O slave trade this is what we call the practice of slave trafficking from Africa to the European and American continents, including Brazil. The slave trade consisted basically of forced migration of Africans in order to enslave them during the colonization of America. This activity, in our country, began in the middle of the 16th century and ended only in 1850, with the Eusébio de Queirós Law.
Read too:The process of abolition of slave labor in Brazil
Summary
The slave trade was responsible for forcibly bringing about 11 million African people to America.
The reasons for the implantation of the slavery of Africans here was the scarcity of indigenous labor combined with the metropolitan interests in developing the overseas trade.
The Portuguese bought the slaves in their factories located on the coast of Africa.
Slaves were obtained as prisoners of war sold by certain kingdoms or were prisoners ambushed by traffickers.
They faced a journey of more than 40 days, in degrading conditions, which caused several slaves to die during the journey.
They came from different regions of Africa, such as Senegambia, Angola, Congo and Mozambique.
The places in Brazil that received the most slaves were Rio de Janeiro, Recife and Salvador.
The slave trade was only prohibited in Brazil in 1850, through the Eusébio de Queirós Law.
It is estimated that Brazil received 3.5 million to 5 million enslaved Africans. The country received the most African slaves in the worldO.
How the slave trade happened
Causes of the slave trade
The slave trade in Brazil is directly related to the development of sugar productionhere during the period of colonization. The trafficking of Africans to Brazil is associated, in part, with the scarcity of the slave population indigenous in Brazil, especially from the decade of 1550.
It is noteworthy that the mortality of indigenous people was excessively high, mainly due to diseases brought by the Portuguese and for which the indigenous had no biological defense. The historian Boris Fausto, for example, cites that, between 1562 and 1563 alone, around 60 thousand indigenous people died as a result of smallpox.|1|
Another important issue is the conflicts that existed between settlers and Jesuits on account of the enslavement of the indigenous people. The settlers installed in Portuguese America wanted to freely enslave the indigenous peoples, while the Jesuits they fought against this by installing the indigenous people in their missions and catechizing them.
But the most relevant factor, which helps us to understand the replacement of slave labor by the Indians by the Africans, is in the functioning of the economic system of the time based on the mercantilism. In other words, the slave trade was an extremely profitable activity for the metropolis, that is, for Portugal. The sale of indigenous slaves, in turn, moved the colony's exclusive economy, and thus, in order to meet this metropolis demand for the opening of a highly profitable trade, African slavery was introduced in Brazil.
It is important to mention that the Portuguese already used the slave labor of African workers. In the atlantic islands, the Portuguese had installed the sugar production system with the use of African workers. Thus, this model ended up being exported on a large scale to Brazil, and that includes the use of Africans as enslaved workers.
Concluding this part, the current understanding among historians is that specific issues existing in the colony, such as the shortage of indigenous labor, motivated the colonists to adopt another manpower, and the great Portuguese merchants, realizing this demand, established the slave trade, since this business was very lucrative.
How the slave trade worked
From the mid-fifteenth century, the Portuguese began to install a series of trading posts on the coast of African continent. Through these, they developed diplomatic relations with a series of african kingdoms, as Comercial relations.
With the development of sugar production in Brazil, the demand of the Portuguese for slaves increased considerably, and with this, in the 1450s, the number of slaves taken by the Portuguese was between 700 and 800 per year.|2| From the 1580s onwards, this number was already around three thousand slaves transported by the Portuguese annually.|3|
The Portuguese had a relationship network, spread across the interior of Africa, which took place through the priest penetration and what a guarantee alliances with important kingdoms, as was the case with the Congo. One of the most important factories in Portugal was the one that was installed in Luanda (Angola).
Obtaining slaves began in the interior of the African continent, with captives being prisoners of war who were sold or victims of ambushes carried out by slave traders. Once captured, they were marched on foot to the port, from which they would be sent to America. They also received a brand, by means of hot iron, as a way of identification to which merchant they belonged.
In ports, still in Africa, they were exchanged for some valuable merchandise, like tobacco, liquor, gunpowder, metallic objects etc. Finally, they were boarded on the ship called the tumbler, who would then transport them to America. Some slaves could be shipped to Europe, including cities like Seville and Lisbon had a significant population of African slaves.
Travel on slave ships
Slaves were transported on ships known as tumbeiros.
The slave ships carried from 300 to 500 slaves, and the travel time, departing from Angola, was 35 days, if they went to Pernambuco; 40 days, if they went to Bahia; and 50 days if they went to Rio de Janeiro.|4| During the travel period, the slaves found totally inhuman conditions and that they were responsible for the death of an expressive number of the embarked.
Many they ate only once a day it's almost did not receive drinking water. They were crowded in basements, with a high number of people, which often made it difficult to breathe and facilitated the transmission of diseases. One of the diseases that most affected slaves on slave ships was scurvy, caused by a diet low in vitamin C. Historians Lilia Schwarcz and Heloísa Starling|5| list other diseases that were common on slave ships:
Smallpox;
Measles;
Yellow fever;
Gastrointestinal diseases etc.
