UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINES DILIMAN

MEDITATIONS ON SUFFERING:
THE ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE OF THE
LATE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

SUBMITTED AS A REQUIREMENT FOR THE COURSE

HISTORY OF LATIN AMERICA I

BY
RUFUS REY C. MONTECALVO

DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY
PROF. DIGNA APILADO

U.P. DILIMAN, QUEZON CITY

OCTOBER 2010
Introduction

During the late seventeenth and up to the whole of the eighteenth centuries, the Atlantic Slave
Trade became more established. African peoples were uprooted from their homes and brought by ship
through horrible conditions to the New World - in Spanish America, the Portuguese colony of Brazil,
and the Caribbean Islands of the French and the British, where they labored in the sugarcane
plantations until the end of their days. This paper will be a meditation on this event, a way of making
sense of the massive human suffering that this pursuit of profit has caused. It will look at the process of
slave-making, the systems of belief that justified and condemned slavery in European eyes. Lastly, it
will look at the perspective of the uprooted Africans, with their efforts of resistance, both active and
passive which involved their old beliefs and gods carried over from across the Atlantic.

I. The Meaning of The Atlantic Slave Trade

A slave is someone who is "wholly subject to the will of another, one who has no freedom of
action and whose person and services are wholly under the control of another and is in a state of
compulsory service to another."1 Another definition, albeit a more sociological one says that the
condition of slavery means the "denial of all biological freedom" of the organism except that which is
allowed by the master of that organism. 2 It further says that the slave is deprived of things from the
general culture that he otherwise would have access to, that a slave is less defined as a human being but
more of a commodity, and that he or she does not enjoy the protection of the law. A slave basically is a
human being, grudgingly admitted so by the masters, whose will does not matter at all, and whose body
is literally owned by the master. The slave can be sold and bought, the products of his labor are not
given to him. More often he is merely given enough in order to live for another day and continue the
same work until the day he dies. A slave is pulled out from the traditional systems of kinship - the
family, the tribe, the clan, the village and is forcibly transported into a new situation more abject than
the one he experienced before, or will experience had he been left alone in his original state.

The act of definition is a political event, as it marks the parameters of the discussion. It gives the
boundaries to the discourse and considers anything outside the definition as marginal or of little import
to the main discussion. Such is the issue with the definition of the African event. Descriptions by the
historians of this event include: "The Middle Passage", "The Atlantic Slave Trade," even the
"Triangular Trade."In these phrases we see bloodlessness, how it covers up the entire history of human
suffering of the kidnapped Africans, as if the whole event could be explained by the description of its
shape. What was being emphasized in these terms are the systems - cold, remote and abstract. What is
necessary is a description that is accurate and human. We need to see the blood, hear the screams and
agonies, we need to smell slavery, for the slavery of the Africans due to the slave trade was a crime
against humanity and had lasting consequences which is still highly felt in the world today.

In calling the forced slavery of millions of Africans the 'slave trade,' there is the tacit assumption
that what happened was merely a business transaction, that in otherwise better conditions, the
sufferings would not have happened. It says therefore that the well-documented oppression of the
enslaved Africans are merely business transactions gone bad. There is currently a movement among
African academics to call the enforced movements of the African peoples towards the colonial
plantations a 'holocaust.' In the term 'slave trade' the ingredient of intentionality is lost, they say.
1 Charles Greenidge. Slavery (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1958), 21.
2 ibid.1

1
Whereas in the term 'holocaust' or even 'genocide' there is revealed the intentionality of the Europeans
who engaged in the Atlantic slave trade. The Swahili word for holocaust is maagamizi. A more popular
term that is used is maafa. Though between the two, Karenga states, maagamizi is more apt because
maafa merely means "calamity, bad luck, or disaster," which to be more specific and accurate, the
African slave trade clearly was not.3

The Atlantic Slave Trade took off during the late seventeenth centuries up until and during the
whole eighteenth century. In Europe, this period coincided with the intellectual movement known as
'the Enlightenment' when liberal ideas and the promotion of the use of reason against the backward
superstitions and unfounded beliefs of the past period became much more accepted in society. The
Portuguese, the English and the French were the most involved in the African slave trade during this
period, especially the latter two because of their acquisition of several islands in the Caribbean which
collectively became known as 'the sugar islands.' Spain's involvement in the slave trade was marginally
small, even from the beginning, and between the two Iberian powers, Portugal has the 'dirtier'' hand.
The role of Portugal in the history of African slavery was very crucial, as it was them who first used
African labor in a plantation system. The Portuguese were the ones who introduced the factor of
African slave labor in the plantation system and what the other Europeans did was a refinement of the
whole system, making it much more efficient and productive through the centuries - from the method
of capturing the slaves, to the development of more effective processes in the extraction of sugarcane
juice.

