Slavery in Africa - Transformations of Slavery in Africa

Transformations of Slavery in Africa

Slave relationships in Africa have been transformed through three large scale processes: the Arab slave trade, the Atlantic slave trade, and the slave emancipation policies and movements in the 20th century. Each of these processes significantly changed the forms, level, and economics of slavery in Africa.

Slave practices in Africa were used during different periods to justify specific forms of European engagement with the peoples of Africa. Eighteenth century writers in Europe claimed that slavery in Africa was quite brutal in order to justify the Atlantic slave trade. Later writers used similar arguments to justify intervention and eventual colonization by European powers to end slavery in Africa.

Africans knew of the harsh slavery that awaited slaves in the New World. Many elite Africans visited Europe on slave ships following the prevailing winds through the New World. One example of this occurred when Antonio Manuel, Kongo’s ambassador to the Vatican, went to Europe in 1604, stopping first in Bahia, Brazil, where he arranged to free a countryman who had been wrongfully enslaved. African monarchs also sent their children along these same slave routes to be educated in Europe, and thousands of former slaves eventually returned to settle Liberia and Sierra Leone.