Slavery in West Africa - Coursework Example

Slavery in West Africa

West Africa can be identified as a combination of the Northern and Western Regions of the Bight of Biafra. It is evident that European Traders had their own definition of West Africa as the Northern Senegambia region to the Southern Bight of Benin. This region in question is known to be very significantly geographical alongside the element of cultural diversity (slaveryrememberance.org/articles/article/?a0127). There are diverse climatic conditions straight from the Tropical Southern Savanna and also northern Sahel. Each of the above conditions seems to support different models of Agriculture and Social organization.

Larger territorial areas in Savannah and Western Sahel were controlled by the great empires of Ghana, Mali alongside Songhai. Mali and Songhai were Muslim dominated, and they used to spread this particular Religion. Political and Military organizations and disease were the factors that really confined the Europeans to the Coastal region in between the fifteenth and nineteen centuries (Getz). The European Merchants were initially interested in trading gold, wood, ivory alongside alcohol across the West African Region.

Over a long period of time, it now came into the reality that the commerce of Captive Africans expanded to entail the vastest forced migration in human chronology. This actually occurred when the Americas commenced cultivating exports like sugar and others. Approximately history has it that each and every European nation in the western hemisphere took part in Trans-Atlantic Slave trade. Castles were built with the major objective of securing full cargoes at the Coastal ports where goods and people were then collected.

The launching points encompassed Goree, Ouidah and also the Cape Coastal Castle in terms of European Colonization periods (slaveryrememberance.org/articles/article/?a0127). There were various mechanisms used to ensure a steady supply of slaves who are captured from the interior like the incorporation of weapons like guns to the portfolio of those goods meant for sale (Getz). Over three and a half centuries, West Africa was at the top of the league as it roughly exported 12.5 million African slaves to enter the Atlantic. The impact of such warfare and disruption and decline in population was such a disgrace to the region.

During the approach of the 20th century, the Europeans found their way in penetrating West Africa’s interior in efforts of colonizing the continent generally. The Colonizers in the region who participated in the Scramble and partition for Africa were the French and the British. In this region, Liberia was the only one which was a solely independent nation (McGowan 5-29). The turning point of the entire slave trade was whereby the Royal Navy founded the Preventive Squadron which was actually termed as the West Africa Squadron.

It was an extremely substantial expense in the year 1808 after the parliament then passed the Slave Trade Act initialized in 1807. The main intention of the Squadron was to have Atlantic Slave Trade suppressed by initiating a patrol system in West Africa’s coast (slaveryrememberance.org/articles/article/?a0127). Having been based in Portsmouth, the Genesis was marked by two small ships, the cruiser class brig-sloop HMS-Derwent alongside the Fifth rate frigate at its operational peak, the 6th Royal Navy fleets alongside marines which were initiated.

The abolishment of the Slave Trade which prohibited the trade by British subjects from the continuation of the act occurred on the 25th day of March 1807. The activities prohibited encompassed the crewing of slave ships, supporting slave ships or fitting of the ships used for slave trade. The act insisted on the seizure of ships in the absence of cargoes on board but hence equipped to the slave trade (Miller and Law 1956). In the enforcement of the 1808 ruling, there was a dispatch exactly two vessels to constabulary the African Coast. The empowerment of the small British force was as a result of the Napoleonic wars, to pause any available ship from bearing an enemy nation and the making activities that are naturally suppressive simply easier.

History also has it that Portugal was one of the Nations which exercised slave trading to the fullest. They were also allies of Britain as they were fighting against France. They also signed the British convention aimed at policing the shipping of Portuguese under a very diplomatic pressure in February 1810. This actually meant that Portugal’s slave trading could be specified in its associated African possessions. Following the first letter of Marque Dart, slavers were chased to go and benefit from slave ships capture and those bounties that the British had been paying for the slaves freed in which the first captures were made during the 1810 convention.

The pursuit of slaves for profit was under Marque’s letter in 1813 which had two vessels namely Dart and Kitty. They were two components which augment the Squadron of West Africa. There is the fact that they were not profitable at all because of the absence of private initiatives and their short duration nature (Canney). A congress held in Vienna encompassed a declaration by Viscount Castlereagh against slavery with Napoleonic war end. It committed signatories to the abolition of the trade eventually. France, therefore, ceased trading while Spain did the same in1817 in the Equatorial North in return increasing the mandate of the West African Squadron in role implementation.

It was quite unfortunate that the fundamental treaties which were against the trading if slaves were weak and this fact elucidated that it would be only practically until the year 1835 that the Squadron would seize, the actual vessels if in any case, the Slaves were to be found on board in capture moments. The meaning of the argument is that the Squadron could have little or no interference with the clearly equipped vessels for trading activities but in the absence of cargo. The Slavers were hence given an overboard Slave-throw incentive prior to the initial capture for the avoidance of vessel seizure.

There was the abolishment of slavery in France possessions in its West African outposts. Due to the fear instilled in Many African traders in the adjoining that their actual slaves could have freedom by the French Colony entry, there was the refusal of continuation to trade, and to this extent, therefore, both commercials alongside political crises were experienced. The fugitive slaves had to seek refuge in the European enclaves of the coast. There was also the presence of territories which were actually disannexed by Local French officials with the profound aim of minimizing the abolition impacts and converted them into protectorates as a platform for local law prevalence.

A gradually same criterion was taken by the Portuguese under which colonial slavery was dismantled in 1854 while slaves were obliged to remain unpaid apprentices until 1878 in their service delivery. The rights of the freed slaves were not perfectly a 100% because of the limited freedom. In the 1870s, antislavery sentiments were publicly expressed by European governments to justify the colonial conquest of seizing slavery. To be very much sincere, this maintained a new model of enslaving the victims of political besides economic instability. At the end of the 18th century, the majority of the enslavement had reduced by the pre-colonial warrior states. Missionaries contributed much to the ending of slavery because they imposed a lot of pressure to the colonialists who extended slave trade up to the 20th century.

The Europeans themselves had it that what was being practiced in Africa was domestic slavery whereby the slaves and predecessors of the same were still Africans. Slaver had been outlined as illegal following the variant antislavery legislation indirectly applied by the British via the Indians at their Gold coast (Rathbone 11-22)

. The laws enacted to curb slavery became functional, and the children of the slaves were declared free by default. This model was first observed in Nigeria where its application bore fruits under the gradualist model strategy. A similar antislavery strategy was applied by France which gradually changed the condition of West Africa.

In 1905, the slaves began abandoning their masters who were termed as the exodus of slaves. The Belgians and Germans ended slavery in 1890 in collaboration with missionary initiatives. The West African slaves flee their masters in the interval between the first and second decades of the 20th century due to harsher slavery market forces. Others sought refuge in their own homelands, new colonial basements and more so missionary settlements among others.

The freed slaves were denied access to their property and therefore had to look for vacant areas for settlement. They hence depended on unpaid labor for which was dependent in nature for the accomplishment of socio-economic goals. The slaves continued to suffer, but the difference was a bit big for them because they were at home or where they were at some point safer compared to their previous conditions.

In conclusion, the significance of this particular turning point is that the explanation of the effects of the end of slavery on the dominants of West Africa specifically and all Africans, in general, has raised relevant debate regarding interpretation alongside evidence. It also gave an advantage of the masters negotiating with those who remained for the upgrade of their welfare. Another unique relevance of other studies is that the end of slavery n West Africa brought into being fundamental diversities in relations between husbands and their wives in between generations.