What Attempts Did the Africans Make to Stop the Slave Trade?

Slaves were important contributors to the economy of the southern United States and the Caribbean.

The African slave trade is one of the ugliest marks on the history of the Western world. As recently as the 19th century, ships were loading up Africans and sending them across the Atlantic Ocean to serve as slave laborers in the United States and in other countries. Although the West eventually stopped the harvesting of Africa for slave laborers, limited education and resources prevented the peoples of the continent from better protecting themselves and combating the slave trade.

Prior to the Slave Trade

Slavery was a common practice in Africa for centuries before Europeans and North Americans began looting the continent of its people. Continual wars, conflicts and changes in territories among African tribes led to some tribes taking over others, putting able bodies to work and killing the rest. Europeans and North Americans changed these dynamics when they arrived and began targeting all Africans, regardless of their tribe or societal standing, to be loaded onto ships and sent around the world to serve as slaves.

Dealing With Europeans

Coastal Africans were able to become wealthy on the slave trade, rather than being subjected to it. As Europeans sailed to Africa in search of slave laborers, coastal Africans asserted their value to Europeans by offering their services to go into the continent, away from the coast, and harvest existing African tribes for slave laborers. Although Europeans tried to do this themselves, they were unaccustomed to the landscape and climate, and coastal Africans proved better at providing this service. This led to a strong relationship between coastal Africans and Europeans, and it allowed some Africans to become rich by recruiting other Africans to be sent overseas as slaves.

African Knowledge of the Slave Trade

Those who were not directly involved with the slave trade in Africa did not have much knowledge of what was happening. They did not understand what happened when other Africans were loaded onto ships and sent away; however, it was clear to natives that the slave trade was a threat to their lives. According to the University of Vermont, different theories abounded: Some believed that the captive Africans were sent away to be eaten by their captors. Even when the process and the destination of the seized Africans were explained by the slave traders, some Africans still did not believe it. But others who were aware of the threat of the slave trade made some efforts to combat it and protect themselves and other Africans.

Mutinies and Attacks

Several efforts were made by Africans, both in Africa and overseas as slaves, to resist and stop the slave trade. According to the National Maritime Museum, Africans sometimes attacked slave ships in an effort to liberate captive Africans -- one such example is the 1740 attack on the slave ship "Jolly Bachelor" in the Sierra Leone River in Africa. A similar, successful uprising occurred at sea 13 years later off the coast of West Africa, when slaves took over the slave ship "The Adventure." The slave ship "Meermin" was overtaken by slaves and run aground on the coast of South Africa in 1766, but the 147 slaves who escaped were later recaptured, according to an August 24, 2005 article in "The New York Times."

Domestic Resistance

Africans enslaved and working in overseas countries still find ways to oppose the slave trade and resist slavery. According to Digital History at the University of Houston, slaves often faked illness, sabotaged their owners' property, and deliberately broke tools to resist their masters. Some would run away even if they knew they would eventually be recaptured and returned to their owners. Others attempted to run away permanently, either through slave transport systems like the Underground Railroad or by running away to form isolated communities in rural, hard-to-access locations in North America. According to Digital History, some of these communities resisted capture for decades. Although violent revolts did occur, they were much less common than more passive approaches -- particularly in the United States, where Africans were greatly outnumbered by whites.

References

• University of Vermont; Slavery: Africa, Europe and Jamaica; Melissa B. McLean
• Oregon Public Broadcasting: The Atlantic Slave Trade
• New York Public Library: The Abolition of The Slave Trade
• The New York Times; Tracing a Mutiny by Slaves Off South Africa in 1766; Sharon LaFraniere; Aug. 2005
• National Maritime Museum: Resistance to Oppression
• Digital History: Slave Resistance and Revolts