The irony of the situation of the slave trade was explored by David Brion Davis in his 'The
Problem of Slavery in Western Culture.' The French philosophes were aware of this discrepancy
between the avowed ideology and the actual events on the ground. The philosophes of France, early on
were vocal advocates of the abolition of slavery. There were enacted a series of laws in the late
seventeenth century which were collectively known as the New Code that outlined the proper treatment
by plantation owners of their slaves in the French territorial possessions in the Caribbean. However,
like the various legislations by the Europeans, such as the institution of the Protector of the Indians in
the Spanish colonies, there was the problem of enforcement and it is safe to say that these had little
impact to the treatment of the slaves. Any calls for equality coming from the Europeans therefore
should be seen within the light of slavery, as it is rather hypocritical to regard one's self a champion of
bringing civilization to other cultures all the while engaging in the dehumanization of millions upon
million of Africans.

Slavery, as it manifested in the sugar plantations of Brazil and the Caribbean, is the enslavement
of the African peoples that were kidnapped from their homes. Basically it was a dehumanization, the
reduction of a human being into something that is lesser than a human being, the stripping of man of
his culture and dignity, almost to the level of basic existence and animality. The African slave trade in
Karenga's words was "the morally monstrous destruction of human life, human culture and human
possibility."4 What this means therefore with regards to Western culture, was that the support of this
institution was a litmus test, a proving-ground for the universal principles of justice and equality that
the Europeans at that time claimed to possess and promote.

Beyond all of this, the institution of the Atlantic Slave Trade which lasted for centuries and
3 Maulana Karena, "The Ethics of Reparations: Engaging the Holocaust of Enslavement."
(http://www.africawithin.com/karenga/ethics.htm) [accessed October 2010].
4 ibid.

2
involved the lives of millions of Africans, raises important questions about what it means to be human.
This is a fundamental philosophical question and we need to see the situation unhampered, using our
own eyes and understanding, and for this we look at the question of suffering. This view then will tend
to be more on the psychological side. The issues of anger and tones of indignation caused by the
injustice constantly surfaces in some of the writings on this matter that we read nowadays, as if the
collective memory of the oppressed peoples of Africa during that period of their history, has suddenly
taken consciousness. The use of African slave labor was important to the development of the European
powers of their economies which led to the rise of mass-production capitalism, which was the
privileging of the profit motive above all else. The individual we argue must not be seen merely as
commodity, or any part of him for that matter, including his labor as well. This basically then will be a
question also of business and ethics. We see that the corporations have become the most efficient
means of channeling human greed, pursuing gains to the detriment of everything else, something that is
still sadly manifest today. One of the early functions of the corporation was as an enterprise to capture
slaves in Africa and ship them to the New World.

Meaning goes beyond mere definition but also involves the search for purpose, essence or coherence.
Of what purpose was the Atlantic Slave Trade, the maagamizi? How are we to make sense of human
suffering of such magnitude? It would be really easy to fall into a state of condemnation, however this
is highly unfruitful and what is needed is an understanding of the event so that we would identify the
root of it, to keep our perspective and not to fall into hysterics, to search for further improvements and
to somehow make an effort that this would not be repeated once more.

