THE SLAVE ROUTE

T
he slave trade represents a dramatic encounter of history and geography. This four century long tragedy has been one of the greatest dehumanizing enterprises in human history. It constitutes one of the first forms of globalization. The resultant slavery system, an economic and commercial type of venture organization, linked different regions and continents: Europe, Africa, the Indian Ocean, the Caribbean and the Americas. It was based on an ideology: a conceptual structure founded on contempt for the black man and set up in order to justify the sale of human beings (black Africans in this case) as a mobile asset: For this is how they were regarded in the "black codes", which constituted the legal framework of slavery. The history of this dissimulated tragedy, its deeper causes, its modalities and consequences have yet to be written: This is the basic objective that the UNESCO's member states set for the "Slave Route" Project. The issues at stake are: historical truth, human rights, and development. The idea of "route" signifies, first and foremost, the identification of "itineraries of humanity", i.e. circuits followed by triangular trade. In this sense, geography sheds light on history. In fact, the triangular trade map not only lends substance to this early form of globalization, but also, by showing the courses it took, illuminates the motivations and goals of the slave system. These slave trade maps are only a "first draft". Based on currently available historical data about the triangular trade and slavery, they should be completed to the extent that the theme networks of researchers, set up by UNESCO, continue to bring to light the deeper layers of the iceberg by exploiting archives and oral traditions. It will then be possible to understand that the black slave trade forms the invisible stuff of relations between Africa, Europe, the Indian Ocean, the Americas and the Caribbean.

Sugar, coffee, cotton, tobacco Cheap jewellery etc., weapons Trans-Atlantic slave trade F. DOUGLASS* W. E. DU BOIS* A. DUMAS* St-BENEDICT *
Il Moro

A. S. PUSHKIN*

Trans-Saharan slave trade Trans-Saharan slave trade

Doudou Diene
Director of the Division of Intercultural Dialogue

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TOUSSAINT P. ROBESON* LOUVERTURE*

SCHOELCHER*

Copenhagen Liverpool London Bristol Nantes Bordeaux Amsterdam Rotterdam Venice Genoa Rome Lisbon Seville Palermo Istanbul

;;
BOBANGI

European or American slave-ship port Large slave-trade port in Africa Sorting and distribution center Raiding zone Slave import zone (Supply source of the trans-Atlantic slave trade) Percentage of deported slaves

10%

Azores Islands

BENIN and GHANA are current designations of areas called differently at the time of the Slave Trade * Historic personalities who fought against the black Slave Trade, Slaves or descendants of Slaves (St. Benedict and Pushkin)

Charleston

Ouargla

Tripoli Alexandria

Basra

Nagasaki

Canary Islands Marzuq

40%

Karachi Aswan Goa

CUBA

Mexico

Canton Macao

Veracruz

JAMAICA

PUERTO RICO Santo Domingo

Cape Verde Islands

Timbuktu

GORE Island

Cartagena

Mos lem

Slave Coast

Tr ad

BA RU Ouidah YO ASHANTI Lagos DA BE ARA NI Calabar Elmina N Accra

GHANA

BENIN

A AR MB BA

Zabid Aden
BOBANGI

SOCOTRA

s ost gP in

Malaka

Cabinda

LO AN GO

LUN
O KONG O G NDON
DU OVIMBUNDU MBUN

DA

EQUATOR

Mombassa

Pernambuco Bahia

ZANZIBAR

Luanda

40%

I N D I A N
A MAKU

Quelimane

Tamatave MADAGASCAR Island MAURITIUS

THE SLAVE TRADE AND THE POPULATION OF THE AFRICAN CONTINENT

Aggregate number of deportees from the 8th to the middle of the 19th century for all slave trades: 24 million at least.

Rio de Janeiro

10%

A T L A N T I C
Robben Island

RUNION Island (Bourbon)

Valparaiso

Montevideo

O C E A N

Total African population in the middle of the 19th century: 100 million Estimated total size that the African population would have reached in the middle of the19th century in the absence of any slave trade: 200 million

Buenos Aires

O C E A N

DEPORTATION FLOWS, 15th-16th Centuries

17th Century
Jamestown

18th Century
VIRGINIA

19th Century
1807
0 70
70 00 00 0
0 00

30 000

550 000

700 000

AR

400

IB B

0 00

E AN

100

000

ISLANDS

Gore

SENEGAMBIA

CA ISL RIBB AND EAN S

17

00

000

00 00 0

Gore GOUADELOUPE REVOLT, 1656

00

SENEGAMBIA GHANA CONGO

SANTO DOMINGO 1791 CA I S R IB BE LA AN N DS GOUADELOUPE 1737

MO

O CC RO
0 60

00 200

Gore Elmina

Ouidah

GUINEA
Calabar

St. DOMINGO C I S A R IBB L A N EAN DS

1 90 00 00
Gore Elmina

GUINEA
Ouidah Calabar

00

KONGO
1 00 00 0
Bahia Rio de Janeiro Cabinda Luanda Zanzibar
0 40

KONGO
0 00

Pernambuco Bahia

00 00 0

Pernambuco Bahia

BAHIA REVOLTS (1807 AND 1835) ABOLITION * IN BRAZIL

ANGOLA

UNESCO 2000

1888
Rio de Janeiro

Zanzibar 900 Kilwa Ibo ANGOLA Cabinda Luanda

00

00

1 900 000
LourenoMarques Inhambane

* Official date of Abolition

Montevideo Buenos-Aires Montevideo Buenos-Aires

40 7 0 0 0

Design andcartography: Nancy FRANOIS Print: ARIZONA GRAPHIC

ABOLITION * IN U-S

DENMARK 1792 HOLLAND 1815 ABOLITION * ENGLAND 1807 IN EUROPE FRANCE 1815 PORTUGAL 1830

0 00