and Martin V threatened
excommunication - expulsion from the Christian Church and the Kingdom of God -
for those who sold Christian slaves to "infidels." But the popes'
threats did not yield any results.
In 1441, something happened that would change the
course of history for an entire continent. From Portugal, Prince Henry the Navigator
sent a boat under the young commander Antão Gonçalves
with orders to sail along Africa's Atlantic coast, pass Cape Bojador and fill the cargo hold with the skins and oil of
sea lions.
The mission was carried out well and in good time by Antão Gonçalves. But Gonçalves was not content with it, he
had long tried to get up in his master's eyes and wanted to bring to Portugal
something special to give his master as a gift. Antão
Gonçalves decided to go ashore and catch people.
He went with nine of his men and began the search.
They went further into the country to no avail. When they had already given up
and returned to the boat, they finally saw a man. He came walking by the dunes
alone with his camel. The man was quickly surrounded by the other ten but did
not give up in the first place. He defended himself bravely with his spear and
only after being wounded in fierce combat by the Portuguese could he be
captured to the ship.
So became the first contact between Europeans and
sub-Saharan Africans. Spears against spears in a fight for freedom.
Before returning to the boat, Gonçalves and his
entourage also captured a woman they found nearby. But the robber's journey
wasn't over for this time. At sea, Antão Gonçalves
met another Portuguese, Nuno Tristão, commander of a
large and well-armed caravel. Tristão had been
ordered by Henry The Navigator to capture all the
people he could get hold of on the coast of Africa and take them to Portugal in
every possible way. Gonçalves and Tristão joined
forces.
At night they landed with a great strength and were
lucky enough to meet at a couple of camps where fishermen slept. The Portuguese
attacked with all their might. Some people managed to escape, the Portuguese
killed four and captured ten men, women and children.
Once returned to
Portugal, this first robber company caused quite a stir in the court of Henry
the Navigator. For his achievement, Antão Gonçalves
was given the title of knight and received the Order of Christ.
Henry the Navigator immediately
sent a specially appointed ambassador to Pope Eugenius IV to tell about the
capture and the great broad plans for new slave hunter companies and conquests.
Henry the Navigator wanted the pope's approval and blessing to his plans for
Africa. From the Pope he got what he asked for and not just only that.
The Pope also
declared "to everyone who participates in this war, complete
forgiveness shall be given for all his sins." Not bad, when you
consider that the sins of the war that started were robbery, slavery, rape and
colossal murder of children, women and men to an extent difficult to surpass.
Those in advance "forgiven", many of whom came from the worst side of
society, convicts with serious crimes behind them, did not need to be
encouraged in order for them to go after defenseless
people to rob, enslave and murder.
Pope Eugenius IV's
blessing and the remission of sins had a devastating effect on Africa forever.
The subsequent popes also followed Eugenius IV's example. In the face of every
robber's war or foray on the African continent, the popes have declared the
forgiveness of sins to the Christians!
Slave hunting as a
commercial enterprise
The Portuguese caravels
increasingly sailed towards Africa and the coast of Senegal to hunt and kidnap
people to sell as slaves. They were well armed and came in groups of several
boats.
The Portuguese
usually disembarked at night, attacked the defenseless fishing villages and
made its inhabitants slaves. The slave hunters also went further into the
country and took people, but this would prove to be associated with a risk to
life. The slave hunters therefore remained almost exclusively to the coastal
communities.
The number of
enslaved Africans rose all the time and began to represent a great and
significant value. In 1444, a well-organized and well-funded expedition started
on six boats from Lagos on the Algarve coast in southern Portugal, the first
expedition of its kind. The goal was to catch black people on a large scale for
resale.
When the boats
returned to Lagos a few months later, they had no less than 235 people in their
cargo. The expedition had had to begin a small war and many Africans had been
murdered trying to defend themselves against the Portuguese attacks.
Slave hunting across
the seas as established commercial enterprise was a fact. From 1441 to 1448,
the Portuguese took over a thousand slaves from the coast of Africa. From the
beginning of the 1450s, the number of slaves sold in Lagos and Lisbon ports
increased to 700-800 a year. Yet this was only a small part of what was to
come.
(The reader who has
his way past the city of Lagos can still today see the place where the slaves
were sold in action. It is well preserved and is located at Praça
da República opposite Santa Maria Church.)
Lagos Slave Market
The Vatican and the gold from the slave trade
With the increase in the slave trade, the Christian
Church gained increasing interest in the Portuguese robbers' march in Africa.
No agreements on economic relations between Portugal and the Vatican have been
traced, as is well known, research is not allowed in the Vatican archives.
However, important historical documents show that such agreements must have
been reached.
From the reign of Pope Nicholas V and at the request
of the Portuguese king, a number of papal bulls were announced, important papal
edicts to all Christians, who repeatedly established the Portuguese royal
family's rights to the exploitation of Africa and legitimized its actions.
Three important papal bulls had a major impact on the
future relations between Europe and Africa. The first, Dum Diversus,
came on June 18, 1452, nine years after Gonçalves and Tristão
enslaved the first people in Africa. The papal bull Dum Diversus
gave the Portuguese king the right to "attack, conquer and oppress all
Muslims, gentiles and other infidels and enemies of Christ; to take its
properties and territories; to condemn them to eternal slavery and transfer its
properties and territories to the Portuguese king and his successor”.
I don't think you can express yourself any clearer
than that.
The question of why the Vatican State and the Highest
Dignitary of the Christian Church gave such power to a relatively economically
and culturally retarded country as the Portuguese of the time.
The explanation is gold.
The astonishing merit of great measure, which was the
popes' intention to get their hands on, can be read in a text that attaches
itself to "estates, territories, and eternal slavery." The following
papal bulls are also continuing with this approach.
The papal bull, Romanus Pontifex from 8 January 1455
is a description of history and glorification of Portuguese imperialism. In
this papal bull, Portugal is given a monopoly on shipping, trade and fishing in
Africa and in all future conquests south of Cape Bojador
all the way to India.
This monopoly that the Portuguese kings now received
was enormous. Both for the size of the areas involved and because it was in itself a ban on other countries going to Africa. Once
again, such an act on the part of the Pope asks a legitimate question. Namely,
what did the Pope get from this?
In the third papal bull, Inter Caetera
of 13 March 1456, Pope Calisto III once again established the monopoly given to
the Portuguese king with Romanus Pontifex. Furthermore, this papal bull gave
the Order of Christ, whose supreme chief was Henry the Navigator, the sole
right to the care of soul, and the financial transactions associated therewith,
in the conquered territories and in all future conquests "from Cape Bojador and all the way to India".
The papal bulls were of great importance in Europe of
the time. They realized in writing the pope's great moral authority, directly
derived from God, which had a great influence on the ethics and values of men.
As far as the economic side is concerned, it must be said that the popes had
also this time gone for the right horse. During the first fifty years, the
European slave trade from Africa was tripled.
Henry the Navigator or the slave hunter?
Henry the Navigator died in 1460. This historical
personality so well-known from the history books is often described as
something of a visionary, a world discoverer. Prince Henry was a visionary, but
his visions had to do with the power of money. From a young age, Prince Henry
started his career as a conqueror by planning and conducting several war
campaigns against Morocco and the Canary Islands. Even Gibraltar had the good
Henry planned to conquer from the Spanish king. To believe the history books,
the big reason was Henry's willingness to spread the Christian faith.
But mind you that Gibraltar and the Canary Islands
were Spanish and therefore as Christian as Portugal, nothing to
"Christian", just plunder.
A famous expedition, by many repressed, towards
Tangier in Morocco in 1437 shows well this prince morality. A Portuguese army
under the direct command of Henry the Navigator disembarked on the coast of
Morocco near Tangier with the aim of conquering the city. After heavy blows from
Morocco's soldiers, the Portuguese army was beaten and surrounded without the
possibility of escaping back to the boats. The end for Henrik and many others
from the fine nobility was near.
The Moroccans offered safe passage to the boats if the
Portuguese promised to return to Morocco the city of Ceuta, which they had
conquered a few years earlier. As security for this pact, the Moroccans wanted
the Portuguese commander Henry to be left as hostage. It was an offer that the
Portuguese had to make. The alternative was the threat of annihilation.
But Henry had no plans to go to prison. Speaking of
the best interests of the kingdom and the promise of early freedom, he
persuaded his younger brother Fernando, who was there under his command, to
take his place as a hostage. Fernando agreed after persuasion to the spoils.
Once returned to Lisbon, Henry soon forgot his promise. The young Fernando had
to end his days in a prison in Fez, from where he sent many calls to his
brother, never answered by Henry.
Henry the Navigator had other things in mind. He
dreamed of sending people around North Africa by sea to get in direct contact
with the great continent he had heard of, to fight dominion over the gold mines
and to take over the slave trade to Europe from the North Africans.
Henry the Navigator's visions were the visions of gold
and slaves. Surely the Slave and Golden Hunter would be a more accurate name
for Henry than the Navigator. After all, Henry's interest in shipping was a
byproduct of his hunt for slaves and the struggle for the gold mines in Africa.
Slave communities in Africa
In the last half of the 15th century, the Portuguese
trade in African slaves became a well-functioning company in Europe and Africa.
The first few years of manhunt had proved to be a dangerous undertaking with
many dead in war and disease among the Portuguese slave hunters. (One of the
first slave hunters, the one mentioned above, Nuno Tristão,
was killed in 1446 along with 18 others on the Gambia River during his fourth
foray.)
A lighter way was necessary for trade success. The
Portuguese made contact with kings and rulers in the
coastal areas and eventually found trading partners who, in exchange for
fabrics and horses, sold gold and antelope skins and were also willing to sell
slaves.
"The trade in slaves is a business for kings,
rich men and prominent merchants" so was rightly described the affair by one of those
involved. It is offensive that Africans sold other Africans to foreign men from
other continents. But it is important to know more closely the social systems
in Africa in the 15th century in order to understand why this happened.
When the Portuguese, and after them all the other
Europeans, made the first direct contacts with Africa by sea, the peoples of
Europe and Africa lived in political systems that were very similar but also
had great differences. Feudalism in Europe was not the same as the African
social order, which is usually referred to as 'African feudalism'.
In Europe under slavery, the slaves had been deprived
of all right and all property. With the transition to feudalism, slavery was
gradually transformed into serfdom and vassalage, an in
itself terrible system for the working people that went on for several
hundred years and very much bordered on slavery. (As recently as 1775,
Catherine II of Russia tightened the serfdom in Russia and the lords were given
the right to sell their peasants as slaves.)
In Africa, "feudalism" had a different
meaning. The old egalitarian tribal structure had, over time, given way to a
system in which states that grew strong subjugated other weaker peoples. This
brought with it a serfdom or a vassal for the defeated, which several
historians generally want to describe as "home slavery". The living
conditions of these African slaves could vary greatly depending on time and place,
but a general pattern can, without great violence on reality, still be
described.
The slaves of Africa were normally given a piece of
land to settle on that they could not leave. They have to
serve their masters with crops and personal services and could eventually gain
an increasing freedom of movement. Some became peasants, some craftsmen and the
difference between these slaves and the free man of the victorious people
tended to diminish as time passed. An African slave could have property, be
adopted as a member of the lord family and even become his master's heir.
There are examples of slaves who traded successfully,
became rich, themselves slave owners, important men in society and even elected
king. That said, to understand the position and opportunities of slaves in
communities in Africa.
Many things were bad in a slave's life. For example, a
slave could be given away as a gift at any special day of remembrance or sold
on to meet the owner's financial needs. The important thing in this context is
to understand that the position of the African slave when Europeans came to
Africa in the 15th century was very much comparable to the vassalage that then
prevailed in Europe for the large mass of men and women.
