The Transatlantic Slave Trade: Crash Course Black American History #1 - Free Educational videos for Students in K-12

The Transatlantic Slave Trade: Crash Course Black American History #1 - By CrashCourse

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00:0-1	Hi , I'm Clint smith and this is crash course
00:02	black american history and today we're learning about the transatlantic
00:06	slave trade Which spanned nearly 400 years from the late
00:09	15th century To the late 19th century . The majority
00:12	of enslaved Africans Were taken from six primary regions santa
00:16	, Gambia , sierra , Leone . In the Windward
00:18	coast , the Gold Coast , the Body Benin ,
00:21	the body Biafra and west central Africa , also known
00:25	as Congo and Angola . In his 1935 book ,
00:28	Black Reconstruction in America Scholar and civil rights leader W
00:31	. E . B Du bois described the atlantic slave
00:34	trade as quote , The most magnificent drama in the
00:37	last 1000 years of human history and he didn't mean
00:41	magnificent in a good way . Yeah , I want
00:52	to know the top . This episode will address some
00:54	challenging topics , including sexual violence and images of extreme
00:58	violence we believe . However , it is important to
01:01	discuss these ideas thoroughly so that we can fully grapple
01:04	with the reality of us history . An estimated 12.4
01:07	million people were loaded on slave ships and carried through
01:11	what became known as the Middle Passage , which moved
01:14	across the atlantic and included many different destinations . It
01:17	was named the Middle Passage because it was the second
01:19	of three parts of what became known as the triangular
01:22	trade . The first leg of the journey carried cargo
01:25	like textiles , iron , alcohol , firearms , and
01:28	gun powder from europe to Africa's Western coast . When
01:31	the ships reached the coast of Western Africa , the
01:34	cargo was exchanged for people from their ships loaded with
01:39	human beings , made their way to the Americas ,
01:41	where the enslaved Africans were sold in exchange for goods
01:44	like sugar and tobacco before the ships made their way
01:47	back to europe . It's estimated that over the course
01:50	of the Middle Passage , two million African captives died
01:54	, their bodies often tossed overboard , but some people
01:57	might not know about the slave trade is that the
01:59	vast majority of people did not actually go to the
02:01	United States . In fact , far from it ,
02:04	only about 5% of captured Africans were brought directly to
02:07	what would eventually become the US . The largest proportion
02:10	, around 41 went to brazil , while millions of
02:14	others were scattered across islands in the Caribbean and south
02:17	America . As we examine slavery in the United States
02:20	from its earliest moments when people were first taken from
02:23	their homes all the way through the end of the
02:25	civil war . It's important to lift up the narratives
02:27	and accounts of enslaved people themselves as they can provide
02:31	us with a perspective on this horrific institution . In
02:33	ways that few other documents can . For example ,
02:36	A lot of Quijano and African , captured as a
02:38	boy , wrote in his 1789 autobiography , the interesting
02:43	narrative of the life of a lot of work ,
02:44	we know about the experience of being captured and taken
02:47	to the edge of the ocean and being boarded onto
02:50	the ship . I was immediately handled and tossed up
02:53	to see if I were sound by some of the
02:54	crew , and I was now persuaded that I had
02:57	gotten into a world of bad spirits that they were
03:00	going to kill me . Their complexions , two differing
03:03	so much from ours , their long hair and the
03:07	language they spoke , which was very different from any
03:10	I had ever heard united to confirm me in this
03:13	belief . When I looked around the ship to and
03:16	saw a large furnace or copper boiling , and a
03:19	multitude of black people of every description , chain together
03:23	, every one of their countenances , expressing dejection and
03:26	sorrow . I no longer doubted of my faith ,
03:30	and quite overpowered with horror and anguish . I felt
03:34	motionless on the deck and fainted , captured Africans didn't
03:38	really have an understanding of what lay ahead for them
03:41	, enslaved . Africans weren't coming back to Africa from
03:44	the Americas and warning people about what happened . All
03:47	people knew was what they saw in front of them
03:50	, large ship , an endless ocean . And for
03:53	many of these Africans , people speaking a language they
03:56	had never heard with a color skin some of them
03:59	had never seen . It's also important to note that
04:02	the story is not as simple as Africans being hunted
04:05	and captured by Europeans and forced onto ships against their
04:07	will . The Africans who were taken and placed on
04:09	board these ships , We're typically prisoners of war from
04:12	other African tribes , people deemed criminals and poor members
04:15	of society who were often traded to pay off their
04:18	debt , which is to say , many captured Africans
04:21	were sold to Europeans by other Africans for a range
04:25	of different goods . Now , this fact can sometimes
04:27	be used in bad faith to obfuscate the horrors of
04:30	what the Europeans did . And while it's important not
04:33	to ignore the fact that there were Africans trading other
04:36	Africans into bondage , we should remember that being a
04:39	prisoner of war or poor member of society traded for
04:42	goods is not the same thing as being held in
04:45	intergenerational hereditary chattel slavery . That meant your Children and
04:49	their Children and their Children would all be born into
04:52	bondage . That is something unique to the experience of
04:56	slavery in the Americas . As the scholar Orlando ,
04:58	Patterson has written , slavery is the permanent , violent
05:02	and personal domination of natally alienated and generally dishonored persons
05:07	. You've likely heard about how horrible the conditions were
05:09	on slave ships , but it's worth naming explicitly .
