Unit 1: Africa and America

Chapter 1

Working with Primary Sources: Africa to America

Assignment 1: Worth 5%, due in tutorial 17, 18 or 19 September 2002.

In the 1620s, a British company sent one of its officers to report on commercial possibilities in West Africa. He reported that a local African chief offered to sell him slaves. "I made answer, We were a people, who did not deale in any such commodities, neither did wee buy or sell one another, or any that had our own shape." ŬIf only. Although most west European nations had abandoned the ancient practice of slavery by 1500, by the time this officer reported, they were actively involved in buying and selling slaves "of our own shape". Between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, Europeans would transport an estimated 9-10 million African slaves to the New World. Indeed, prior to 1800, at least two African slaves crossed the Atlantic for every European who made the journey. For unlike previous systems of slavery, new world slavery rested on "race". Most of those enslaved were black Africans.

A relatively small proportion of these African slaves, some 400,000, ended up in the British and French mainland colonies that became the United States. Nevertheless, slavery proved crucial to the development of the mainland North American colonies, and tied the colonies to the larger Atlantic world. ŬAll colonies in the Americas, whatever the proportion of slaves, benefitted from the sophisticated transatlantic trade associated with the tropical plantation system. The creation of slave labour systems in the Americas made possible, and some scholars would argue was necessary to the first phase of European expansion and the rise of capitalism. Slave labour systems emerged at the same time as Americans and other Europeans were formulating and finding attractive liberal ideas of individual freedom and natural rights. As one of the first nations "conceived in liberty", the United States continued to depend on and benefit from the denial of liberty in the new world. ŬThe new nation eventually would be torn apart in the nineteenth century over the place and future of slavery in the nation. For all of these reasons, historians and other scholars have been intrigued by slavery in America.

In recent decades, many historians have tried to think about history from "the bottom up".ŬThey have tried to understand the human experience from the perspective of those who were ruled, and not just of those who ruled, or in the case of slavery, from the perspective of those who were enslaved, not just those who bought, sold and used slaves. ŬIn the case of slavery, this also has meant thinking about African slaves as migrants, who brought their own cultural traditions to the Americas. All of this is easier said than done, since many of the sources left for historians to examine were produced by the Euro-American rulers and slaveholders, not the slaves themselves.

In this chapter, you will be introduced to a sample of the varied types of evidence upon which historians rely to recreate the experience of slavery "from the bottom up". You will be working with what historians call primary sources. A primary source is a document or record that has been produced by someone contemporary, as a participant or observer, to the events or period under consideration. This chapter includes five different types of primary source, offering different perspectives on slavery:

1. the published memoir of an African slave, Olaudah Equiano. Not surprisingly, such a perspective is quite rare.
2. the captain's log of a Rhode Island slave ship.
3. run-away slave advertisements, published in South Carolina and George newspapers.
4. the diary of a Virginia slaveholder. The selections focus on his observations and comments upon two of his slaves.
5. five tables of statistics. While the tables are the work of modern historians, they are based upon a database constructed out of primary sources. The database, available to researchers on CD-ROM, puts together a vast array of statistics maintained by slave ships or collected by various ports and countries. Computer technology has enabled historians and students to organize and access primary information that previously would have been impossible to deal with. (We have provided some maps of the slave trade to assist in understanding the table.)

Assignment 1: A Slave to Numbers?

Assignment 1: Worth 5%, due in tutorial 17, 18 or 19 September 2002.

The last of these sources, the five tables of statistics, provide the focus for your first assignment. Many people, including historians, find statistical evidence impressive, because of the air of precision and concreteness that numbers provide. At the same time, many people, including historians, suspect that "you can prove anything by figures". Many of the same people, including historians, are daunted by numbers, and skip over statistical evidence. In order not to become a slave to numbers, however, we must make the effort to understand them.

In this assignment, you are asked to translate the following statistical tables into plain language. Explain, in a series of complete sentences, the main conclusions you think the following statistical tables and graphs support. You do not need to provide precise numbers or manipulate the numbers using sophisticated formulas; we are interested in the general conclusions you think the raw numbers support. You must provide at least one and no more than three conclusions for each of the tables. ŬEach of your conclusions should be no more than two sentences. This is an exercise in thinking about numbers, but it is also a writing exercise. We are testing your ability to construct clear and correct sentences, as well as your ability to interpret and think creatively about numbers. Try to make the best use of the tables. Do not just focus on one small fact that you can derive from the table. You do not need to explain all of your conclusions. For example, (and this might be considered a "one small fact" example), you might conclude from looking at Table 1: "No slaves arrived in St. Domingue after 1800," without stating why this might be so.