The status of African slaves at the time had nothing
in common with the later slavery origins of Europeans' need for cheap labor in
the American colonies, when people were treated like cattle in slave ships, in
mines and on plantations.
Against this background, we can make an idea of how an
African slave owner reasoned, when he also sold slaves to the Europeans together
with gold, ivory and animal skins.
For the African slave owner, it was no more remarkable
to sell slaves to European merchants than to African merchants. He knew little
about the conditions of the slaves in the new country and probably assumed that
they were about the same as in Africa. For him, the slaves simply had to move
into the estates of new master families and live their lives there, exercise
their skills and begin to climb the ladder of society in an
attempt to achieve the final liberation.
In fact, the African slave salesman did not come far
from the truth. At that time in the second half of the 15th century, the slaves
in Europe were treated in a similar way to those in Africa. The slave was not a
completely lawless being but had a given place in a system of mutual
obligations between the slaves and the slain society.
However, some important and crucial facts need to be
emphasized in order to understand developments in the relationship between
Europe and Africa. The African kings or chiefs who sold slaves to Europeans
could never have foreseen that this first and relatively very limited slave
trade would in future take such proportions that it would destroy the stability
of society in their kingdom.
They could not have foreseen that this future
instability would lead to a situation in which Europeans became overpowering
them. That Europe, which was the active and strong party, in the search for and
trade in slaves, because of its superior armament, would always bring home the
greatest profits and most benefits.
It is also important to remember that during these
years the slave trade was only part of the trade between Africa and Europe,
although for Portugal and later also for Spain the slave trade represented the
largest part of all transactions.
Loango
When sailing on the Africa coast the Portuguese find bigger and
better organized cities than the Lisbon
The slave trade begins to expand
At the second half of the 15th century, the slave
trade was mainly devoted to meeting the needs of home consumption among the
nobility of Portugal and Spain and limited exports to Italy and France. Two of
the great potentates of the time, England and France, traded almost nothing at
all with slaves, but developed a trade in Africa in goods such as ivory, pepper
and gold.
Until the mid-16th century, the slave trade was about
a few tens of thousands of African slaves who had been delivered to the
countries of Europe and this slave trade could have gone down in history as a
reprehensible but limited event in a certain era. Another more valuable trade
was, as I said, developing and taking over in importance.
However, this was not the case now. Columbus' trip to
the Antilles in 1492 and Portuguese Pedro Alvares
Cabral's trip to Brazil in 1500 changed everything. After these years, the
Spanish and Portuguese boats increasingly travelled west to the newly
discovered American continent. With a large number of
well-armed soldiers, war and deception, they eventually conquered the Caribbean
and vast lands of South America.
The population of these areas was enslaved and forced
to work in mines and sugar plantations. In their search for riches, the
conquerors were ruthless in their exploitation of the Indians that they had
made into slaves. The Indian population died out during this slavery. In some
places, it was completely deleted.
In Cuba, where Christopher Columbus landed on October
27, 1492, more than a hundred thousand Indians disappeared in less than fifty
years. It is not possible here to give a description of the tragedy of the
American Indians during colonial exploitation. This requires special articles
that tell the story of this drama in a comprehensive and fair way. The author is
forced to state only briefly the cruel reality in America and move forward on
the issue of the European slave trade from Africa.
Handcuffs
Foot shackles
Foot shackles
The demand for labor force, which in the new colonies
in America could take place instead of the murdered Indians, took off like never before. The conquerors began to import slaves from
Spain, Portugal and North Africa. These slaves were both white and black and
many were Christians.
It may be of interest to know that the export of
Christian slaves continued until the end of the 17th century. There are
documents from 1692 in which the Spanish royal family (named The Catholic
Kings!) granted export permits for white slaves from Spain to Mexico, where
they were to take place in the upper-class brothels.
In 1515, Spain received the first cargo of sugar grown
by African slaves in the Caribbean. These slaves had been captured in Africa,
dragged to Spain and from there sold on to plantations in the Caribbean. But
the great shortage of labor caused by the Indian death and the new mines and
plantations required a different, more comprehensive solution than the import
of slaves from Europe.
From the beginning, the Portuguese and The Spaniards
were hesitant to take slaves from Africa. These turned out to be rebellious and
had caused carnage on the slave boats and in the Caribbean.
But the development went that way. The royal houses of
Spain and Portugal were economically completely dependent on the slave trade
and demanded dividends on the money invested. At the same time, the need for
labor, large quantities of slaves to the sugar plantations and mines, could
only be met from the African continent. With increased oppression, slaves began
to be picked up in Africa to be delivered in America.
The first Spanish boatload of slaves directly from
Africa to the Caribbean went in 1518.
This opened a new era, when the royal houses in Europe sold permission to the
slave traders to buy slaves in certain areas of Africa for further export to
the colonies on the American continent. Millions upon millions of people were
hunted, captured and sold as slaves. They had no rights, were treated worse
than animals and died in millions.
Europe's royal houses, the Christian church and the
rest of the upper classes were thrilled at the abominable handling. Slave trade
to America was initiated by Portugal and Spain. But these countries were
quickly followed by England, France, Holland, Prussia, Denmark, Sweden and
later also by two new countries on the American continent, Brazil and the
United States.
The relationship between these countries was on the coast
of Africa almost by a state of war, all intent on taking the entire spoils
without sharing with anyone else. It started with war between Portugal and
Spain.
The royal house of Portugal had been given a monopoly
by the Pope on the entire trade on the Coast of Africa. But at the risk of
getting on the Pope's excommunication and going to hell, the Spanish royal
family began to send their ships further and further down the Africa coast.
Portugal's King João II did not see this with ease.
According to the Portuguese monarch, his sea captains, who in Africa happened
upon “boats with people from Spain or other countries, would not take any
prisoners but simply throw them over board as punishment for wanting to do
something so forbidden and for others who heard about it to take it as a
warning'”.
But such a profitable business could not be kept for
itself. It was not many years before the west coast of Africa was served by
Spanish and other countries' contraband boats.
One who went down in history as the chief slave
smuggler was Englishman John Hawkins. Financed by merchants in London, Hawkins
acquired three boats in 1562 and with a hundred men in the crew he sailed from
England to the Guinea coast. Through war and looting, Hawkins managed to
capture over 300 people after some time on the coast. John Hawkins then set off
for the Caribbean where he sold the prisoners as slaves and bought goods to
sell in Europe.
The English crown initially did not want to know of
Hawkins' adventures and not have anything to do with the slave trade. But when
Queen Elizabeth I saw Hawking's shrimp after his first trip, she quickly
changed her mind and also invested in John Hawkins'
slave hunt.
From Queen Elisabeth I, Hawkins received the slave
boat "Jesus"(!) for her second slave expedition to Africa. John
Hawkins was later knighted for his merits in Britain and chose a coat of arms
with a black slave in handcuffs!
During the 16th and 17th centuries, the slave trade
continued to expand at an increasing rate. Portugal's monopoly was shattered
when, between 1580 and 1640, the country was left without a king and the
Spanish king, the immediate heir, took the Portuguese throne. Until 1640, when
uprisings erupted in Lisbon and a new Portuguese king was crowned, the country
remained a Spanish province and degraded as a naval power.
Sir John Hawkins
From the beginning of the 17th century, several other
countries took over large parts of the slave trade, which by now was the
biggest business across all seas. The state of war between these countries was
the usual relationship on the world's oceans. Greed and envy for the profits of
the slave trade had no limits.
England's naval power grew strong all the time. In its
second rank as a slave trader, the country had been forced to obtain goods to
offer Spain and Portugal to access gold and silver from the slave trade and the
colonies in America.
This would have forced industrialization, which by
extension would have made England one of the strongest powers in Europe.
The decision on who would take the lead over trade
with Africa, now almost enslaved, came with the Spanish War of Succession of
1702-1714 after the death of Carlos II. The Spanish Empire was at this time the world's largest kingdom, with possessions
in the Netherlands, Italy, America, Africa and Asia. The pearl of this empire
was the "assiento", the contract
that gave the owner the right to all slave trade to Spain's American
possessions. That's where the big money came in.
The French Duke, Philip of Anjou selected by Carlos
II, became King Philip V of Spain with the support of grandfather, the French
King Louis XIV. After his coronation, Philip V gave the “assiento”
rights to Louis XIV, which he had demanded. England's royal house felt best at
the best and the Great War was a fact.
For 12 years, each other was slaughtered in Europe and
everywhere else where the two camps met. The first peace treaty came in April
1713 with the Treaty of Utrecht between Spain and England with its allies.
Crucial to the signing of this peace was that Spain and England had signed a
trade agreement a month earlier, giving the English royal family a monopoly on
the export of slaves from Africa to Spanish America!
On the basis of this “assiento”
contract, England developed in the 18th century into the world's largest
imperialist power, a position that England retained for at least two hundred
years.
50 million disappeared from Africa
How many people disappeared from Africa because of the
slave trade between the 15th and 20th centuries? This question has been the
subject of many studies but cannot be answered unequivocally. An exact
statistic has never existed, only estimates based on incomplete data.
Not least, the existing figures are incorrect due to
extensive smuggling. The slave trade was heavily taxed by the European royal
houses and the Church, which lived on this practice. The slave traders always
tried to get past these tariffs. It was therefore common for the slave traders
to bribe customs officials on the slave markets. The slave traders were then
allowed to use the trademarks of the various slave companies with which the
branded slaves who could pass without taxes or customs duties.
Neck shackles
The smuggling of prisoners is estimated at one third
of the cargo. But how many were they, in the big picture? In the circle of the
people who have devoted their lives to studying the history of the African
continent, the figure of 15 million people as an absolute minimum and 50
million people most likely, has been accepted as the number of slaves who came
alive to America. (In Cuba alone, a million slaves were landed in 15 years,
between 1791 and 1840!)
At least 50 million slaves
But these estimates of the number of slaves who came
alive to America are, of course, not the same as the number that had been taken
aboard the slave ships. Many died during the trip, a low 20 percent. Sometimes
this figure could be much higher. To these tragic figures must be added further
all the people murdered in forays and wars in the hunt for slaves that for
centuries covered large areas of the African continent. It is concluded that
the slave trade, while on the table, must have cost Africa at least 50 million
people's lives (some scientists report 100 million), which represents a quarter
of black Africa's population by the mid-20th century when these studies were
carried out.
The slave trade gave birth to industrialism
The slave trade destroys the structure of the society
in Africa
By the mid-17th century, the European colonies on the
newly discovered continent of America experienced a new and very strong
development. Huge numbers of African slaves were brought there to take their
place in production in gold and silver mines and on the plantations of sugar,
tobacco, cotton, etc.
Not least, new slaves were constantly needed as the
slaves' work capacity was ruthlessly exploited, resulting in many deaths. The
mortality rate of the Dutch colony of Suriname in the Caribbean was, for
example, so great that the entire healthy slave population, about 50,000
people, was exterminated in total every 20 years!
As demand for slaves increased in America, slave
traders' manhunt on the African continent increased. The European slave traders
acquired slaves in three different ways: acts of piracy, war alliances and
peaceful partnership.
Piracy involved looting and war in which the slave
hunters were based in the boats. The acts of piracy soon turned to partnership
in war. The Europeans then disembarked armed groups of soldiers to support an
African king against his rivals. As a rule, European slave traders were allowed to buy prisoners from among the vanquished, who
were transported to America as slaves.