05:13	The conditions on these ships were horrific . People were
05:16	packed by the hundreds alongside one another chain down ,
05:20	unable to move the captured Africans were forced to relieve
05:22	themselves in the same places where they slept , set
05:26	and eight . As a result , the stench from
05:29	the bottom of the ship , where there was little
05:31	ventilation was unbearable . Disease was rampant from yellow fever
05:37	to malaria , from smallpox to dysentery . It is
05:40	difficult to capture how abhorrent the conditions were . To
05:43	imagine this . It is helpful to hear from a
05:46	Quijano again . I was soon put down under the
05:49	decks , and there I received such a salutation in
05:52	my nostrils as I had never experienced in my life
05:55	. So that with the low awesomeness of the stench
05:58	and crying together , I became so sick and low
06:02	that I was not able to eat the closeness of
06:04	the place , and the heat of the climate added
06:07	to the number in the ship being so crowded that
06:10	each had scarcely room to turn himself almost suffocated us
06:14	. This produced copious preparations so that the air soon
06:18	became unfit for respiration from a variety of loathsome smells
06:22	and brought on a sickness among the slaves of which
06:24	many died . Violence against captured Africans . What's a
06:27	devastating yet ubiquitous phenomenon as these ships across the atlantic
06:31	in an effort to keep people submissive over the course
06:34	of their several weeks long trip , enslaved Africans were
06:37	tortured in a variety of cruel , just unimaginable ways
06:41	. Sexual violence was a common fixture as well .
06:44	It was not uncommon for sailors to rape enslaved women
06:47	while they were on board , but enslaved people didn't
06:50	just passively accept the conditions that have been thrust onto
06:53	them . They resisted a myriad of ways . Some
06:56	of these ways were individual and some of them were
06:59	collective , all of them where attempts to reclaim some
07:03	sense of agency and control in just inconceivable circumstances .
07:07	Sometimes they were as explicit as staging revolts meant to
07:11	overthrow the crew , and sometimes they included individual acts
07:15	of resistance , like refusing to eat or jumping overboard
07:19	. Now , the idea of trying to take one's
07:21	own life might seem like a strange sort of resistance
07:25	to some , but what you have to consider is
07:28	that these captured Africans represented money , real money to
07:32	those who were holding them in chains on these ships
07:35	. So someone attempting to take their own life represented
07:38	the ability to determine the outcome of your life for
07:41	yourself rather than having it imposed on you by someone
07:45	else . It also allowed them to undermine the economic
07:49	incentives that undergirded the entire institution . Furthermore , in
07:53	the case of jumping overboard , some of the captured
07:56	african spiritual beliefs gave them the sense that if they
07:59	could just make it into the water , the ocean
08:02	would carry their bodies home . Sometimes as a result
08:06	, the flavors on the ship would put nets on
08:08	the side of the boat to prevent people from jumping
08:11	into the sea . One of the most heinous responses
08:13	to slave resistance during the Middle Passage came in the
08:16	form of something called Speculum or um , which was
08:19	a screw like device that forced someone's mouth open and
08:23	allowed the resistant african to be force fed against their
08:27	will . It was not uncommon for this device to
08:29	break someone's teeth , displaced their jaw or rip their
08:34	mouth apart . If that didn't work . Other interventions
08:37	included placing hot coals on a person's lips until they
08:40	open their mouths or thumbscrews , a device in which
08:44	a victim's fingers or toes were placed in a vice
08:46	and slowly crushed until they comply . Given all this
08:50	, we should be clear that the decision , millions
08:52	made to stay alive in the face of unimaginable violence
08:56	and uncertainty . That , too , Was an act
08:59	of resistance . Historian Marcus Whittaker identifies the period from
09:03	1700 to 1808 as the most destructive time of the
09:07	transatlantic slave trade . Roughly 2/3 of the total of
