1
The Arab and European Slave Trade in the Indian Ocean These sites provide an excellent overview of the place of the Indian Ocean in the East African slave trade.
http://www.africana.com/tt_339.htm and http://zanzibar.net/history.html
Questions for discussion:
Discuss the nature and ebb and flow of the Arab Slave trade in the Indian Ocean and East Africa. How were African slaves both well and cruelly treated in the Muslim world? What drove it to expand and contract? What was the role of Zanzibar in the trade? What encouraged Europeans to participate in the East African slave trade? What were the direct and indirect effects of the slave trade in the Indian Ocean? How did it serve as a spur to European imperial control in East Africa?
2
The Amistad This site provides a brief summary of the case of the slave mutiny aboard the slave ship Amistad.
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/amistad/AMI_ACT.HTM
Questions for further exploration:
What were the multiple impacts of the Amistad case? What prompted the participation in the case of a former President of the United States? How does the ultimate fate of the mutineers illuminate the difficulties of cultural contacts in the era of the Slave Trade?
3
The Economics of the African Slave Trade This site offers an analysis of the place of the African slave trade in the evolution of economy of modern Europe.
http://dolphin.upenn.edu/~vision/vis/Mar-95/5284.html
Questions for further exploration:
What role did the African slave trade play in the emergence of the modern world economy? What impact may it have had on mercantilism and/or free trade?
4
African Resistance to Slavery in the United States This site offers an exhibit on Black resistance to slavery in the United States.
http://www.afroam.org/history/slavery/main.html
Questions for further exploration:
What forms of resistance did slaves adopt in the United States? What forms of resistance did African American women adopt in the face of oppression?
5
John Wesley on the Slave Trade These sites offer the text of a tract distributed under the name of Methodist leader John Wesley that condemned the slave trade in such clear terms that it has a great influence on the British public.
http://gbgm-umc.org/umhistory/tslavery.html and http://metalab.unc.edu/docsouth/wesley/menu.html (full text)
Questions for further exploration:
Discuss what Wesley considered significant in what kind of lands slaves came from, what the character was of those who were enslaved, their treatment at the hands of slavers and the moral implications for those who passed and enforced laws pertaining to runaway slaves?
6
The Ashante and the Slave Trade The Ashante people developed a strong warrior state that derived great wealth from the Slave Trade.
http://www.ashanti.com.au/ , http://www.africana.com/tt_007.htm , and http://www.uiowa.edu/~africart/toc/people/Asante.html
Questions for further discussion:
From what sources did the Ashante obtain their wealth? What products did they trade? What was the centerpiece of their religion? Who is the Ashantehene? Why did the Ashante Empire decline?
7
From the Slave Trade to Legitimate Trade This site offers an essay that explores the impact on African rulers and European imperial officials of the transition from the slave trade to a non-slave economy after the European abolition of the Slave Trade.
http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~slavery/essays/esy9601law.html
Questions for further exploration:
What factors influenced the transition of West African states from an economy based on the Slave Trade to one based on other goods? When African leaders failed to make such a transition smoothly, what were the results? When they succeeded in making this transition smoothly, what were the results?
8
Slave Narratives This site has gathered the finest existing slave narratives, such as that of Equiano, and organized them by topic or phase of the Slave Trade experience from abduction to emancipation.
http://vi.uh.edu/pages/mintz/primary.htm
Questions for further exploration:
Employing the initial set of narratives, "Enslavement," discuss the circumstances and conditions under which slaves were abducted and readied for shipment.
9
African Religious Synthesis under Slavery: Obeah, Vodun (Vooodoo) These sites offer essays that place Voodoo in the cultural and political context of slavery.
http://www.cal.org/rsc/haiti/hrelig.html http://www.africana.com/tt_115.htm and http://www.qub.ac.uk/english/imperial/carib/voodoo.htm
Questions for further exploration:
Discuss why and how Voodoo blended with Catholicism in many slave societies. Discuss how it was a means of empowering slaves, as well as recovering their traditions? Why did women play a major role in these religious practices and beliefs?
10
King Shaka This site explores Shaka’s empire.
http://www.kwazulu.co.uk/ (enter, go to Shaka the Man)
Questions for further discussion:
Describe the innovations in the military arts that Shaka used to build his empire. What was Shaka's attitude toward foreign trade?