This partnership's first slave trader is said to have
been Englishman John Hawkins. On his fourth trip, when he had been on the
Guinea coast for some time and had already taken over 150 prisoners, something
happened that became decisive for the future of human trafficking.
Hawkins was approached on the coast of Sierra Leone by
a chief who wanted Hawkins' support in war with other kings in the area. As
payment, Hawkins would have to take all the prisoners who were taken in this
war.
Hawkins landed with 300 Englishmen, and together with
the African chief and its men, he went into battle with the chief's enemies.
The devastation and murder that Hawkins' men were guilty of with their firearms
was terrible. But the win was entirely in Hawkins' taste. He brought with him
over 300 prisoners, which resulted in large profits from sales in the
Caribbean.
Over time, Europeans learned to exploit or incite
rivalries between peoples and force states of war to bring out more slaves. In
these cases, for example, Europeans were responsible for arming one party
against the right to buy slaves among the prisoners. In this way and attracted
by the European goods paid for by the slave traders, some African kings
eventually became partners of the European slave traders.
But in most cases, the partnership soon passed to the
African kings' dependence on the slave traders. If you wanted to get hold of
the European goods that the slave traders had to offer, there was only one
thing these kings could do, deliver several slaves. Slave hunting spread to
ever larger areas and further into the continent.
The European slave traders initially paid mostly with
horses, copper and fabrics, but eventually switched to almost exclusively
firearms and alcohol. Firearms, muskets, became an absolute necessity for those
peoples in Africa who wanted to guarantee their freedom. Without firearms,
which could only be obtained in exchange for slaves, strong kingdoms became an
easy prey for otherwise weaker peoples in search of slaves.
In the end, it became so much on the African continent
that all the peoples had to acquire firearms. Thus, everyone had to hunt
slaves. For several centuries, from the early 16th century to the end of the
19th century, uncertainty and instability spread across much of Africa. Almost
everywhere there was an imminent risk of being kidnapped and sold as a slave to
the European slave traders.
The social structure fell into disrepair and was
wasted, and man was demoted and brutalized by the ruthless handling. This can
be seen, among other things, in the development of art from very sophisticated
forms in the 15th century to increasingly harsh representations until the end
of the 19th century.
Social development stalled in many parts of Africa and
old kingdoms and cultures perished. The traditional power of the kings, very
limited by a system of government ministers and hierarchies, changed to become
despotic and without borders. This allowed political opposition and rebels to
be wiped out by sales to the slave traders.
Uncertainty was constantly increasing, and people took
refuge in inaccessible areas. Production in society fell to a minimum,
agriculture was knocked out in large areas, yes, which farmer wants such an
earth that he does not know if he can harvest?
Trafficking
The slave trade was
a fierce
and merciless
hunt right
into the
deepest of Africa.
The kidnapped
and captured
people were driven
by their
captors to the
coast, to the slave
markets and the
slave boats.
This could
mean several
weeks or
months on foot
with a
lack of
food and
water.
The prisoners came
mainly from western
Africa, from Senegal
in the
north to
Angola in the
south. In the
19th century,
many slaves
also came
from East
Africa. Upon arriving
at the
slave market,
prisoners were imprisoned
in sheds
or prisons.
There they
had to
stay until
the chiefs
and Europeans
agreed on the
price of
a pièce
de Inde,
a price
for a
normal-strong, healthy man
in his
twenties. Two men
in their thirties generally
corresponded to one pièce,
as well
as two
boys aged
ten to
fifteen or two
women.
After weeks of
walking in shackles,
the prisoners
were usually
very involved.
To this
you have to
add what
they had
gone through
when they
had to
fight for
their lives
and perhaps
saw their
loved ones
murdered and their
homes burned
down by
the slave
hunters. The mortality
rate in
prisons in the
slave markets
was therefore
very high.
On the day
the prisoners
were to
be sold
to the
Europeans, they were
led out
to an
open space
completely naked, men,
women and
children. There they
had to
undergo a very
thorough examination by
the ship's
doctor. Those who
were over
thirty-five years of age,
gray-haired or in
any way
showed symptoms of
illness were taken
aside. Only the
best were good
enough to be
bought.
Branding of slaves
All purchased prisoners
were marked
on the
chest or
arms with
annealed iron that
burned in the
marks of
the various
slave companies.
The British
Africa Company's mark
was DY,
Duke of
York, formal
name of
the British
monarch. The Royal
House of Portugal used
a Cross
of Christ.
The Great
Bible Society,
the Society
for the
Propagation of the
Gospel, branded its
slaves with the book-top SPG.
After the branding, the
prisoners went back
to the
prison where they
had to
wait before
being taken
to the
waiting slave ships.
Either the trip
went to
one of
the fortresses,
slave depletions,
which the
European nations had
built along
the coast of Africa
or directly
to America.
The branding mark of
Guinea Holding Company.
The first major
fortress on the
West Coast
of Africa
was S.
Jorge da
Mina, later
called Elmina. It
was built
by the
Portuguese in 1481-1489
about 50
km south
of the
Cape Coast
in present-day
Ghana.
The Portuguese king
João II
who decided
to build
the fortress
sent boats
with 500
soldiers, 100 construction
workers and all
necessary building materials.
The fortress
was equipped
with tall
towers, two moats
carved in stone
and 400
cannons. It was
made to
keep 1,000
slaves in captivity!
The nature
and size
of the
fortress shows well what
a great
deal with
slaves was predicted.
King João
II received
from Pope
Xisto IV the full
forgiveness of sins
for all
Christians who died
in S.
Jorge da
Mina.
S. Jorge da
Mina
The trip to
America was for
the imprisoned
people to come
to the
unknown. None of
the slaves
knew what
was going
to happen
and most
had never
seen the
sea before.
Aboard the slave
ship, life
was an
indescribable hell. The
slaves were beaten
in iron
shackles on their
hands and
feet and
forced into the hold
of the
boats. There they
had to be tightly
packed on each other,
no more
space than
the body
width required.
The holds were
divided into several
floors with a
height of generally
80 cm,
but never
over one
meter. There the
slaves had to
lie or
try to
sit. In
the British
slave ship
Brooks, the floor
height was 78
cm. The
space for
each male
slave was
at Brooks
183 cm
in length
and 40
cm in
width. For women
175 x
40 cm,
for boys
152 x
35 cm
and girls
137 x
30 cm. In many
slave boats,
the slaves
were also
beaten with neck
shackles.
When the cargo hold
was packed
with usually
300-500 slaves, the
boat departed
for America
in what
became known as
the Middle
Passage. The trip
usually took five
weeks. Five weeks
of famine
and thirst.
Five weeks
during which several
hundred people had
to carry
out their
needs and
vomit in
the place
where they
lay. The
stench of a slave ship
could be
felt from
miles away.
Slaves who died
or suffered
from illness
were immediately
thrown overboard.
The stowage scheme for the Slave Ship
Brookes from Liverpool
The mortality rate on the slave ships was terribly
high, 20-30 percent died during the Middle Passage. Sometimes the slaves
rebelled against the terrible fate and at some point, they managed to take over
the boats. For the most part, the slave traders beat up the rebellious slaves
and punished them with sadistic carnage.
The triangular trade
When you pause for a moment and think through the
incredible number of people who were sold as slaves, mainly in the years
1650-1850, you understand that this must be part of a very extensive process.
Millions of people were bought in Africa as slaves in
exchange for European goods such as firearms, fabrics, copper goods and
spirits. These people were transported to America, where they had to work for
free for plantation and mine owners and created on the American continent vast
riches in goods such as sugar, tobacco, cotton, rum, gold, silver and precious
stones. These goods were in turn transported on to Europe where they received a
very profitable outlet. Part of the profits in these transactions were converted
into new European goods shipped to Africa to buy several slaves. This trade
round is usually referred to as the triangular trade or the circular trade.
The role of slaves in this acquisition of wealth must
not be forgotten. The slaves were not ignorant and generally lethargic Negroes
just good at using as simple tools of work, as some racist historians would
have us believe.
The slaves were kidnapped working people, farmers and
craftsmen, with a wide range of professional skills. Their know-how was, in
many areas, fundamental and very crucial to the success of mines and
plantations. They worked as carpenters, masons, farmers, stonemasons,
ironworkers, painters, carpenters, silver smiths, artists, etc.
They had brought their skills and basic professional
knowledge from their home country. Behind the Triangular Trade were the
European royal houses and some other financiers. The royal houses sold permits
for the trade of slaves or went in with their own money. Some other members of
the upper class, nobility, or bourgeoisie, formed companies with the blessing
of the royal houses, bought these permits, and entered the trade. Many of them
were owners of ships and shipyards, fabric and weapons factories in Europe and
plantation and mine owners in America.
The triangular trade was a very profitable business, a
deal with triple profits. Britain's income from trade in the Caribbean, at the
end of the 18th century, was four times higher than that of trade with the rest
of the world. The profits were unimaginably large, and the trade expanded
rapidly.
The number of ships operating in the world's oceans
soared in a relatively short period of time. In 1719, the port of Liverpool had
18371 ship mares registered. In 1792, the number of ship mares was up in
260382.
The increase was necessary as the transport of goods
increased significantly during these seventy years. As an example, figures for
sugar imports into England and British exports of cotton products can be used.
England imported half a million tons of sugar in 1720.
At the end of the 18th century, annual imports were five times as high. In
1701, the United Kingdom exported £23,000 worth of cotton products. In 1800,
exports were worth £5.5 million.
The triangular trade, the origin
of industrialism
Liverpool grew with shipbuilding,
Manchester and Lancashire
grew with
the manufacture
of cheap
cotton fabrics for
the purchase
of slaves
and Birmingham
grew with
the arms'
export of millions
of muskets
to Africa.
The rapid economic
expansion of the
triangular trade created
the conditions
for the
Industrial Revolution in
England. The need
for an
increasing number of
cheap consumer
goods led
to new
inventions in the
industry which in
turn led
to growth
and innovation.
This was particularly noticeable in
the textile
industry where, at
the end
of the
18th century,
inventions and new
machines followed each
other.
Industrialism was born with
the triangular
trade. With it,
a new
class of
big merchants
and industrial
tycoons came to
the top
of society.
These were
immensely rich, willingly
wasted money and
bought themselves political
power, for example
seats in
the British
Parliament, from where
they could
have influence
on the
country's business and
the terms
of the
triangle trade. But
all these
riches created in
the triangle trade had
a different
side, a
very dirty
side.
In Africa, in
addition to all
the misery
and the dissolution of
kingdoms and cultures
caused by the
slave trade,
much of
the traditional
production and crafts
stagnated and partially
disappearing altogether. An
example. The manufacture
of African
fabrics, famous for
its good
quality and which
the European
countries imported before
the slave
trade completely
overshadowed the rest
of the
trade, succumbed and
disappeared when cheap
fabrics from Europe
invaded the African
kingdoms.
With the continued
repression and the
increased power of
the European
countries, the situation
got worse.
The European
rulers deliberately put an
end to
production and social
development in Africa
in order
to preserve
their power
and markets.
The transfer of
European new technologies
to the
countries of Africa
was completely
over, despite
the fact
that this
had been
promised by the
European kings and
businessmen and despite
the fact
that the
African kings repeatedly
asked for
help in
the form
of doctors,
carpenters, school teachers,
priests, boat builders
and others
they felt
were necessary
to open
new paths
for the
future in Africa.
Even in Europe, the
children of the triangle
trade, industrialism, created an
unprecedented misery. For
the masses
of industrial
workers, life was
a real
misery. For adults
as well
as for
children, the working
day was almost endless,
up to
sixteen hours, the
payment was terribly
poor and
the working
conditions unimaginable.