II. The Gates of Mercy

Spanish involvement in the whole slave trade was minimal even from the start. The two areas in
Spanish America were there was a great concentration of African slaves were in Mexico and Peru. In
both these places, the condition of the slaves were relatively better and this can be attributed to several
factors. The first is that of the role of the Catholic Church. During the early period of Spanish
colonization, the treatment by the Spanish conquistadores of the native inhabitants was severely
criticized by Bartolome de las Casas, a friar and former slaveowner himself who changed his views and
became an advocate for the better treatment of the Indians. His 'A Brief Account of the Destruction of
the Indies' remains a most interesting document in that it shows in highly indignant and dramatic prose
the cruelties inflicted upon the natives. It is easy to see how this document could be used by the anti-
Spanish countries of Europe at that time. The conscience of the Spanish monarchs were hounded by de
las Casas until reforms were made, at least legislatively. Ironically enough, it was de las Casas himself
who was partly responsible for the start of the use of African slave labor in the Spanish colonies, as
seeing the sufferings of the Indians, he came to the conclusion that it would be better if African labor
were used instead. He came to deeply regret this recommendation later.

The Catholic Church served a humanitarian purpose during this period in Spanish and
Portuguese America, as the Jesuits, widely-regarded as the more liberal group within the Catholic
Church, continually called for better treatment of the Indians and the slaves. There was established
therefore a "Las Casian" tradition within the clergy that went to the New World which consisted of the
preaching of the gospel and a focus on the more humanitarian side of Christianity. 5 This was due to the
popularity of the ideas of de las Casas in the ancient university town of Salamanca where the future
5 The First Bishop of the Philippines, Fr. Domingo de Salazar, O.P., was inspired by the efforts of de las Casas and he was
a most vocal advocate for the better treatment by the Spaniards of the native inhabitants of the Philippines.

3
friars to be sent to the New World were prepared and trained. There was therefore an institutional
structure within the Catholic Church to support this liberal or humanitarian point of view, and from the
Indians the treatment of African slaves would naturally be considered next.

A major reason for the beginning of the importation of African slaves were the diseases that the
Europeans brought with them into the New World. When these diseases came into contact with the
native population, it reached epidemic proportions. The early plantations and farms were worked by the
Indians, however by the middle of the sixteenth century until the end of that century, blacks slowly
replaced the Indians in these fields. Compared to the Indians, the Africans did not have the
vulnerability to the European diseases as Europeans and Africans both are from the same zones of
diseases. They therefore had immunity. Beyond the cruelties by the Spaniards inflicted on the
population as recorded by de las Casas, this was a heavier reason for the importation of African labor.

Another reason for the relatively better condition of Africans in Spanish America is that over
several generations, they were able to establish themselves in niche jobs or professions. In Peru for
example, with the discovery of the gold mines, came the increase for demand in slave labor to work in
the mines. From the coasts, there was a movement of population to the interior where the mines were
located. In order to consolidate their whole territory, the government of the colony relied on the African
slaves to man the transportation system - the boats, the mules, etc. The African slaves over time became
blacksmiths and even more importantly, goldsmiths, which were crucial in the underground smelting of
gold. These activities of the slaves were also found in Brazil. However, the plantation system for sugar
became an established institution which employed the most slave labor at the period in there before the
ascendancy of the French and the British in the middle to late eighteenth centuries.

Whether they were treated better or not, whether they rose into the social ranks or not, all the
slaves that were not creoles or born in the New World, had to pass through what was called the 'Middle
Passage.' This was the most infamous of the passages in the Triangular Trade, as this was the forced
movement of Africans via slave ships from West Africa to the European colonies in the New World. As
already mentioned, the trade in slavery really took off during the late seventeenth century up to and
through the whole eighteenth century. This passage typically took around two months and over time
became shorter and shorter through improvements in navigation. The number of Africans that were
taken from Africa over the whole transatlantic slave trade was estimated to be around ten to fifteen
million peoples, not counting those who died along the way and the number of Africans who died
through maltreatment and various injuries in the colonial plantations in the Anglo-French Caribbean,
and Portuguese and Spanish America.6 The figure of the slavers' ship was iconic not just visually but
also in the olfactory sense - other merchant ships on the Atlantic tend to keep windward of slave ships
since salt breeze carries the stench for several miles. While inside the slave ship, the Africans would try
to jump off the ship in order to kill themselves. One captain of a slave ship have met with this problem
so many times that in order to dissuade the captured Africans from jumping, he tied an African woman
on a rope and then slowly lowered her onto the water. He then ordered the body to be raised up, the
lower half already missing, having been eaten by the sharks. But these attempts at self-destruction
among the captured continued.

The captured African slaves were packed below deck in special compartments with little to no
room for movement. Extreme despair as well as the intolerable conditions inside the slave ship drove

6 Herbert S. Klein, African Slavery in Latin America and the Caribbean (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 21.

