UCSB Hist 2c, L 2: Slavery, Antislavery, & Causality
by H. Marcuse, Apr. 3, 2003
(see 2006 lecture notes)

• Brief History: Slavery & Slave Trade
• The Triangle Trade
• Film clips: "A Son of Africa," "Amistad"
• The Antislavery Movement
• Causes of Abolition

• When did slavery originate?
  How did it develop?
  When did it end?
• When did the movement to end it originate?
  What were some major milestones along the way?

• Existed since recorded history;
  urban tasks in ancient Egypt (pyramids)
• Types:
  Domestic vs. productive slavery
  Slavery as status vs. chattel slavery
• Timeline Europe/Africa:
• ancient Rome had slaves
• Portuguese in 1441
• Spanish: 1505/19 to work in agriculture & mines
• British colonies: 1619 to Jamestown settlement
  (tobacco; plantation system)

• 1700-1800: the worst slave trade century
• 1519-1890s: 9,300,000 [8.5-11.3 mio] total
• 1700-1800: 6+ mio.=2/3 of total
• 50,000-90,000 per year [see Equiano, 197ff]
  In 1780s & 90s: 50% in British ships
• Why? -> Triangle Trade

Just some made-up numbers

• English bank: £100 for guns; £900 for trip
• African coast: 100 slaves for 100 guns
• Caribbean: 85 slaves @ £120= £10,000
  purchase sugar for resale 100% mark-up
• England: £20,000 -> £19,000 profit (1800%)

• The Middle Passage
• Film Clips (15 mins.)
• "A Son of Africa: The Slave Narrative of Olaudah Equiano"
  (BBC, 1996), 5:30-11:00 [UCSB: HT869.E6S66]
• "Amistad" (1997), about 1839 revolt and trial (1:18:00-1:25:30)
• story of Sengbe Pieh (Cinque): Jan. 1842 testimony
• 1844: returned to Africa, village destroyed by war
  [a note about facticity of the movie; Baltimore Sun, Dec. 30, 1997, at archive.org](Mystic seaport Amistad site)
• Slaveship Zong: Sept. 1781: massacre, 1783 trial

• "Slavers throwing overboard the Dead and Dying - Typhon coming on" (The Slave Ship), 1840, 3ft x 4ft, Boston Museum of Fine Arts

• 1812 poem, written by Turner:
  Aloft all hands, strike the top-masts and belay;
  you angry setting sun and fierce-edged clouds
  Declare the Typhoon's coming.
  Before it sweeps your decks, throw overboard
  The dead and dying ne'er heed their chains
  Hope, Hope, Fallacious Hope!
  Where is thy market now? [note economic argument!]

• Slave revolts from the beginning
• 1569 England, Cartwright decision:
  "England was too pure an air for slaves to breathe in"
• 1701 Boston: "The Selling of Joseph"
• 1743 John Wesley (1703-1791)(Methodist/dissenter)
  Pamphlet "Thoughts upon Slavery" (1774) excerpt
• 1769 Granville Sharp (1735-1813):
  "The Injustice and Dangerous Tendency of Tolerating Slavery in England"
  1789 founding of Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade
• 1772 Somersett case. Slave James Somersett, bought in Virginia, attempted to run away in London. Decision: an escaping slave could not be forcibly removed from England for punishment in a colony.

The top image is the actual model; the second image was taken from a book by Clarkson.

• Resistance of slaves: human agency
• 1807: British and US abolish slave trade
• Moral reasons: put forward by Wesley, Clarkson, etc.
• Thomas Clarkson (1760-1846), 1808: History of the Rise, Progress & Accomplishment of the Abolition of the Slave Trade
• Economic reasons:
• Adam Smith, 1776: "The experience of all ages and nations … demonstrates that the work done by slaves, though it appears to cost only their maintenance, is in the end the dearest of any."
  Marcuse's argument: this is patently untrue.

• Clarkson, 1788: Essay on the Impolicy of the African Slave Trade excerpt
• John E. Cairnes, 1862: The Slave Power: Its Character, Career and Probable Designs; being an attempt to explain the real issues involved in the American contest
  Read and highly admired by Karl Marx
• Eric Williams, 1944: Capitalism and Slavery

discussion of how these factors relate to each other; which one is primary?