Poverty in European industrial cities was worse
than ever
before. For the
poor in
Europe, the social
changes caused by
the triangular trade became
a new
form of
slavery. In Friedrich
Engels's
“Condition of the Working Class in England” we can
get a
picture of the
situation of the workers
in 1845,
a truly
unimaginable reading.
Sweden and the slave trade
(Author's Note – Sweden is the only country in Europe
where the official version of the story denies the participation of the ruling
class in the slave trade. But in reality, the Swedish crown
also entered the manhunt, albeit in an incomparably smaller way than the other countries in Europe. As
this text was originally written for a Swedish newspaper and the Swedish
public, it was the author obliged to investigate the correct facts and make his
narration in a special chapter. This chapter is included here for its
historical interest and not because Sweden played a leading role in the slave
trade.)
The wealth in Africa also attracted the Swedish upper
classes. In the middle of the 17th century, on the Slave coast (or Gold Coast)
off present-day Ghana, a battle began for colonies to fill the Swedish upper
classes safe with gold from the African trade. It all started in 1647 when
Louis de Geer became aware of the economic opportunities that African transport
could provide.
From Queen Kristina, de Geer bought a royal sea pass
with the right to travel to Africa and sent a couple of ships in search of
slaves, gold and ivory. As payment, Geer used fabrics, brass goods, fishhooks
and spirits. These first boatloads paid very well, which led to the next step.
In 1649 the Swedish African Company was formed with
Louis de Geer as the main owner. This time the purpose was not simple exchange
business. The company was formed to make the colony dreams a reality. A German
adventurer, Hendrik Carlof, with experience on the
Guinea coast, where he had served under Dutch command, was appointed as head of
the Company's first expedition.
In 1650, Carlof came to the
coast off Ghana where he as head of the Swedish expedition made an agreement
with the King of Fetu, a kingdom on the coast. It was
agreed on the construction of a couple of fortresses and some trading stations.
The fortress of Carlsborg
began to be built, as well as some trading stations along the coast and the
fortress Christiansborg at Accra in present-day Ghana.
Life in the Swedish possessions was not peaceful but
filled with battles against the Dutch and the English who wanted the same prey.
This led to a certain disadvantage for the trade and company's profits.
After the death of Louis de Geer, the Swedish African
Company was transformed in 1654 under the leadership of de Geer's sons. Now
came a turning point in Company's life. Carlof didn't
get along with Company's management, the sons of de Geer, who tried to cheat
him out of money. He deserted and took refuge in Denmark. There he obtained a
Danish hijacker's letter with the aim of capturing the Swedish possessions on
the Guinea coast on behalf of Denmark.
In 1658, Carlof arrived
again on the Guinea coast. With the help of an African chief, he succeeded in
defeating the Swedish commandant at Carlsborg, von Krusenstierna, and taking over the fortress, trading
stations and Christiansborg. Thus, the Swedish
African Company had no possessions and the history of colonial power Sweden in
West Africa should be over.
One last act, however, existed. The African chief who
had helped Carlof against the Swedes stormed Carlsborg, which the Danes had sold to the Dutch, and
offered the fortress for sale to the Swedish African Company. The company
bought Carlsborg back for expensive gold money and
the shops started to roll as before. But the brightening of Company's colonial
existence did not last long. The Dutch attacked Carlsborg
shortly afterwards and the fortress fell after 13 months of siege. The Swedish
colonial adventure in West Africa was now forever over.
What about the slave trade? Was Sweden involved? Here
the history description goes apart. Some Swedish historians have wanted to
claim that the Swedes never dealt with slaves. However, this is not true.
Already during a survey of The Swedish African Company's books, it can be seen that the Company had slaves as labor at the
fortresses and trading stations. These slaves had of course the Company bought.
In addition, some African slaves were brought by Swedish ships to Sweden, where
they work on the nobility's estate.
As regards trafficking in human beings to America, it
was on Swedish and Danish ships from the West Coast of Africa to the Caribbean
on the initiative of Swedish and Danish entrepreneurs.
But the real breakthrough of the organized slave trade
came only in the 18th century. In 1755 Denmark bought three islands in the
Caribbean, the so-called Virgin Islands, Saint Croix, Saint Thomas and Saint
Jan.
Sweden did not want to be worse than the outside world
and made sure to also acquire a colony in the Caribbean. In July 1784, King
Gustav III bought the island of Saint Barthélemy of
France for trade privileges in Gothenburg. In March 1785 Saint Barthélemy was taken over by the Swedish commandant Salomon
von Rajalin. At the same time was formed in Sweden the
West India Company, which gained great trade rights and power at Saint Barthélemy.
The Swedish king Gustav III
introduced the slave trade in Sweden.
Gustav III declared the island Porto Franco, free port
open to all the ships of the world. This would prove to be a very profitable
move. The end of the 18th century was a very troubled period in the Caribbean
with ongoing wars between England, France, Holland and North America. However,
the war did not reduce the need for trade contacts among the capitalists of the
warring countries. On the contrary, the need for trade was only greater.
The Swedish policy of neutrality together with the free port declared by Gustav
III made Saint Barthélemy, mainly the capital Gustavia, a focal point for merchants and trade
transactions in the Caribbean.
Another factor that was crucial to economic success
was the changes in legislation created to make the slave trade legal. In 1785,
at the suggestion of The Commandant Rajalin, the
Government Council and King Gustav III decided that the slave trade would be
allowed on Saint Barthélemy so that the inhabitants
of the island would be given the opportunity to participate in the slave trade.
"A necessary factor to the island's cultivation and the expansion of
plantations," it was said.
Gustav III goes down in history as the king who
introduced the slave trade in a country that 500 years earlier had abolished
bondage. In October 1786, the Company was given the right to run a slave trade
on the African coast. In fact, the slave trade was officially sanctioned without
anyone in the Government Council ever objecting.
It may be interesting to know that this complete unity
among the ruling upper classes representatives had very little support among
the people. By this time, public opinion against the slave trade had begun to
grow strong in the world and these winds of change had spread to Sweden and won
the majority of the Swedish people.
At Saint Barthélemy, the
situation was such that the new legislation made the slave trade one of the
largest commercials on the Swedish island. Human trafficking on Swedish ships
went from West Africa, Guinea and Angola to Saint Barthélemy
and the Danish Virgin Islands.
The Africans who could not be sold to the plantation
owners were kept in Saint Barthélemy to be offered
for sale to other plantations in the Caribbean. To this end, there was a slave
shed on Östra Strandgatan
in Gustavia, owned by one of Saint Barthélemy's most successful entrepreneurs, the West India
Company's representative on the island, Adolf Hansen. Hansen also chartered his
own slave ships.
The Swedish king Karl XIV Johan
stopped the income from the slave trade in its own pocket.
It has been discussed whether the West India Company
officially joined the slave trade. The legal formalities are sometimes
difficult to get right. But in addition to the fact that Company's
representatives were among the most active in the slave trade on the island,
another thing is also proven.
One of the Company's largest shareholders (the largest
was Crown Prince Gustav Adolf), director Lars Rejmers
P:son, ran the slave trade to Saint Barthélemy and on to other islands in the Caribbean and
even to Havana. Rejmers made partnerships with
several of the island's entrepreneurs and used the Company's administration for
the financial transactions in connection with the slave trade. Such deals were
very successful in this haunt for all the world's smugglers and warring
countries.
During the time the war raged in the area, Gustavia experienced an indescribable success. From being
almost uninhabited in 1785, Gustavia with over 5000
inhabitants in 1800, was one of Sweden's largest cities after Stockholm,
Gothenburg, Karlskrona and Norrköping (compared to Gävle with 5410 inhabitants or Uppsala with 5105).
The city of Gustavia
in Saint Barthélemy
The leading business partner on the island was The
Swedish West India Company, which had been formed in 1786. In 1806, the
business was taken over by the Swedish state and only six years later, in 1812,
finally taken over by the Swedish royal family.
Two ads are about black men,
Richard Crump and Joseph Raphael, sold on behalf of the Swedish King.
The incomes from Saint Barthélemy
were transferred after 1812 to the Barthélemy Fund
under the possession of King Karl XIV Johan. Income also came from customs and
port duties, much of it from slave boats and taxes from the slave trade.
The sale of escaped slaves from other islands or
negroes and mulattoes without identity documents, which were captured and
auctioned on the governor's orders, was also awarded to Karl XIV's Barthélemy Fund!
But say the happiness that lasts permanently. The
years passed and most wars in the area eventually began to end. Saint Barthélemy and Gustavia became
less and less interesting as a port for shady business. Besides, the slave
trade was running out. France abolished the slave trade in 1794 and England in
1807, which also led the English navy to procure and seize the slave
boats.
The Royal House of Denmark also had to take a stand on
the issue of the slave trade and abolish it. Paradoxically, this was for some
time the salvation of both Swedish and Danish slave traders. The Danish
Government's decision, in March 1792, that all slave trade should be prohibited
from 1 January 1803, aroused an insurgency among the plantation owners of the
Danish islands.
The Danish crown then decided to generously grant
beneficial so-called negro loans to the plantation owners so that they could
provide themselves properly with slaves before the new law came into force. The
result was the hoarding of slaves and a temporary upturn in human trafficking,
which was mainly used by Danish and Swedish slave traders.
Despite this exception, the shops at Saint Barthélemy irreparably began to get to the bottom. The
manslaughter battle came in 1831 when England permanently opened its West
Indian ports to American shipping.
The fall in income led to the Swedish krona's decision
to get rid of Saint Barthélemy. Contacts were
established with the former owner France and an agreement on France's takeover
of Saint Barthélemy was prepared. Before going to
work, they wanted to get the opinion of the inhabitants and a referendum on Swedish
or French ownership of Saint Barthélemy was carried
out.
The outcome of this referendum must have gone down in
history as a unique result. All but one of the citizens voted for France! It
revealed the emptiness of the claim about the islanders' love for Sweden and
the Swedish Royal Family!
The referendum marked the end of the history of
Swedish colonial domination in the Caribbean. On 16 March 1878, 94 years after
Sweden had taken over, Saint Barthélemy returned to
the possession of France.
The slave trade and racism
The effects of the slave trade and the triangular
trade on European and African countries and later in the countries of the
American continent are asking some important questions about people-to-people
contacts.
How did people in the different continents look at
each other? What was the relationship between blacks and whites and later also
between them and the Indians on the American continent?
Without delving into the matter, which would require a
long account outside our possibilities, some historical findings can nevertheless
be made. The first contacts between Europeans and Africans, as the Portuguese
did, were primarily a manhunt, a hunt for slaves. The human hunters were driven
by a desire for riches.
The Portuguese began by abduction and looting, but
when the Portuguese kings found their classmates in Africa, they traded with
these African kings in a transaction between two equal partners. The white and
black upper classes looked at each other in much the same way. A mixture of
curiosity and fear, an opportunity for good business and increased wealth. The
underclass on both continents was in their eyes what they had always been, work
tools.
Racism was initially an unknown
thought.
Lisbon, a painting from
1570-80.
The Chafariz d'El-Rey (King's
Fountain) in the Alfama District, Lisbon.
Many of the persons in
the painting who come for water or were passing through on the way to their
business are black Africans.
The workers or slaves and
the rich or businessman were both white and black.
The color of the skin was not important.
Racism was initially an unknown
thought. The course of times changed
this attitude. If, from the outset, contacts between Europeans and Africans
were without racial prejudice, after many years of slave trade, Europeans'
views on Africans changed.