09:10	enslaved Africans were trafficked out of Africa and to the
09:14	Americas during this period , what's more the death toll
09:17	of the transatlantic slave trade was just staggering . According
09:21	to historian Jill Lepore . For every 100 people taken
09:24	from Africa's interior , Only 64 of them would survive
09:27	the trip to the coast itself . of those 64
09:31	, Only around 48 would survive the weeks long journey
09:33	across the Atlantic . Of those 48 who stepped off
09:36	the ship , only 28 to 30 would survive the
09:39	1st 3-4 years in the colony . Before we go
09:42	on , a quick note here about language throughout this
09:45	series , we will try to be consistent in using
09:47	the term enslaved rather than slave , to refer to
09:51	African and African descended people who were held here in
09:53	bondage . This distinction is important because saying enslaved person
09:58	or enslaved worker or enslaved human being centers the personhood
10:03	of that individual and emphasizes that slavery is a condition
10:07	that was involuntarily imposed on someone rather than being an
10:12	inherent condition to someone's existence . One of the central
10:15	players in the slave trade was England's Royal African Company
10:19	, A chartered firm that maintain a monopoly on all
10:22	English trade to Africa . Following its inception in 1672
10:26	, the period of 1675-1725 represented the most active years
10:31	of the Royal African Company , but it continued to
10:34	play an active role in the first several decades of
10:36	the 18th century , an era known as free trade
10:40	. The irony of that term is not lost on
10:42	me . I think it's worth honing in on one
10:44	state and this particular relationship to the slave trade .
10:47	In order to better understand how this thing played out
10:50	. According to the work of historian Ira Berlin ,
10:52	the state of south Carolina prohibited the african slave trade
10:55	beginning in 17 87 in 18 oh three . However
10:59	, the state reopened the transatlantic slave trade And it
11:02	remained open until 1800 wait , when the federal prohibition
11:05	of the Atlantic slave trade went into effect between 1803
11:09	and 18 away , Over 35,000 enslaved people were brought
11:13	to South Carolina , more than twice as many as
11:16	in any similar period in its history as a colony
11:19	or state . The coast of charleston Was the point
11:21	of entry for approximately 40% of the enslaved Africans who
11:25	were brought to North America through the Middle Passage .
11:27	This has led some to refer to it as african
11:30	americans . Ellis Island though , an obvious differences ,
11:34	that one group came here via their own free will
11:36	And one group did not . The federal government ended
11:38	the international slave trade in 1808 . The British had
11:41	done so in 1807 . However , traders from both
11:45	nations continued illegally trafficking captive Africans for many years later
11:50	. And while the international slave trade was abolished in
11:52	the United States , the domestic slave trade Would continue
11:56	in Britain . It took another quarter century before slavery
11:59	was officially abolished in 1833 . And in the United
12:02	States , It took almost another 60 years in our
12:05	nation's deadliest war to end it Spanish and Brazilian traders
12:09	continued trafficking Africans for another half-century . Brazil , which
12:14	remember had the largest proportion of enslaved people trafficked across
12:17	the ocean , Was the final country in the Western
12:20	world to abolish slavery . Doing so in 1888 ,
12:23	the bottom line is that the transatlantic slave trade was
12:26	a cruel , violent , abhorrent , centuries long project
12:31	that would shape the trajectory of the world and of
12:33	both black and white life in ways that will come
12:36	to more fully understand . We'll continue to talk about
12:39	some of these in our next few episodes . Thanks
12:42	for watching . I'll see you next time . Crash
12:44	course is made with the help of all these nice
12:47	people and our animation team is thought efforts . Crash
12:50	course is a complexity , production . And if you'd
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13:02	Thank you to all of our patrons for making Crash
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