4
some of the captured Africans insane. An account by a former slaver during that time tells us that the
stench was so terrible that he had to bite a piece of camphor between his teeth whenever he has to go
down in order to check the conditions of the slaves. The air was so thick due to terrible air circulation,
that slavers some times would have difficulty checking the slaves because their candles would not light.
Suicides were common among the captured slaves, and one of the methods by which this was
accomplished was through deliberately starving one's self. In order to remedy this, the slavers
developed several tools made of metal that would be used to pry the mouth forcing the slave to ingest
the food. The physical condition of the specimen being important for market value, the slavers would
force the slaves to go up to the deck and sing and dance. Diseases spread quickly within the ship, the
most common being dysentery, which affected the captured slaves as well as the crew men of the ship.

In a debate between the pro and anti-slavery factions within England in the late eighteenth
century, one of the reasons given by the pro-slavery wing was that in ending the trade in slaves, "the
gates of mercy" would be shut off from the Africans. The slave trade therefore was given a moralistic
hue, something that even at that time required much twisting of the truth and a disregard of the actual
experiences of the trade, since centuries before, there were already strong arguments by friars such as
de las Casas against the institution. That the Africans would be left to their own devices, to their own
villages in their own continent, to be subjected to the unmolested continuation of their unique histories,
this was something that the Europeans, at least those who were for the continuation of the slave trade
did not want to happen. They believed that the Africans would be better off in the new world, because
here they will be subjected to the guidance of the Christian world, whereas left to themselves in the
African continent, they would continue sinful lives unaware of the blessings of Christianity and
civilization. But more than this supposed display of Christian kindness, what really motivated the trade
in slaves was the profit to be acquired from the labor of the slaves in the plantations. Thus, the 'gates of
mercy' remained open.

The Europeans who engaged in the slave trade were largely ignorant of African society and
culture. As far as differentiation between African tribes was concerned, this was only done due to the
idea that there are captured slaves that would be difficult to handle during the route back to the New
World. Another differentiation was between the tribes who cooperated with the Europeans and those
who did not. This gave rise to the slaving kingdoms of Africa who deliberately started conflicts with its
neighbors in order to acquire slaves. The Europeans traded guns and ammunitions, as well as brandy
and other goods to these tribes, which in turn were used by these tribes to subjugate their neighbors as
the preferred item for trade by the Europeans from Africa were slaves. This disrupted African society
severely as the legal systems were manipulated so that crimes which were punishable by other means
had slavery instead as punishment. Within Africa itself, those cultures which developed iron tools and
blacksmithing technology already had an advantage over those that did not have such capacity. The
ability to use metal was thus important for a powerful kingdom. What slavery there was within these
kingdoms and in African society in general was of a different sort to the kind of slavery that would
arise in the colonial plantations in the Sugar Islands. The differences in the economic practices between
Europe and Africa should be highlighted. Whereas land is the wealth-generating property that became
common in Europe (to be more accurate we should say the economic benefits arising from the use of
the land), in Africa labor from slaves became the preferred method of income-generating property. This
is crucial in discussing this issue since there are those who argue that there was already slavery within
Africa itself, that there were Islamized kingdoms who engaged in this trade long before the arrival of
the Europeans so we should not blame so much the Europeans, as Africans were enslaving Africans
long before they came into the scene. Looking at the pre-Atlantic Slave Trade we see that the slaves

5
within Africa received treatments which varied being from domestic servants who were almost part of
the family, to the other extreme of being sacrificial victims during religious ceremonies. There was no
organized or established massive use of slave labor for a particular economic activity such as that
happened in the sugar islands. Slavery in Africa was common but it was not as harsh as that of the
colonial plantations in the New World.