A gentleman's mentality prevailed among the white
supremacists and after that black people were no longer treated like human
beings. The slave trade was the reason for this change. On the one hand, the
very manhunt in Africa where the slaves were taken, on the other hand, the
commercial interest and desire for profit of Europeans.
Let us start with the conditions in Africa. The black
kings and chieftains who began to sell slaves to Europeans in exchange for
European goods were from the beginning proud masters of stable societies, most
prosperous ones. However, in order to maintain and extend all the splendor and
luxury of European goods, more and more slaves must be sold to Europeans and
shipped away. This slave sale without borders made societies in Africa unstable
and its kings and chieftains increasingly dependent on Europeans.
When Europeans began to sell muskets, this development
was further reinforced, and it became an absolute necessity for the African
chiefs and kings to obtain these new weapons both for the sake of slave hunting
and for defense purposes. Not least because Europeans pursued an active policy
among the African kings to start new wars that would result in more prisoners
that Europeans could buy as slaves.
In this active war propaganda, the Christian Church
was very much involved and, as always, a mainstay of the European royal houses.
A couple of concrete examples of how this process could be made are here.
Let's start with the Kingdom of Congo. In 1482, the
Portuguese caravans came to the mouth of the Congo and made
contact with the Kingdom of Congo, of about the same size as Portugal.
Congo was led after 1506 by a king, Mani Congo Nzinga Mbemba,
who, after the first contacts with the Portuguese in the 1490s, had become a
Christian and named Dom Afonso. Dom Afonso ruled for forty years.
The correspondence between the kings of Portugal and
King Dom Afonso is well preserved in Portugal and the relationship between them
is well known. It all started with trade, the Portuguese's help in war and Dom
Afonso's repayment with African goods and a limited number of slaves.
That a great king like Mani Congo gave another equal
king a number of slaves was no big business, it was
part of tradition. The correspondence between the kings is clear on the
equality between the "royal brother of Portugal" and the "most
powerful and most brilliant king of Mani Congo". But King Dom Afonso could
not foresee the consequences of the slave trade that he had started.
It set in motion a process in which small chiefs in
Dom Afonso's land made great profits as a result of the constantly increasing
and eventually uncontrollable slave trade. The Christian faith of the
Portuguese was not helpful to the Christian brother in the Congo. Dom Afonso's
letter on helping to end the slave trade and developing the country with
European technology was not dealt with in the reply letters.
Even priests and missionaries felt Dom Afonso had to
address and ask them not to buy so many slaves and "in any case not women
so it becomes so obvious (the priests' violation of the vow of chastity, my
note. MS) and the king appear to be a liar before his people." The priests
stood for chastity and godliness, Afonso had taught
his people. But the priests didn't want to change their lives.
To avoid revelations, the clergy instead threatened
excommunication from the Church of God and the kingdom of God for all who
uttered a word about their handling. However, the Portuguese slave traders
continued to enslave all the people they got their hands on in Congo. Even the
young members of the Congolese nobility, who were sent to Portugal for further
study to priests or officials, were sold as slaves. Technical assistance from
Portugal never came up, the Congolese only received consumer goods that were
soon consumed, which meant that new goods had to be bought against several slaves.
In 1526, Dom Afonso made an attempt
to gain control of the slave trade in order to reduce or completely stop it. On
this subject, he wrote a sharply worded letter to the King of Portugal
revealing the Portuguese merchants as thieves and unscrupulous men who captured
and sold the country's sons so "that Our country is being depopulated
altogether".
And Afonso continued:
"From the kingdom of Yours we need nothing but
priests and people who can teach in schools, and no goods other than wine and
flour for the Holy Supper. It is for this reason that we ask Your Highness to
help and assist us in this matter by commanding your agents that they should send
neither merchants nor goods here, because it is our will that in these Kingdoms
there be no trade in slaves and no market for slaves."
Afonso's attempt to stop the slave trade did not yield
any results, after all, the slave trade was an important part of the Portuguese
king's livelihood. The slave trade continued to increase and at the death of
Dom Afonso in the late 1540s, Congo was a society in disrepair and chaos.
It was at that time that the Portuguese began to
experiment for the first time with plans to completely take over the area
through a military invasion. Crucially, it was possible to destroy the system
of vassalage and alliance between countries that existed around Congo.
In this case, it was especially important to separate Congo
from its allies in the south, the king of Dongo, who
received the title Ngola, from where the name Angola
comes from. Breaking these traditionally strong ties was not easy.
The task was given to those who were most suited to
it, namely the slave traders and Jesuit priests on the island of São Tomé, who
were also established in the slave trade.
On this island there were large sugar cane plantations
with slaves from the continent, while the island was the largest slave market
on the entire West Africa coast. The Jesuit priests and slave traders of São
Tomé therefore acted in their own right with increased
proceeds from the slave trade in mind.
By scheming, they got Ngola
in Dongo to break off relations with Mani Congo in
1556. In response, the Mani Congo sent an army to subjugate Ngola.
But Congo was a society in disrepair, its army was weakened and not long what
it once had been. Ngola's army resigned with victory.
Thus, Congo's power was destroyed and the Portuguese
were able for the first time to install themselves with a military force on the
continent.
Nine years later, the Portuguese defeated what was
left of the Mani Congo army and began the occupation of the African coast south
of the River Congo. It became a long and dirty war against various kings, where
cannons and modern rifles alongside priests and missionaries were a power
factor in machining, destabilizing and conquering.
Mani Congo and several of the defeated kings and
chieftains were allowed to keep their posts but now as
puppets of the Portuguese.
The consequences of the Portuguese conquest were
devastating. The looting and murder seemed to have no limits. In 1576, in a
letter from the Jesuit priest, and the slave trader, Garcia Simões,
who bought slaves from the then Mani Congo Dom Álvaro, Simões
complains about the high mortality rate among the slaves, over 30 percent.
Despite this, no less than 1.5 million slaves were exported from this area over
the next 120 years, until 1680! In total, the total for the living slaves taken
in this area is estimated at well over 5 million people, a bit higher than the
population of Angola in the 1950s.
One brutality and humiliation against the defenseless
black man led to the next and the next. In this spirit, the master's mind of
the white man arose over time.
The East Coast of Africa and the Portuguese
Around the same time as the dramatic events that led
to Congo's demise, the Portuguese established contact with India by sea. Vasco
da Gama's first voyage began in 1497. He crossed the Tip of Africa in December
1497, the east coast of Africa in early 1498 and came to Calcutta on May 20,
1498. (Portugal's royal family got through a papal bull monopoly by sea to
India; one can only ask why)
Vasco da Gama examined the area on behalf of the
Portuguese king. He encountered several cities on the east coast built of stone
with harbors and bustling shipping whose development and prosperity stood over
many of the European cities of the time.
These cities, Kilwa, Mombassa, Zanzibar, Brava, Quelimane
and many others were a product of many years of connections between Africans,
Arabs, Indians and even far getting travelers all the way from China.
In 1502 Vasco da Gama returned to the east coast of
Africa and the Indian Ocean, but now with orders from the Portuguese king to
take over all trade in the area. No one else would be allowed to buy the
Indian, Arab or African goods, there would in future be a Portuguese monopoly. After
all, the King of Portugal had been given this from the pope!
Mainly it was the Indian spices and other Indian goods
that the Portuguese king wanted to sell on in Europe. Vasco da Gama was tasked
with subcontracting all rich cities, the centers of civilization in East Africa
and gaining power over India. The Portuguese under Vasco da Gama's command were
ruthless. They had a much stronger force of arms and used their cannons and
firearms to completely destroy and subjugated the
cities of East Africa and on the Indian coast.
When Vasco da Gama arrived in India on his second
trip, he gave an ultimatum to the Indian prince of Calcutta to put an end to
trade relations with the Arabs. "Expel all Arabs," Gama demanded. The
Indian prince tried to negotiate, but Vasco da Gama wanted complete submission.
He caught merchants and others in the harbor, chopped their hands, feet and
head off and hung up the dismembered body parts of the rig. Some of these
severed parts sent Vasco da Gama to the prince with the message that he could
do curry stew on them.
For 1400 years, the Arabs and Indians had acted with
each other in a civilized way and no one had ever experienced such violence. In
ten years of the most ruthless and bloody aggression, the Portuguese destroyed
cities that it had taken hundreds of years to build.
Kilwa
Kilwa's conquest, this African gem of the Indian Ocean, may
stand as an example worth describing. The bloody honor of attacking Kilwa was vested in one of Gama's disciples, Admiral
Francisco de Almeida. Almeida anchored his vessels squadron in Kilwa's harbor and disembarked with her army. He met no
resistance from the surprised residents.
After Almeida and the soldiers came the vicar and the
Franciscan monks. They carried two crosses and went in procession singing Te Deum. At the king of Kilwa's
castle, they put the crosses in the ground and Admiral Almeida read a prayer
for all those gathered, soldiers and monks.
When the prayer session was over, the Portuguese began
to plunder Kilwa for all the riches and food. All the
inhabitants who did not have time to escape were subjected to the most ruthless
violence. Every attempt at resistance put an end to the Portuguese with
immediate beheading. Two days later, they set the city on fire.
For the marauding Portuguese, this barbaric attack,
like the other looting and murderous marches, was legal in every way. They had
received the pope's permission and been forgiven in advance for all sins!
The Portuguese won the war and the monopoly over trade
in the Indian Ocean, but the war meant that trade collapsed and disappeared.
Afterwards, the Portuguese were unable to relaunch trade and the African cities
and civilizations on the east coast of Africa fell into disrepair and its
inhabitants perished in the slave trade. The next generation of Europeans who
came to these regions could only see what they called inferior uncivilized
people.
Europe's upper class and racism
The first royal house in Europe to set out on the
world in search of slaves was the royal house of Portugal. But the quick eras
to follow were all the others. Spain, Holland, the UK, France, Prussia, Denmark
and Sweden also invested heavily in trade in Africa, which in most cases almost
meant trade in slaves.
Europe's royal houses and other economic potentates,
including the Christian Church, demanded a dividend of money invested, a demand
that simply meant a continuous increase in the slave trade. More and more slave
boats traveled the Atlantic Ocean and later the Indian Ocean.
The manhunt in Africa increased enormously, with
disastrous consequences for these communities, but investors became storm rich.
One might think that all this was given for the rulers of the European
countries. One might think that the European upper classes found no resistance
among the people of Europe against the abominable slave trade. However, this
was not the case.
The notion that the whites as a group were rallying
against the blacks, that there was no opposition not the slave trade, is widely
spread. It depends on what we've gotten from the school's history books. What
history book, in any of the former slave traders, ever deals with the slave
trade in a reasonably fair way? When is the slave trade given the central place
it had from the end of the 16th to the 19th century during the development of
the capitalist society we live in today? The usual thing is that the slave
trade in today's society is only mentioned in passing as
if it were an insignificant phenomenon.
Take a recent example from Portugal. In 1996 there were
some festivities taking place in Portugal to celebrate the 500th anniversary of
the so-called Portuguese "discoveries". Priests, doctors and
professors make speeches, debate and write, for good financial compensation, of
course. But the slave trade was hardly mentioned at all and when it hade to come up at some point,
it was only as if it had been an insignificant phenomenon without
repercussions. What knowledge and impression do the public in Portugal got
about the events in Africa over these 500 years? A total forged image!
The same type of relationship with the slave trade is
among the rulers of each European country. Today's upper class is the cultural
heir to the slave-acting upper class of the time and does his best to continue
to hide the truth from the subjects, to us. It is important for us to watch out
for the megaphones of the upper classes and unearth the truth about the past.