The existing reports about the slave trade confirm the terrible conditions to which the slaves were subjected during the period of the trip (but not only during this period). There are historians who point out that up to half of the captives died during the trajectory, while others suggest that this rate was, on average, 20%.
In addition, the reports also suggest the racist motivation of the Portuguese, as the report, highlighted by the historian Thomas Skidmore, by Duarte Pacheco|6|, Portuguese navigator, who called Africans “people with dog faces, dog teeth, satyrs, savages and cannibals”.
slave trade in Brazil
Illustration depicting the scene of a slave sale in the 19th century.
The slave trade in Brazil began around the 1530s and 1540s, for reasons already explored in this text. This trade spread across our country for more than three centuries and by the 1580s, for example, it was already a well-established and highly profitable business. After independence, trafficking intensified and the Brazil became the country that received the most enslaved Africans in the world.
The estimates provided by historians have certain variations, and in this text we bring the data presented by four different historians. Boris Faust|7| says 4 million of slaves were brought to Brazil; Thomas Skidmore|8| states that at least 3.65 million were brought to Brazil; and historians Lilia Schwarcz and Heloísa Starling|9| point out that 4.9 million of Africans came here. Altogether, the American continent received about 11 million of African slaves.
The main regions of Africa from which slaves came to Brazil were:
senegambia: the Portuguese called this region Guinea, and it was the great source of slaves in the 16th century.
Angola and Congo: major sources of slaves for the Portuguese during the 17th century.
Mine Coast and benin: largest slave suppliers to the Portuguese in the 18th century.
Mozambique it was also a place from which many slaves came. Among the people who came, there was the ethnicity banto and others, like balantas, bijagos, jalophos, fast, nagos, hausa etc. Here in Brazil, the preference was to acquire slaves from different peoples because that made it difficult The articulation of groups and diminished the possibilities that they were organized escapes and resistance movements.
At the end of the trip, the ports that received the most slave ships in Brazil were those of savior, Recife and Rio de Janeiro. Slaves, in turn, were sent to various places in the colony, such as Fortaleza, Belém and Maranhão, for example. They could be auctioned off at customs or at the slave markets, which housed them while waiting for buyers.
The price of slaves was quite high, and Boris Fausto suggests that the slave owner took, on average, thirteen to sixteen months from exploitation of slave labor to recover the amount spent, since, from the 18th century onwards, this time to recover the amount spent jumped to thirty months.|10|
Captives clustered on a slave ship to be transported and resold in America.
Slave traders were required to pay customs duties for every captive over three years of age, and the sales ad contained information such as sex, age and origin. Slaves could be obtained to carry out manual work on the farm as well as housework. From the 18th century, with the cycle dThe mining, many slaves were sold to work in the mines and in the cities that developed in Minas Gerais.
The slave trade in Brazil was only banned in 1850, when the imperial government decreed the prohibition of this business through the Eusébio de Queirós Law. The decree of this law was inserted in a context in which England openly pressured Brazil for the prohibition of the slave trade. To avoid an open conflict with the British, who, since the implementation of the Bill Aberdeen, attacked the slave ships, D. Pedro II decreed the abolition of the slave trade.
This measure had practical effect almost immediately and caused the traffic of African slaves to Brazil to drastically reduce from 1850 onwards. Five years later, the number of Africans brought into our country through trafficking was practically zero.
Also access:The development of slavery in the Roman Empire
Curiosities
African slaves, after more than forty days of travel, arrived here in very poor physical condition. To mask the weakness of the slaves, on the day of sale, whale oil was applied to their skin.
Slaves were also given stimulants, such as tobacco, to hide their sadness.
In the 18th century, 70% of the slaves brought to Brazil were from Angola.
There are reports that point to the violence with which the colonists treated the slaves and many speak of slaves burned alive for small “faults”.
In 1584, about 25% of the population present in the colony were formed by African slaves.
The colonist who bought the slave could return it to his seller within 15 days, if he manifested any serious illness.
|1| FAUSTO, Boris. History of Brazil. São Paulo: Edusp, 2013, p. 46.
|2| SKIDMORE, Thomas E. A History of Brazil. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1998, p. 32.
|3| SCHWARCZ, Lilia Moritz and STARLING, Heloisa Murgel. Brazil: a biography. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2015, p. 81.
|4| Idem, p. 85.
|5| Idem, p. 84.
|6| SKIDMORE, Thomas E. A History of Brazil. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1998, p. 32.
|7| FAUSTO, Boris. History of Brazil. São Paulo: Edusp, 2013, p. 47.
|8| SKIDMORE, Thomas E. A History of Brazil. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1998, p. 33.
|9| SCHWARCZ, Lilia Moritz and STARLING, Heloisa Murgel. Brazil: a biography. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2015, p. 82.
|10| FAUSTO, Boris. History of Brazil. São Paulo: Edusp, 2013, p. 46-47.