III. Sweet Source of Misery

At the very beginning of the slave trade, the Europeans themselves, particularly the Portuguese
engaged in the kidnappings of the Africans. This was particularly brutal, judging by the recorded orders
by a Portuguese captain to his troops: "... if we can't take the young men prisoner, let's go for the old
men, the women and the small children. Be sure that anyone who tries to defend himself is killed
without mercy."7 Over time direct involvement by Europeans became more impractical due to
increased demand. Also, the early raids were mostly done along the coasts as there was reluctance in
entering the heartland or inner regions for fear of strong resistance. There arose the need to setup a
system by which the European demand for slaves would be met. As already mentioned, this was done
informally through trade. African tribes would get military equipment as well as metal which is highly
valued for use as tools, in return for slaves. The cycle would continue and expand until slavery affected
not just the economic but also the legal and socio-cultural landscape of Africa. In the legal aspect,
traditional legal structures were subverted and slavery became a common punishment as this would
lead to increased goods coming in from the Europeans. In the socio-cultural landscape, we begin to see
artifacts such as metal statues which shows European men, wearing armor and carrying a musket.
Firearms were also incorporated into African artworks. Also, whereas before slavery was an effect of
wars, wars were now being waged in order to enslave populations. In the long run, these raids created
social instabilities as the labor force was bled out of Africa, besides the concomitant hatreds that was
fostered.

The main use of African slave labor in the early to mid eighteenth century was in the cultivation
of the sugarcane plant which grows in the tropical climate of the Caribbean, as well as in Brazil. Brazil
had a huge African slave population during this time, and the Portuguese being the European pioneers
of the slave trade, it is only expected that African slave labor use would be highest in Brazil. During the
sixteenth century this was already apparent judging by this remark of a certain Padre Antonio Vieira -
"whoever says sugar says Brazil and whoever says Brazil says Angola." 8 The Portuguese were the
pioneers of the sugar plantation system and during their early dominance, they were able to control the
sugar market in Europe. The profits from this trade, as well as the riches by the Iberians in the New
World, invoked jealousy among those European powers who were still uninvolved in this trade. It was
not until the late seventeenth century that this monopoly by the Portuguese was broken through the
efforts of the Dutch who then passed on their acquired knowledge to the British and the French. With
the acquisition by the British and the French of their colonies in the Caribbean, the setting was made
for the start of the colonial sugarcane plantations.

The life of the slaves in the plantation was structured into work gangs. There was no sexual
segregation, as both males and females worked in the same job, and division was based on age and
strength. Infants were brought to work by the mothers and while the mother is engaged in the work, the
7 James Pope-Hennessy, Sins of the Fathers, A Study of the Atlantic Slave Traders 1441-1807 (London: Weidenfeld and
Nicolson, 1967), 40.
8 Stanley Engerman, et. al., eds., Oxford Readers: Slaver (Oxford University Press, 2001), 208-209.

6
infant is left to lie on its back on the ground. Every now and then the mother would glance at the child
and would take the child in her arms in order for the child to suckle. Young children around four to five
years of age usually are left alone in the houses while the older people are at work. They usually played
with other children their age who were also left alone in the houses. By the age of around seven to
twelve, they are organized into 'weeding gangs' supervised by a female slave too old to work in the
fields. From the early teenage years to adulthood until they are too old to work in the more strenuous
jobs in the plantation, they are given the major jobs in the plantations such as the planting of the
sugarcane, clearing the soil for the next batch of crop, making holes for the sugar cane stems and
others. One of the most perilous workspaces in the plantation were the sugar mills. The sugarcane
stalks are passed through a press made of stones which squeezes the juice. Conditions in the sugar mills
also known as 'boiling houses,' were terrible and one advise given to planters during the seventeenth
century was to limit the time slaves spent in there because more often this would result in sickness.
However, it is observed that there were slaves that seem to be especially adapted to conditions in the
boiling houses, able to work long hours day after day without experiencing adverse health problems.
The process transforms the harvested sugar cane juice into raw sugar. This is done through use of
kettles of several sizes heated above a huge furnace. The sugar cane juice starts with the largest kettle.
The juice is successively skimmed until it reaches the smallest kettle where the juice becomes syrup.
The final stage is the trough where the syrup is poured and cooled. This is where the sugar crystals
harden.

Needless to say, the planters as well as the landowners acquired great profit from this enterprise.
However, it was not all smooth-sailing, as the planters and the slave-masters or guards would
continuously face problems such as crop diseases, tropical typhoons and hurricanes. Sometimes there
would be epidemics among the slave population. Another problem were raids or attacks from rival
European powers. Pope-Hennessy remarks that "many planters went bankrupt, and that their health was
ruined by the climate or their own debauchery, and that the cultivation of the sugarcane, the sweet
source of such bitter misery, was as precarious as it was tough."9 However the condition maybe, the
profit accrued from such enterprise was more than enough reason for it to continue several centuries
afterwards.