It is important for us to look out for those who want us to believe that all
the people of Europe had the same attitude towards the slave trade, that the
people of Europe had some sort of common interest in the slave trade, that
everyone was equally guilty in this crime against the people of Africa.
Europe was also in the Middle Ages, a class society.
There were different views in society, bound to class affiliation, about the
desired development of society. The fact that today we are almost only told
about the upper class of the time, also on the issue of the slave trade, is
because the upper classes had the means to spread their opinions and assert
them. They had police officers, priests, military, prisons, judges and
propagandists of all kinds, all things that were part of the government.
All this dominated society and has left a trail
behind. But there were also those who opposed the slave trade and the
oppression that prevailed in Europe. Those had few opportunities to express
their views and are much of an unexplored chapter and an unknown area for the
general public.
Even among the upper classes, the nobility and the
clergy, there were such exceptions confirming the rule, which opposed the wars
and the slave trade in Africa, and which went against their class interests. In
contrast to the people, who were not literate and who therefore have left no
trace other than abstracts in the upper-class stories, the opposition figures
among the upper classes had the opportunity to command someone to write their
ideas.
In this way, it has come to our attention of their
existence. An example must be given here, probably one of the first opponents
of the slaughter of the European upper classes in Africa. His name was João,
nephew of Henry the Navigator. The writer Rui de Pina wrote down João's
attitude to the wars in Africa that Portugal was waging against the Moors i.e.
the North Africans. Where the nobility willingly went in contrast to the
people, who did not want to leave their homes and their farms.
João believed that if war were to serve God
"those who go would not have such intentions, that some would come with
them for glory, others for the riches and the profits; the soldiers and all the
others betray their faith, it is sad; he who kills Moors with such intentions sins
no less than he who kills a Christian; how do you serve God when you give so
many souls to the devil? It's more of a disservice than a service, that's for
sure."
An interesting testimony, just a shame we weren't told
what the people who didn't want to leave their homes thought about the war. In
order to counter all these oppositional people and currents in society and to
make their point of view, the upper classes used everything that was available
in government.
In this matter, the issue of upper-class propagandists
is of the most interesting point of understanding of the rise of racism. These
propagandists, governed by Europe's royal houses and financial headquarters,
were among the scholars, power people in schools and universities and in the
Christian churches, from which racial prejudice spread and were given a
"scientific" and "moral" basis.
By telling about
them, we
can better
understand how racism
against the black
man arose.
Let's take
some examples.
The Christian Church spreads racism
One of the first sources describing in words and
pictures life and customs in Africa is a writing by Father Cavazzi,
an Italian missionary from the Capuchin, published in Bologna in 1687. In his
story, Cavazzi dishes out the prejudices and
fantasies that had long existed in Europe about the African continent and
develops them further.
Cavazzi, for example, talks in detail about Africans as
people with a good appetite for human flesh, which is illustrated by
illustrations of a cannibal scene in which Africans cut people up and prepare a
meal of the body parts.
The good Father Cavazzi
described the people of Africa constantly involved in war with many victims. He
wrote: "Humans are more like animals than one can imagine. Among these
barbarians, the dance is not the task of demonstrating a virtuoso skill in body
movements or witty foot movements, but the only purpose is to satisfy
voluptuous inclinations". One can only imagine what such a book was in a
pact in Europe of the time.
But Father Cavazzi was not
the first to propagate such views. If you want to start from the very
beginning, the main propagandists of slavery and racism were the popes at the
Vatican. As we have already told us, it was the popes who, with their great
moral authority and through papal bulls, made it a right for the white upper
classes in Europe to “attack, conquer and oppress all Muslims, gentiles and
other infidels and enemies of Christ, to take its estates and territories, to
condemn them to eternal slavery”. In addition, the popes gave to those who
participated in war and the conquest of Africa "complete forgiveness for
all their sins".
One might think that these were occasional statements
made by the 15th century. It wasn't like that! At each war and company of
conquest, the popes repeated the advance "full forgiveness of all
sins". This has marked the actions of priests, monks and soldiers for centuries.
In fact, none of the fifty-six popes from 1447 to the present, ever annulled or
distanced themselves from the popes who turned the black man in Africa into a
quarry only to murder or condemn to eternal slavery. If you want to take church
formalities seriously, these criminals papal bulls still apply today.
The actions of the popes were of great importance to
the people of Europe and their worldview. But more than this, the popes had a
bearing on the activities of priests in Africa and their views on Africans.
Anyone who wants to familiarize themselves with and study the history of Africa
will find a completely different picture of the activities of churches and
missionaries in Africa than that which the churches want to give the appearance
of today.
The priests and monks always walked hand in hand with
the conquerors and harbored the same prejudices as those against people of a
different color of skin. Among the clergy in Africa, from the early 16th
century, the general view was that "missionary should be done with the
sword and the iron bar".
Thus, in an April 1563 letter, the Jesuit priest Anchieta (canonized by Pope John Paul II) explained the
method used by his colleagues in Brazil against the Indians. The saint Anchieta wrote that "to this kind of people there is
no better missionary than the sword and the iron bar, for with this people,
more than any other, compelle eos intrare must be the
case". Anchieta quotes here the Bible, Lucas XIV
23 - compelle eos intrare - means forcing people to enter, forcing them to
repent to the Christian Church.
The Christian churches missionaries
in Africa,
by the French artist Sinés
The Jesuit priest Garcia Simões
wrote to his superior in Portugal in October 1575 that in Angola "almost
everyone has the view that the transformation of these barbarians cannot be
achieved by love, but only after they have been forcibly subjugated and made
vassals for our King."
Another Jesuit priest, Francisco de Gouveia, wrote
that "these wild barbarians cannot be converted by methods of peaceful
persuasion. Christianity in Angola must be determined by force." In
passing, it must be said that this view marked the Christian missionaries all
over the world, with the exception of those countries
where they did not gain the military upper hand.
In India, for example, the clergy used the same
methods of violence as in Africa to convert the people to Christ. The Christian
Church's religious oppression of Hindus, Buddhists and Muslims, once the
Christians gained the military upper hand in India, is an unprecedented history
of violence, oppression and racism.
The tastiest of all the good Christians, the sainted
Francisco Xavier, whose stately mausoleum is still well preserved in the Bom
Jesus Church in Goa, had its own method of converting the fisherman, which were
his favorite work area. He threatened anyone who did not join the Christian
Church to be punished by force and deprived of fishing rights and trade, to be
deprived of his livelihood.
Francisco Xavier mausoleum in the Bom Jesus Church in Goa
This view of the black people in Africa marked the
entire slave trade period and also the colonial period
after it. Racist views and the appalling treatment of black people spread and
materialized as the social structure was broken up by the slave trade and
people became increasingly defenceless.
In Congo, it had unimagined consequences. At the
beginning of the Portuguese incursion into Congo and Angola, the missionaries
and priests were paid, a very good salary, by the Mani Congo, the King of
Congo. With time and the collapse of society, Portugal forced Congo to accept
many more missionaries. At the end of the 18th century, there was no money
enough for the parasitic clergy.
But the priests didn't give up. They set up a system
where they were directly paid through the slave trade. All slave traders had to
pay a "baptismal tax" to the priests for each prisoner who was taken
aboard the slave ships. The Bishop of Luanda received a personal
"baptismal treasure" for each prisoner!
The priests thus had a vested interest in the increase
in the slave trade. The more people sold, the higher the wages for the priests!
Here we have the true picture of the Christian mission. Of course, all these
parasites in their dealings with Europe, always defended the justification in
their actions. By talking about Africans as inferior beings, they became one of
the upper classes' main assets for the dissemination of racist ideas.
So far we have talked about
the Christian Church without making any difference between Catholics and
Protestants. In fact, we have mostly referred to events related to the Catholic
part. This has been the case because it was the Portuguese Catholics who first
came to Africa and it is these first human hunters that we have focused on
describing.
In fact, the difference between the two parts of the
Christian Church in terms of racist views and the treatment of Africans by
priests and missionaries was not great.
In short, the Catholics saw the black man as an
underdeveloped man, who, for biological reasons, which they associated with the
black skin color, could not become like a "real" man, a white man.
The Protestants, for their part, believed that the
black people had no soul and that they were more like an anthropomorphic animal.
In practice, for the most part, this was of little
importance, both Catholics and Protestants treated the black man worse than
they treated their animals. But sometimes the different interests of bourgeois
society struck and the question of soul or not soul became decisive in economic
goals.
This was the case when living slaves were thrown
overboard from the slave boats (sometimes in the hundreds) in case of illness
or to relieve the battleship in distress. In the legal proceedings concerning
the insurance money for the “cargo”, the question of the existence of the soul
could be crucial.
The question was, according to the insurance contract,
much as follows. If the slaves had no soul, they were to be regarded as any
goods. If they were thrown into the sea dead or alive, the shipowner had to
stand for the loss. But if the slaves had soul, they were to be regarded as
human beings. If they died on board, their human dignity was exhausted and
there was no compensation from insurance. But if they were thrown into the sea
alive, it was people who were lost which entitled to compensation from the
insurance. The latter, of course, was murder, but still perfectly legal.
In conclusion, both Catholic and Protestant shipowners
struggled to get the court to recognize the Catholic view of the black man as a
"real" man with soul. If the court went on their line, the shipowners
got the insurance money out for the Africans they had murdered. On the other
side of the scuffle, both Catholic and Protestant insurance capitalists fought
to get the court to take a stand for the Protestant view of the black man as an
"anthropomorphic" animal without a soul so that they did not have to
pay out any insurance!
Nobody cared of the fate of the murdered Africans, neither
Catholic or Protestant shipping capitalists and insurance capitalists, nor the
very judiciary of civilized Europe! Bear in mind that this took place in
19th-century Europe! Such was the situation of the captured and enslaved Africans
who ended up in the hands of the lackeys of the European upper classes.
However, this did not prevent the clergy from blessing
the slave trade. In 1778, Protestant priest Thomas Thompson wrote a
pamphlet entitled "The African Trade for Negro Slaves Shown to be
Consistent with the Principles of Humanity and the Laws of Revealed
Religion".
Thompson was one of the first European teachers on the
Gold Coast and knew well what was going on. What his interest was, everyone can
imagine. An example of the actions of Christian Protestants in Africa in the
17th century with ramifications to the current situation may be interesting to
know.
In 1652, the Dutch East Asian Company landed a number of men on the Cape of Good Hope to form a recovery
station on the route to the Far East. They would grow vegetables and get meat
for the Dutch herds on this route. New colonists arrived all the time and the
small colony at Cape Town eventually became an expanding self-sufficient colony
of peasants. They stopped calling themselves Dutch and called themselves
instead of Boer.
The Boers were deeply religious, conservative and part
of the Dutch Protestant Church. Labor problems solved the Boers by enslaving
the African tribes bushman, Nama and others, which
they encountered during the colony's expansion. The Boers had modern armaments,
rifles and cannons and did not hesitate to use them to subdue the Africans.
This right for the Boers to enslave other peoples they had taken from the
Bible.
According to the Boer, in the Bible's story of the
Sons of Ham, all Boer had been appointed of God to have slaves as labor! The
story of Ham's sons is in Genesis, chapter 9, 18, and beyond. In short, it is
as follows. Ham, who was the son of Noah, happened to see his father drunk and
naked lying in his tent. When Noah learned this after waking up from the rush,
he punished Ham by cursing Ham's sons into becoming slaves. This story has been
used by Christians at various times in history to explain the existence of
slavery or simply to explain the existence of the human masses forced into a
life of economic misery. They are the offspring of the sons of Ham!