The entire assignment should be no less than 5 and no more than 30 complete sentences. (Minimum 1 conclusion x 1 sentence x 5 tables) more than (maximum 3 conclusions x 2 sentences x 5 tables). You do not need a separate title page for this assignment, but ensure a title, your name, student number and tutorial is written on the top of the page.

Example of format for assignment:

Table 1

1. Your first conclusion written in one or two complete sentences.

2. Your second conclusion written in one or two complete sentences.

3. Your third conclusion written in one or two complete sentences.

Table 2

1. Your first conclusion written in one or two complete sentences.

2. Your second conclusion written in one or two complete sentences.

3. Your third conclusion written in one or two complete sentences.

etc. (conclusion based on Tables 2, 3, 4).

Document Summary

1. Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of The Life of Olaudah Equiano , or Gustavus Vassa, The African. Written by Himself. Volume 1. (1789). Documenting the American South, (University of North Carolina, 30 November 2001 (1 June 2002).

Excerpts from the first volume of a a memoir written by an African. He was a slave for about ten years before he was able to buy his freedom. By 1793 he was living in England, where he worked on the campaign to abolish the slave trade. This web version of the text indicates the original page numbering, which I have dropped.

2. "Journal of the Ship Mary, 1795-96", in Elizabeth Donnan, Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave Trade to America, Volume III (New York: Octagon Books, 1969), 366-77.

3. Lathan Windley, ed., Runaway Slave Advertisements: A Documentary History from the 1730s to 1790, Volumes 3 and 4. (Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1983),

I have dropped the final section of each advertisement, which was usually a sentence or two indicating who to contact if the runaway slave was found and what reward was being offered.

4. Jack P. Greene, ed., The Diary of Colonel Landon Carter of Sabine Hall, 1752-1778, Volume 1 and 2 (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1965).

Landon Carter was not a typical Virginia slaveholder. At the time of his death in 1778, he left an estate of nearly 50,000 acres of land and around 400 slaves, scattered through nine different counties in Virginia. ŬI have selected entries concerning , Toney, a carpenter, and George, a foreman of the team working one of Carter's farms.

5. Statistics on the Slave Trade from variety of historians using a new CD-ROM project, which collects the shipping records of all known slave ships:

• "Table 1, Volume of Transatlantic Slave Arrivals by Region of Arrival (in Thousands)", derived from David Eltis, "The Volume and Structure of the Transatlantic Slave Trade: A Reassessment", William and Mary Quarterly [hereafter WMQ], 58 (2001): 17-46.
• "Table 2, Volume of Transatlantic Slave Arrivals in British and French Mainland, 1601-1867", derived from Eltis, "Transatlantic Slave Trade".
• "Table 3, Coastal Region of Departure of African Slaves Arriving in the Chesapeake Colonies (Virginia and Maryland), 1689-1774 (Percentages)" derived from Lorena S. Walsh, "The Chesapeake Slave Trade", WMQ, 58 (2001): 139-70, Table 1.
• "Table 4, Mean Average Percentage Lost During Ocean Voyage of Slaves by Region of Departure, 1597-1864, and Percentage Lost on Selected Non-Slave Ocean Voyages", derived from Herbert S. Klein, Stanley L. Engerman, Robin Haines and Ralph Shlomowitz, "Transoceanic Mortality", WMQ, 58 (2001): 93-117, Tables III, VI(a).
• "Table 5, Violent Slave Resistance During the Ocean Voyage, Percentage of Voyages, by Coastal Origins and by Years, 1651-1867", derived from David Richardson, "Shipboard Revolts, African Authority and the Atlantic Slave Trade", WMQ, 58 (2001): 69-92, Tables 1 and 2.

6. "Map 1, The Atlantic slave trade, slave exporting regions and maritime routes" and "Map 2, Abolition of the slave trade and the emancipation of slaves", in David Turley, Slavery (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), x-xi.