Source: Caribbean Slavery in the Atlantic World Author: Verene Shepherd and Hilary McD.

Beckles Publisher: Ian Randle Publisher Extract: A.J.R. Russell-Wood Topic: Before Columbus: Portugals African Prelude to the Middle Passage and Contribution to Discourse on Race and Slavery The purpose of this chapter is to take 1492 not as the beginning of an era, but as the end. The half century preceding 1492 witnessed the happenings of an exclusively seaborne sea trade from Sub-Saharan Africa to Europe. Introduction The first European intrusion into Africa in the early modern period occurred in 1415 when a Portuguese force took over. This was prompted by among other considerations, (a) the military and religious motivations to exert additional pressure on the Moors in Grenada, (b) the need for a secure base from which to attack Moorish shipping, (c) internal domestic pressures on the Portuguese King- the hope of tapping into routes or preferably reclaiming the sources of African gold (d) a desire for booty excess to Moroccan grain harvests and (e) acquisition of fertile lands to expand revenues from agriculture. Portugal pursued a policy of exploration, settlement and trade and by 1492 the Portuguese had an excellent knowledge of the African coast. Overland routes permitted trade and exchange between Sub-Saharan African and the lands bordering the Mediterranean. The problem was that the Muslims dominated these routes, as well as North Africa and thus blocked Europe from access to regions south of the Sahara, known to have commercial potential. According to historians, it was not the quest for a labour pool that first stimulated this exploration; it was for trade, expansion of fishing areas, the search for a sea route to bring West African gold to Portugal or to find revenues. Trading

was built around exchange of gold, ivory, hides, wax, gum, mats cloths, and slaves for goods from northern Europe, Portugal and Morocco. Portuguese encounters with Africa. During the 15th century Portuguese contacts with Africa were primarily in the context of commerce. The Portuguese established cooperative working relationships with leaders in Sub-Saharan Africa and supplied them with slaves and other goods. The Portuguese arrived by sea . This suggested a supernatural quality to the intensely religious African people who saw them as possessing occult power. There was a sustained effort to convert Africans to Catholism or to eradicate what were to the Portuguese- barbarous customs and practices. Portuguese trade with Africa Moorish nomads of the Sahara started to trade long before the arrival of the Portuguese. They traded silks, silver, slaves etc. With the arrival of the Portuguese in West Africa the nomads lost their monopoly on trade between Mediterranean Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa. There now became an overlap of commodities demanded as a result Africans traers experienced difficulties meeting the expanded demand. African rulers and traders collaborated with the Portuguese and provided the Europeans with commodities. The phase of slave exporting was established where the demand for African slave labour was needed. Methods of securing labour was by means of raids rather than by exchange or purchase. Although they started out as raiders and challengers to African traders, in the course of the 15th century the Portuguese developed working relationships with Sub-Saharan traders in a supply and demand network ,whereby Africans supplied Africans to meet the demand for labour.

The African Presence in Portugal By the end of the 15th century there were already significant numbers of blacks in Portugal but several decades were to elapse before blacks outnumbered Moors as slaves. As in Brazil where the dependence on Native Americans for labour would give way to the use of blacks and Amerindians, so too in Portugal Moorish slaves were gradually supplanted by black slaves. Portugal was the first European country to have a significant black population. The Potuguese supplied slave labour worldwide, Their destinations included islands in the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Slaves were engaged in agriculture, clearing forests, draining marshes and public works and worked as vendors, fishermen, ferryman, artisans and porters. Some earned money for their owners. The Portuguese Attitudes towards the Africans There is little reference to race or blackness. This is not the an oversight, for race was not a major concern in the 15th century Portugal, nor had a link been established between blackness and slavery. This is so because of darker skin. There was no comprehension in 15th century Portugal of the divergence between slavery in Europe and slavery in Africa, it was very different legally on the concepts of ownership and what could be owned, or how ownership of labour to possessing wealth had the potential to generate more wealth. Slavery in Africa did not carry the connotations of degradation, debasement that were associated with the modern Portugal. Portugese through their interactions with Ethiopia had already encountered persons

Chapter

1:

The

birth

of

an

Atlantic

World

Thornton argues that geography and wind channels had a formative effect on the European entrance into the Atlantic World. Due to the different challenges presented by the North Sea and the Mediterranean, Europeans could develop technology that could be used in diverse environments. The wind currents that ran from Europe and down the African coast initially hampered European ventures south of the Saharan coast and also limited African seafaring. The wind channels similarly defined Atlantic ventures. Finally, Thornton argues that long-range European goals like discovery or encircling and isolating Muslims were not as motivating as short-term goals like raiding and commerce.