For those of us who do not believe in religious hocus
pocus, the story above is unacceptable. But for the Boers with their Bible
faith, it was obvious that the black people were less worthy and that they had
been placed by God in Africa to serve the white man when this one once arrived
there.
In the color symbolism of the Christian Church stood
for a long time black (and still stands) for hell, death, sinfulness, evil,
deceitfulness, dirt, decay, ugliness and so much else negative. The Boers'
attitude towards the people in the areas they had conquered with rifles and
cannons was marked by all this. They explained slavery by saying that "we
let the people work for us as a substitute for letting them live in our
country."
This attitude spread over time in South Africa, where
Europeans had power and still exist in many places today. In the mid-19th
century, the British forbade slavery in the Cape Colony and the Boers had to
change their actions against the blacks by the circumstances. They could no
longer be held as slaves, but it was possible to continue to exploit them.
The Boers of the Dutch Protestant Church campaigned to
separate white and black people. They said that if God had made black and white
people, it was to keep them separate. If God wanted all people to live in
community, everyone would have been of the same color. Boers' opinion gained
support in the white community of South Africa and eventually became one of the
grounds for dividing the country into a white and a black part, apartheid. The
black part of the country served as a large concentration camps where the black
population was a labor market to be used by the white community. Medieval
Christian fanaticism has for several hundred years had a devastating effect on
the lives of millions upon millions of people.
The devil and the female devil in Amarante
When you think you've seen most things, something new
always comes. The truth of the claim appeared to me in Amarante,
a small charming town in northern Portugal, not far from Porto. There we came
attracted by a tourist handbook that described a couple of statues of devils to
view in the city museum, the former S Gonçalo
monastery, next door to the church of the same name. Especially, was the fact
that there was a "female devil", which seemed exciting. We thought
that a female devil we had never seen, what had the Portuguese made up?
According to the tourist handbook, the statues
originated in the 18th century. The pair of devils were then placed among
saints and angels, surely to show the contrast between good and evil and
strengthen the believers in their faith. This did not turn in this way, instead
over the years these statues were very much loved for the people!
It went so far that on August 24 th
every year became a kind of holiday, a feast day for the devils. That day, no
one worked in the city, and many went to church to give offerings to ... the devils!
People decorated the devils with fabrics and flowers and gave them food and
money.
In 1870, the bishop of the region tried to put an end
to this. He was worried about the popularity of the devils, and on the pretext
that the male devil had a big penis, he ordered the to burn the statues, that's
not what you could have in the church among all the saints and angels! Now it
was not easy to find an "arsonist" among the city's inhabitants.
Those who received the assignment decided instead of sawing off the attributes
of the male devil, and the devils were back in church.
But the clergy had decided to get rid of the devils
and a few years later they sold the devils to England. They shouldn't have. The
clergy had to buy back the devils because of the pressure of opinion in the
city.
With such a background in our pocket, we couldn't help
but steer the cow towards Amarante and look at the
devils.
In front of the devil statues, we were shocked! The
statues, in black wood about 1 meter high, depict a pair of black Africans with
horns and bird feet which are the devil's hallmarks of the Catholic Church in
Portugal. The fact that the devil statues depicted black Africans could not be
read in the tourist handbook!
The appearance of the statues is worth a while. In
addition to the devil's characteristics, the Africans are distinguished in the
statues because they exude a great joy, with a big smile on their face, in
contrast to the statues of saints who always show suffering and seriousness. In
addition, the African man had a huge penis.
All this alludes to two of the racist myths that the
slave-acting upper classes spread about the black Africans. Joy alluded to the
myth of African childishness and innate underdevelopment, the penis on the myth
of the excessive sexual desires of blacks, the only thing they lived for.
The devil and the female devil in Amarante
openly show the Catholic Church as one of the propagandists of racism. But the
history of the devils also shows that it was not always so easy for the upper
classes to get the people to embrace the racist propaganda even if priests and
bishops agreed with it. In Amarante, it was the other
way around!
Professors' "scientific" racism
Enough talk about the racist clergy. Let us now
instead look at what scientists, professors and travellers
had to say about Africa and the Africans. A good way to get an idea of what
beliefs spread about Africa in the 17th and 18th centuries is to study the maps
of the continent at the time.
Europeans knew nothing about the interior of Africa
because no European had been there before the middle of the 19th century. In
addition to the coastal strip, therefore, the maps should have looked
completely shiny. But it wasn't like that.
It allowed scientists' imaginations to flow freely and
at random fill in both mountain ranges and rivers, deep forests and savannahs,
all spiced with monsters of various kinds, elephant-like beasts, deadly
creatures in the evil and uncivilized world.
In this spirit also went books and writings. One of
the first published books on Africa, which became crucial for scientific debate
and for shaping the view of the continent, was Daniel Defoe's "Captain
Singleton" published in 1720. The book, which is a novel, describes how a
group of shipwrecked ones make their way from Madagascar, all over the
continent all the way to the west coast. The group went through terrible
adventures where each page of the book competes with the previous one about the
most horrific atrocities that animal people took.
The group was saved by the language of the musket,
"the only thing these wild natives respected". From here and from
similar stories grew one of the great myths of the propaganda of slavery. The slave
traders affirmed that the Europeans were doing the black man a favour when he was sold as a slave and finally had to move
away from African barbarism.
The same theme with some variations was addressed in a number of books and brochures which circulated among the
educated class at schools and universities. A pamphlet published in Liverpool
in 1792 knows to tell us that "the Africans are the most lecherous of all
human beings and is it therefore not unlikely that their cries when they are
pulled away from their wives are due to the fear that they will never have the
opportunity to satisfy their lusts in the land to which they are
transported?"
That is how they wanted the people of Europe to
perceive the people of Africa, who were forever abducted from their families.
About a hundred years later, in 1896, the situation
was no better. Rather, the "scientific" tone grew unhindered.
Professor Keane wrote, for example, that the "spiritual inferiority of
Africans, which is almost more pronounced than their bodily characteristics,
has physiological causes".
Bear in mind that such views raised generations of
Europeans as highly proven truths. The kneeling of European intellectuals for
the demands of the upper classes went so far that there were those who were
prepared to deny their knowledge and experience in order to fit into the
general racist pattern.
The English consul, Sir Harry Johnston, wrote the
following paragraph on the Kingdom of Congo worth remembering: "The
influence of the Portuguese brought about some surprising changes in the
coastal areas of West Africa and in the southern part of the Congo basin,
whereby the kingdoms that created and stimulated trade and whose impact on
people were, on the whole, less terrible and gloomy than the anarchy of the
cannibalistic savages."
There's not a gram of truth in Johnston's claim. The
Kingdom of Congo existed long before the arrival of the Portuguese and was a
stable and prosperous society. The Portuguese transformed Congo and coastal
areas into a camp of death and slavery, a misery and human humiliation that has
persisted for several hundred years.
But Sir Harry Johnston did not content himself with
the above "scientific" declaration, he further wrote: "As far as
the great human misery in Africa is concerned, it is unlikely that the trade in
slaves between this continent and America in any way increased it; for when
this trade had started and it paid off to sell a human being, slave traders
bought many men, women and children who would otherwise have been killed by a
whim or because someone would gladly see blood flow or would offer a
deliciousness at a greater feast."
Thus, Sir Johnston campaigned for the slave trade as a
way for Europeans to counter cannibalism, the slave trade as a way for Africans
to escape being eaten by other Africans! Sir Johnston's books were among the
most important works to discuss in schools and universities. How much have
Johnston's and his likes' claims helped to nourish, empower and spread racism?
And then an inevitable question. How much did Johnston and his like put in
their pockets to falsify reality?
Another example of an intellectual low-water mark
comes with a quote from the standard British handbook in East Africa's history.
It was conceived as recently as 1928 by Coupland, a scientist in the field. In
his book, Coupland wrote: "A new chapter in African history begins with
David Livingstone. You could say that Africa so much had no history of its own.
For countless centuries, most of the Africans had been immersed in barbarism.
It almost seems that this had been a law of nature, they stagnated without
moving either forward or backward, Africa's heart had almost stopped
clapping."
Imagine that the history of Africa would have begun
with the arrival of Europeans! Such ideas, which as recently as 1929 were
vehemently "science", can only stem from a racist mindset that
completely overshadows and overrides the scientific investigation.
Denying Africans their own history is one of the worst
crimes the European upper class has done. The aim was to definitely
turn Africans into creatures deep down the scale of human dignity and
make the former slave trade and 20th century colonialism acceptable and legal.
The racist propaganda of capitalism and imperialism
does not end with the modern society in which we live. A 20th-century author
who has distinguished himself for an extensive work (over ten books) on the
heyday of British imperialism is James A. Williamson. Among other things, he
has written two books about 16th-century slave trader Sir John Hawkins, who
chose a black man in shackles as a symbol on his coat of arms.
Williamson is a big fan of Hawkins and wants to
explain his hero's involvement in the slave trade. He writes in 1949 in his
book "Hawkins of Plymouth" about Hawkins and his time. "No one
saw anything wrong in the slave trade. John Hawkins, who was afraid of his
name, was not ashamed of this, otherwise he would not have chosen the coat of
arms with the black man in shackles. He saw the bloody and capricious tyrannies
under which the blacks lived in Africa, he knew that some blacks voluntarily
went to the slave traders to escape, and he also knew that the blacks were
valuable enough in the Western colonies to be guaranteed to be treated by their
owners in a way that these poor creatures must have perceived as decent."
What a concoction of historical fakes! There is not an
ounce of truth in Williamson's description of the situation in Africa in the
16th century. But Williamson's reactionary fabrications continue to spread to
new generations, as the capitalist class sees.
The hero book about Hawkins was published in a new
edition as late as 1969 and is referenced in such a prestigious work, a
bourgeois id, as Encyclopedia Britannica.
This Encyclopedia Britannica is also a regrettable
case of lost memory. In the 1910 copies, one could read that the slave trader
Hawkins had chosen as his weapon, a coat of arms with a black man in shackles
(he was granted a coat of arms with a demi-Moor or negro chained, as his
crest). This enlightenment has fallen away in the 1995 editions of Britannica.
In today's time of freedom, the truth about the heroes
of the bourgeoisie is apparently uncomfortable, something to sweep under the
carpet, pretending it is raining.
How Portugal lost its king
As a brief parenthesis, a few words must be said about
the background to the sudden disappearance of the Portuguese royal family in
1580. The story is simple. In 1557, the throne was inherited by the
three-year-old Sebastião. The little boy was given a
very strict religious upbringing by Jesuit priests under the direction of his
great-grandfather Cardinal D.Henry,
archbishop of Lisbon and chief of the Inquisition.
King Sebastião became a
religious fanatic. He hated the idea of getting married and giving the country
an heir. Chastity was purity. Jesuit upbringing focused on this little boy,
once becoming a man, launching new crusades against the infidels in North
Africa and winning great battles for Christianity with weapons in hand.
When the boy was fourteen years old, he took over the
throne and the dream would be made a reality. His entire reign was marked by
religious activities and was to prepare a decisive crusade against the infidels
in Morocco. In 1578, the matter was clear.
King Sebastião invited all
knights and all nobility to take their place in the new crusade. Swords were
forged and boats were prepared. The king himself vouched for incredible
victories already won beforehand, and the immense riches the Crusaders would
bring home what God and the Jesuit priests had promised. So the nobility lined
up as one men, took the mistresses and butlers with them, and with the greatest
luxury and best tableware, they set off for this picturesque walk when they
would take over the land of the unfaithful by god's chosen Portuguese
Christians.
