The Atlantic slave trade existed throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and was heavily influenced by African agency during that time. This was done through many different forms including African support of the trade by dealers selling inland Africans to Europeans, something that was accommodated by local African governments. Resistance to the trade from enslaved Africans which altered the economic and practical organisation of the trade. As well as resistance to abolition in the early parts of the nineteenth centuries and how the Atlantic slave trade was not stopped, or even slowed, by European attempts to stop the trade due to African supply continuing.
The influence of Africans and Eurafricans on the Atlantic slave trade is well demonstrated through evaluation of their trade dealings with the European slave traders. Apart from a few instances where some Africans were kidnapped from the coast, European traders were completely reliant on Africans to provide the enslaved who were brought from the interior of the continent to the coast to be sold. The power that the Africans subsequently held over the Europeans allowed them more control over the goods that were traded in return and who they were traded with. This resulted in many attempts by European traders to bribe Africans to constrict the sale of their slaves so that they only traded with one company or family. For example, Robert Bostock attempted to procure preferential treatment from the Cleveland family. In letters he sent the family, Bostock claims that he has attempted to correspond with the Clevelands and yet has received no reply confirming or denying his attempts to establish special relations with them. This implies that African traders were in a position where they were not confined to dealing with one trader and had multiple options for trade. The desire for goods was an important factor in the trade dealings between Europeans and Africans with many Africans trading the enslaved for commodities. This is highlighted in the case of Antera Duke, who traded three enslaved Africans in return for goods.
The Africans’ importance in the exchange of slaves is also highlighted in the crucial role that the ‘amanyanbo’ played in the regulation of trade at the port of Bolly. The ‘amanyanbo’ was regarded by the British slave traders that went to Bolly as the King of the area and his role was to enforce the rules of the trade and punish any traders that did not conform and enable the repayment of debts. This demonstrates how important the African governments’ provision of credit for traders was. The input of the African government ensured that trades were more secure and organised and allowed the trades to happen for a prolonged period.
Ultimately, the role of the Africans was imperative in securing trades. Europeans would have had no access to inland Africans without the aid of the African merchants themselves. Without the access that the Africans allowed, the Atlantic Slave trade could not exist. Further to this, once the Slave Trade had already been established it was African merchants that held negotiating power, making them able to make demands, and African governments that controlled and encouraged trade through secure credit.
Africans influenced the operation of the Atlantic slave trade not just through cooperation with Europeans in trade deals but also in resistance of the trade. There was much resistance to the trade from enslaved Africans as it was their belief that they were being sent to be eaten by the Europeans, something exacerbated by the failure of other enslaved Africans to return. In the latter half of the eighteenth century, revolts on slave ships greatly increased with 10 percent of all voyages experiencing African resistance. For example, the Spanish ship ‘Manzanares’ encountered a case of slave insurrection in 1830 and was unsuccessful in delivering these enslaved Africans to the New World. This increase in the number and frequency of rebellions had a huge impact on the financial coverage and extra precautions taken by shipmasters of the Atlantic slave trade. Shipmasters invested in firearms and increased the number of crewmembers aboard a ship in an attempt to control slave insurrection. Slave ship owners began to demand insurance policies that covered any losses received during a revolt and claims for insurance were overruled if less than 5 or even 10 percent of enslaved Africans died during the insurrection. It was thought that this would result in increased attempts to stop slave rebellion because the shipmasters could not receive any economic reparation for any deaths during insurrection. Africans acted as both people and commodities during these new claims for insurance and only furthered the consideration of enslaved Africans as humans. Anita Rupprecht supports that this resulted in people being ‘forced not only to recognise slaves’ humanity but also to consider their desire for freedom’.
The early half of the nineteenth century saw a series of acts that abolished the Atlantic slave trade for many different countries. The last major Atlantic slave trading country to abolish the trade was Portugal in 1836. However, these European powers failed to take into account how to stop the trade in Africa as they had no jurisdiction and could not abolish African merchants from selling slaves to any who wished to buy them. The Atlantic slave trade was so deeply engrained into African societies and the economy that it would have been extremely difficult to abandon the trade. In some areas of the continent, slavery was ‘linked to the regeneration of social and political institutions’ and along the West Coast, the role of slavery was so crucial that it was ‘essential to the organization of production. For many Africans the selling of slaves was a way of recuperating money that they were losing through a decline in the sale of gold. The slave trade was clearly economically valuable to the African dealers and it is therefore little surprise that it took over three decades for the slave trade to completely subside and in this time at least 1 millions slaves arrived in the Americas. This demonstrates the importance of the trade to Africans. Even the abolition of the slave trade in major European countries could not stop Africans from supplying the enslaved. Indeed, 2.8 million enslaved Africans were transported to the New World between 1808 (the beginning of British suppression of the trade) and 1863. Proportionally, this figure is not that different from the 5.7 million that were transported throughout the entire eighteenth century. Africans continued to supply slaves even though all major slave trading countries had abolished slavery and a vast number of slaves still made it across the Atlantic.
Nevertheless, there were other important influences on the operation and organisation on the Atlantic slave trade outside of the African influence. There was much outside influence on the slave trade from other European countries who wanted and used the trade as an economic resource. Interest in the use of the slave trade is probably most clearly exemplified in the case of Britain between 1662 and 1807 in which British Empire ships carried around 3.4 million slaves to the Americas. It could be inferred that this interaction in the slave trade by Britain would have been extremely important on the organisation of the trade. It could be argued that if there was no demand for enslaved Africans from European countries, the slave trade would have never existed. Another important European influence on the slave trade was the attempts of the Royal Navy to supress the trade. After British abolition of the trade in 1807 the Royal Navy was used to intercept any slave trading ships on the middle passage and sent back to the British crown colony at Sierra Leone to be condemned. This demonstrates British importance in altering the organisation of the slave trade as slavers would have had to avoid the Royal Navy squadron on the journey across the Atlantic and would’ve been sent back if they failed to do so. Therefore, it could be concluded that it was not just African agency that had the most impact on organisation of the slave trade as the trading and suppression of European countries also changed the way the trade worked and took place.
In conclusion, the findings have demonstrated that Africans had an extensive and important influence on the operation of the Atlantic slave trade. African merchants and governments in particular, accommodated the large scale trade of slaves in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The impact of the African resistance to the trade also had great economic and operational influence. It is also important to note the impact that influences outside of the African continent had on the trade, for example, the European demand for slaves as well as the European attempts to enforce abolition. In its entirety, it is possible that the Atlantic slave trade would not have subsisted for centuries without an amalgamation of these factors.