Fear of slave revolts continually hanged over the head of the plantation owners and slave-
masters. The larger slave population thus had to be continually controlled. Harsh punishments were
meted out to even minor mistakes, and "the slaves received the whip with more certainty and regularity
than they received their food."10 James describes the sufferings of the slaves in the plantations:

Whipping was interrupted in order to pass a piece of hot wax on the buttocks of the victim; salt,
pepper, citron, cinders, aloes, and hot ashes were poured on the bleeding wounds. Mutilations
were common, limbs, ears, and sometimes the private parts, to deprive them of the pleasures
which they could indulge in without expense. Their masters poured burning wax on their arms
and hands and shoulders, emptied the boiling cane sugar over their heads, burned them alive,
roasted them on slow fires, filled them up with gunpowder and blew them up with a match,
buried them up to the neck and smeared their heads with sugar that the flies might devour them;
fastened them near to nests of ants and wasps; made them eat their excrement; drink their urine,
9 James Pope-Hennessy, Sins of the Fathers, A Study of the Atlantic Slave Traders 1441-1807 (London: Weidenfeld and
Nicolson, 1967), 122.
10 From C.L.R. James' The Black Jacobins (1963) in Stanley Engerman, et. al., eds., Oxford Readers: Slaver (Oxford
University Press, 2001), 225.

7
 and lick the saliva of other slaves. One colonist was known in moments of anger to throw himself
on his slaves and stick his teeth into their flesh. 11

We see in here the total dehumanization of the slave. The reduction of a human being into something
lower, something different, as being a human being would put him in an equal footing with his master,
something which is, in the context of the colonial plantation, untrue. A system of inculcating this belief
would be necessary, for if we subscribe to the prevailing idea during that time that the mind is 'tabula
rasa,' and that 'man is born free' each human being that is born is sinless and guiltless since it does not
have a memory of who is subhuman and who is not. Clearly this was not true. This would involve
looking at the origin of evil itself, which is a theological and philosophical question that has baffled
human beings since they started philosophizing and thinking theologically. At the moment we may
offer this idea, that the origin of this was not immediately apparent and that it flowed smoothly
overtime, coalescing and manifesting itself in thoughts such as that expressed in the support of the
continuation of this situation. We may mention how Aristotle offered a defense of slavery, saying that
some people are 'natural' slaves, that their constitution made them fit to be subservient to another
person who is naturally better, that in this arrangement there is a sort of justice, since this is the way
things should be. Aristotle uses the analogy of the house where the head of the household governs over
the wife and other members of the family and then the servants. Applying this to the human body, he
says that the soul is naturally higher and controls the functions of the physical body, in the same way
therefore with slavery - that the higher being, those with the 'soulish' type of character would naturally
reign over the type whose character is fit merely for labor, the 'body-ish' type. Looking at this
theologically, St. Thomas Aquinas presents an interesting point of view in that in a perfect and just
world, there would be no slavery, but since the fall of man, we fell into sin and thus in an imperfect
world, and that at least in this world, he finds that there is some positive things that could come out of
slavery. The role of Christianity in perpetuating the inequality of man consisted in the teachings of the
clergy for example in Brazil where a "rural theology" allowed the masters to welcome their new slaves
with a vicious whipping.12 These planters taught their children that Negroes were not really human
beings, that they can only be controlled through violence. Some of the clergy even maintained that
these slaves were the sons of Cain and thus deserved their treatment, although in another account based
on the Bible, the origin of the slaves was that they were the cursed descendants of Ham. However the
truth maybe, the fact is that we see in here the other point of view regarding Christianity - that while
there were those who promoted humanitarian ideas, there were others as well who read the Bible and
interpreted passages within this document that supported slavery.

IV. Magic and Resistance

So far in our discussion, we have focused on the point of view of the masters. The point of view
of the slaves, the Africans must be discussed as well, for it is most interesting to see how they were able
to react to the encroachments upon their lives. Resistance of the slaves manifested itself in major
revolts that were usually violently suppressed by the authorities. However, a most interesting type of
reaction against the masters' authority is passive resistance, that is the resistance that goes on
underground, that continues while the master is not looking, that may not even be construed as
resistance. This can be said to be a guerrilla-type resistance in an asymmetrical warfare setting, with the
masters obviously having the upper hand in power and resources.