The nobility's luggage required over a thousand wagons
when they were to be carried to the boats. Butlers, kitchen staff, slaves and
prostitutes went on over thirteen thousand people. This compares to an army of
seventeen thousand men!
On the other side, anything but a walk was waiting.
There the famous Mulei Abdelmalek
commanded. The Arab army was well prepared and the
Portuguese promenade came to an abrupt end. In El-Ksar-el-Kebir, (Alcácer Quibir), the Portuguese army was completely mesmerized.
Half, about 7,000 men, were slaughtered in a matter of hours. Less than a
hundred managed to escape.
The destruction and subsequent looting were so total
that it took several days to find King Sebastião's
corpse! Few managed to buy their way free back to Portugal, almost exclusively
nobility. Most became slaves in Morocco. Religious fanaticism had led to very
hard times for the people of Portugal, they had to pay large ransoms for the
prisoners and were exploited by the Spanish kings.
Berlin conference 1884-85.
The partition of Africa among the European states
In the early years of the 19th century, public opinion and the organized movement
against the slave trade and slavery began to grow strong and gain political influence
in some countries in Europe. Growing public opinion was rooted in the fact that
the true scale and vile conditions of the slave trade began to become known to
broad stocks of people in European countries.
This mainly happened in Britain, which since the
beginning of the 18th century completely dominated the slave trade. Brave and
dedicated men and women, attacked the slave traders, revealed the whole deal
and made the slave issue part of the political struggle of the time.
In 1807, Britain finally banned the slave trade on
British ships. The British navy was ordered to seize the slave ships and free
all slaves found on British ships, which were usually brought ashore to the
English colony of Sierra Leone. The British navy also attacked other countries'
slave ships. This was an important and decisive turn in human trafficking.
The transoceanic slave trade declined significantly in
the 19th century, although smuggling traffic did not stop until the beginning
of the 20th century. The abolition of slavery, of course, went hand in hand
with the development of society. On the one hand, the activities of slavery
campaigners were an important tool for obtaining a ban on the slave trade. On
the other hand, the changes in the production process in most European
countries called for a different regime. It was mainly in the largest
imperialist country England.
The country had become an industrial society with a
need for raw materials and large markets. The triangular trade, its plantation
owners and slaves became less and less important to the new industries in
England. Kidnapping millions of people, shipping them across the Atlantic and
selling them was no longer of interest to the money magnates. The main thing
now was to bring cheap raw materials to the industries and to get cheap
products to sell all over the world.
But where were the raw materials? Answers to this
crucial question for the development of European society were not a foregone
conclusion. We now know that important raw materials were widely present in
Africa. But the question had not been given a real answer in the early 19th
century. The exploration of inner Africa began to be planned only at the end of
the 18th century.
The British African Association was founded in 1788
with the aim of finding out what the African continent looked like and
promoting Christianity and trade. Christian missionary activity also began to
take off in the early 19th century. The British Church Missionary Society began
its operations in Africa in 1804. Both Catholics and Protestants sent their
missionaries all over Africa. They began on the coasts and at the end of the
19th century there were very few places in Africa that were unknown to the
Christian missions.
The Christian missionaries were, in fact, those who
had the greatest knowledge of the interior of Africa, its people, its riches,
its raw materials. By sharing their African experiences in Europe, the
Christian missionaries gave their knowledge of the sources of raw material to
the European capitalists. Such knowledge was worth gold.
Imperialist plans for the occupation of the
territories of Africa began to be forged in every European capital in the
mid-19th century. Some European nations joined in alliance, a part in enmity.
Anything to get a piece of Africa!
The incursion into Africa began at the end of the 19th
century with the occupation of large areas by several European countries.
Everyone was eager to take the biggest and best piece, which made the risk of
war between European countries a threat to the entire imperialist enterprise.
The ruling came with King Leopold II of Belgium.
Leopold II had acquired a few trading stations on the Congo. Now he took
possession of a huge area of Central Africa as his personal property, today's Congo,
an area 75 times larger than his own kingdom of Belgium!
He called it the Congo Free State, a country free from
customs for all interested European powers. Leopold II's
occupation of the Congo Free State upset other imperialists, something must be
done to bring about some sort of order.
The German Chancellor, Bismarck, therefore convened a
conference in Berlin in 1884-85. Participants were Great Britain, France,
Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain and the Belgian King Leopold II. At the
conference, Leopold II was allowed to retain the Congo
free state as personal property, despite the fact that much more powerful
gentlemen had interest in the area.
Berlin conference 1884-85
The conference also decided on the partition of Africa
among the European states present. This was done by using rulers and providing
longitudes and latitudes, without any regard whatsoever to peoples,
nationalities or geographical circumstances. Even today, the borders of many
African countries show this 'ruler policy' from the Berlin Conference.
Furthermore, the Conference agreed that no European
state could take possession of a new country without first informing the others
and obtaining its approval. The occupation of Africa began thereby from all
sides. Large and well-armed modern armies penetrated everywhere and crushed
ruthless resistance. After four hundred years of slave trade, the social fabric
was very weak in most places and the people of Africa had little chance of
successfully defending their countries.
The slave trade was not only a huge drain on young
people, the great hope of development and the future. The slave trade also
meant that the production ratios stopped because the trade in African goods was
constantly declining, the only thing that could be used in trade was people.
Europe's upper classes now subjected the African
peoples to the most ruthless exploitation and oppression, in many places worse
than during the slave trade. The colonialists of all European nations found
themselves in this barbarity without much difficulty. Everyone, from kind
grey-haired Belgian grannies, tech-savvy English engineers, charming and
perfumed French lieutenants, German linguists with cultural ambitions,
Portuguese patriarchal peasants, to the soldiers, police, priests and
missionaries from all the countries of Europe.
Leopoldo II of Belgium and the Congo free stat
In order for the reader to be able to gain an insight into the
conditions under colonization of Africa, I would like to give a testimony here.
It is the Swedish missionary E V Sjöblom who talks
about his stay in Congo free state. It is a long quote but absolutely
necessary to account. Also pay attention to Sjöblom's
attitude.
"I continued my walk and greeted the natives kindly. As usual, I managed
to dispel their fears and at least partially gain their affection. Some of the
youth followed me, and by the time we arrived at the camp, several people had
already gathered there. More and more of the natives returned from their search
for kautschuk (the milky latex extracted from the
rubber tree, the primary source of natural rubber) in the
forest.
Soon I had a crowd of several hundred people in front
of me. Suddenly, one of the soldiers - himself a native but from another
village - caught an old man and tied him up. The soldier turned to me and said:
I intend to kill this man because he has no kautschuk
with him.
I replied: Actually, I have nothing to do with it and
have no right to stop you. But I would wish you didn't do it before my eyes and
just when a large crowd of people are gathered to hear the word of God.
He replied: If we do not kill those who come without kautschuk, then the officers of the free state will shoot
us. Rather than die ourselves, we shoot the others.
Having said this, he rushed like an angry tiger up to the old man. He dragged
him a few steps to the side, put the rifle to the man's tinning and shot him.
"Leopoldo II seized the
Congo and initiated a ruthless exploitation"
Immediately thereafter, he tucked a new cartridge into
his rifle and pointed the mouth at the assembled crowd, which of course
dissipated like chaff for the wind. Most likely he feared assault and wanted to
instill fear in the assembled. Within minutes, everything was quiet. The crowd
had escaped, and like myself, my men stood silently.
A little boy of about nine years was commanded by the
soldier to cut off the dead man's higher hand. This, together with a number of
other hands, which had previously been similarly severed, would be handed over
to the Inspector as the sign of victory of a civilization."
The background to the collection of the severed hands
is that for every cartridge the soldiers used, they must carry a right hand to
hand over to Free State officers. No cartridge was lost, all must be accounted
for. Sometimes the soldiers used shots when hunting, then they cut off the hand
of a living human being. Tens of thousands of empty casings were regularly
handed over to free-state officers along with as many right-wing hands from
killed or mutilated people.
But the murdered were still more than that. The
children, the soldiers, used to kill with the rifle school. In 1919, an
official Belgian Commission concluded that the population of Belgian Congo had
been reduced by half since the European occupation in 1884. Reduced by half in
35 years! What we're talking about is at least 10 million dead!
The soldiers who carried out the act were a force of
25,000 black mercenaries under the command of a white Belgian commanding
officer with Major General Emile Janssens as chief. Janssens demanded of the
village chiefs to send him "the worst men", who were subject to a
"strict and absolute discipline" for a period of 7 years, a brainwashing
under the name "Boula Matari,
i.e. our king, who commands over Belgium and Congo, two kingdoms forever
united".
According to Major General Janssens, the goal was to
make these men absolutely loyal to the King and
colonial power. According to him, "all means had been used to achieve
this: education, press, radio, social services, control of the G2 intelligence
service, information officers, very close and effective relations with the
state intelligence service".
During World War II, the colonial repression and
exploitation of the population of Congo, which had to pay for Belgium's war
effort, was increased. We quote Mr Goddin, who during the Second World War was the Colonial
Secretary of the Belgian Government in Exile in London.
Mr Godding said: "During
the war, Congo was able to finance all the costs to the Belgian government in
London, including the diplomatic service and the costs of our armed forces in
Europe and Africa, totaling £40 million. In fact, thanks to Congo's resources,
the Belgian government in exile in London never had to borrow a shilling or a
dollar, and the Belgian gold reserve could be kept intact."
The events in Congo are not an isolated phenomenon,
they have their counterpart in all other colonial possessions regardless of which
European country was in power. The attitude of the colonialists can be summed
up by the statement by the German general von Trotha
on the subjugation of the Herero and Nama peoples of South-West Africa, which
von Trotha carried out on behalf of the German
financier Lüderitz.
Von Trotha wrote about the
war of extermination against herero and nama: "I know these African tribes. They're all the
same. They respect nothing but strength. To show this strength with brutal
terror and even cruelty was and is my policy. I annihilate rebellious tribes
with streams of blood and streams of money. Only in this way can something new
grow up, something that is lasting."
After five hundred years!
In 1441, the first Europeans arrived by boat to the sub-Saharan
African continent. Since then, the African continent has been subjected to
changes that its people have been unable to determine or master. The Pendens, a
people originally from the Angolan coast, were forced in the 16th century to
flee the Portuguese to the hinterland of the Kasai River, having preserved in
their narrative tradition the memory of the Portuguese conquest. "From
these days to our days, the whites have only given us war and misery." A
simple and fair verdict on the European exploitation of Africa.
But circumstances have changed radically. After five
hundred years of exploitation and oppression, the time has come for Africans to
take up a decisive battle to rule their continent! The world capitalists do not
want to lose their grip on Africa and do everything in their power to prevent
this social development. But the winds of change are strong.
Africa's struggle for emancipation against colonialism
and neo-colonialism can no longer be stopped.
Mario Sousa
mario.sousa@telia.com
Bibliography
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Africa in History, 1968
Angola’s People, 1972
The Politics of Armed Struggle, 1976
Can Africa Survive? 1974
Charles R. Boxer
The Portuguese Seaborne Empire 1415-1825, 1969
Race Relations in the Portuguese Colonial Empire
1415-1825
Walter Rodney
West Africa and the Atlantic Slave-Trade, 1967
How Europe Underdeveloped África,
1972
José Capela
Escravatura. Conceitos. A Empresa de Saque, 1978
Imposto de Palhota, 1977
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Pierre Mulele ou la second vie de Patrice Lumumba, 1985
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Crónica da Guiné, 1453
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