TransAtlantic slavery - art works

Magazine Antiques, June, 1999 by Anthony Tibbles

Over a period of almost four hundred years transatlantic slavery changed the history of four continents - Africa, North and South America, and Europe. From the end of the sixteenth century until late in the nineteenth, European merchants transported millions of Africans across the Atlantic to work as slaves in the Americas.

The system of transatlantic slavery is often known as the triangular trade. On the first leg, ships from Spain, Portugal, England, the Netherlands, France, and Scandinavia set sail for the west coast of Africa carrying a wide variety of goods, which were exchanged for captives. The second part of the trip, the infamous "middle passage," took the enslaved Africans across the Atlantic under conditions of great deprivation. Those who survived were sold and put to work. The vast majority led a life of hard labor that ended in death far from home. The third stage of the triangle brought the slave ships back to Europe with credit notes or with cargoes of sugar, molasses, cotton, tobacco, and rice.

Some of the slave trade took place directly between the Americas and Africa, especially in the nineteenth century. There were many voyages between Brazil and Angola, and a number of American ships, which had always been involved in the slave trade in a small way, ran an illegal trade. Many of these vessels were whalers seeking an opportunity for a quick profit. The lax controls in the United States also meant that a number of Spanish ships adopted the American flag to continue their illegal trade during this period.

Transatlantic slavery originated in the sixteenth century, in the decades following Columbus's landfall, when the Spanish and Portuguese began their conquest of the Americas. Their initial interest was the gold and silver objects found in Central and South America in such abundance. The funerary mask shown in Plate VI, for example, is in fact made of an alloy of gold and copper. It was originally painted red, of which only vestiges remain around the nose, and was produced by people of the Sican culture in Peru between about 900 and 1500. Many such objects were seized and melted down to be sent back to Europe as bullion. As the supply of existing objects dried up, the conquistadors took over the gold and silver mines.

The Portuguese soon realized that the climate in Brazil was ideal for the production of sugar, for which there was a growing demand in Europe. Since they were accustomed to using Africans on their plantations in Madeira and other Atlantic islands, it was a short step for the Portuguese to enslave Africans and ship them across the Atlantic to work in their new South American colonies.

Africans had visited and traded with Europe for centuries, but Europeans knew little about Africa. The situation changed in the fifteenth century, when improved ships and navigational instruments allowed the Portuguese to establish trading stations along the coast of West Africa. The French, English, Dutch, Danish, and Spanish later followed suit. Again, gold was one of the principal attractions for the Europeans. It was a central feature of the Ashanti culture (in what is Ghana today), and gold dust was used in trading. Spectacular objects were cast by the lost-wax technique, including rings, pendants, and bracelets. The pectoral disk shown in Plate I is a fine example of Ashanti work with its elaborate repousse decoration of stylized leaves. Such disks were worn by young male servants of the Ashanti kings. These servants, known as souls, preceded the king on all ceremonial occasions to ward off evil. The disks are often called soul washers' badges.

It is clear that there were other sophisticated and highly organized societies and cultures in West Africa. In the kingdom of Benin [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 3 OMITTED], which once included the lands along the Gulf of Guinea, mainly present-day Nigeria, skilled craftsmen were casting brass to create some of the most impressive objects ever produced by any civilization. Among them is the plaque shown in Plate V, one of a number made during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that were hung on pillars in the palace of the oba, the ruler of the kingdom of Benin. This one shows a Bini warrior in his chain-mail armor and helmet, holding a spear and shield. The Bini were the oba's bodyguards. Beside him are two smaller scale figures with pipes and a gong, a reminder of the importance of music in West African societies. What is perhaps more surprising is the inclusion of two Portuguese soldiers on either side of the warrior's head, each holding a manilla - a horseshoe-shaped copper or brass arm bracelet worn by Africans. These manillas were one of the main items traded for slaves.

The Benin plaques have an infamous history. They were seized by a raiding party when the British navy undertook a punitive raid on Benin in 1897. The vast majority were acquired by the British Museum in London, but many European museums were offered examples. About nine hundred plaques survive, and some have now found their way into American museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.