11 ibid, 252-253.
12 David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture (New York: Cornell University Press, 1966), 236.

8
 Lying is a form of this resistance, as well as stealing and working in a slow manner. The master
was always in constant fear of being poisoned by a domestic slave. The poison need not be fast-acting ,
as a little dosage over time would result in symptoms that are akin to having sickness ultimately ending
in death. Some female African slaves who worked in European nurseries specialized in child-murders.
They would kill the child by thrusting into the child's brain a long thin pin which they use to hold up
their turban, virtually leaving no evidence of their deed. Besides these, there were other more
interesting forms of resistance.

Beliefs are important in peoples' lives as they not only serve to provide a point of view, but also
are a source of strength. That there is something beyond this world to aspire to, an escape from the
miseries being suffered, this is a distinctly human hope. Beliefs maybe organized into formal structures
such as that of the Catholic Church with its continuous line of papal succession, or it maybe more
informal, although instinctively coherent, such as that of the rituals of the African religion. Probably the
most popular image we have of African religions nowadays would be that of Voodoo, of sticking
needles and pins to dolls in order to curse someone. However this is the shallow and heavily
romanticized image of Voodoo, which is reduced to mere witchcraft. In the slave colonies in the New
World, these beliefs not only served as practical sources of spiritual strength, but also as a link between
their new lives and their old homes in Africa.

In the haste of capturing slaves, the Christian slavers would inadvertently pack into their ships
as well the obeahs or witch doctors. These obeahs served as figures of awe and terrified reverence for
the slaves in the plantations. What the obeahs carried with them was a whole world-view, a magical
one, filled with spirits and numerous gods. The authority of the obeah was great and one of their
functions in the community was to produce charms or fetishes for various purposes such as to make
one person invisible, to make a person fall in love with you, or to provide a curse for your enemy.
These charms were called obies and are made from various materials such as animal teeth and bone,
feathers, pieces of cloth, broken shards of glass and other things. In Brazil this practice was known as
Santeria, in Haiti as Voodoo and in Jamaica as Candomble. In all these, there was a common
cosmology with a major God at the top, Mawu who cannot be accessed directly but through his sons,
the Voduns. There are several of these Voduns and they manifest as village idols or ancestral gods, and
the most popular include: Oguon, the god of war; Shango, the god of justice and Esho, the god of
vengeance. These are basically spirits that would possess the shaman or the obeah for a while, and for
that moment confer upon him special abilities such as invulnerability. This power proved to be most
useful during revolts, as the obeah can render his followers invulnerable as well.

However limited the space for resistance maybe, we see that the African slaves used these
spaces as much as they can. Fighting alongside them were their old gods, carried over from Africa. In
this sense, the Africans were not totally victims, but in the process of resistance they were able to re-
assert themselves, to re-establish their humanity. This violence that was engendered, this hatred flowing
beneath the surface of everyday plantation existence, boiled over and manifested in these extreme acts,
which were attempts to make sense of their plight, to find new meaning for these new experiences.

Conclusion

The narrative of the Atlantic Slave Trade is one of the most spectacular in human history with
regards to human suffering. We saw that the discourse of this itself has political dimensions as there are
attempts from one side to minimize the intentionality and blame that can be assigned on the

9
perpetrators. On the one hand, the more recent counter-point is a reassessment of the meaning of the
slave trade for the Africans in light of their old beliefs and the damage that this centuries-long event has
caused on the destiny of the African peoples not just in the New World but in Africa itself. That within
the European justification for this practice there were various shades of acceptance and revulsion is
apparent. There were those who saw this trade as an abomination, and there were those who, drawing
from the Western systems justifying inequalities of human beings, liberally justified this inequality.
Sugar was produced through the bitter misery and the cruelties experienced by the slaves in the
plantations. This dehumanization was due to the pursuit of profit and the attempt at re-humanization by
the slaves manifested itself in violence - through revolts and passive resistance with the guidance of
their traditions carried over from Africa.

10
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