Chapter 16 The World in the Age of European Expansion 1492-1763

Section 4 Trade and Empire in Africa

In Africa, as in Asia, Europeans initially encountered well-organized and powerful states with which they could establish trade relations. At first such trade centered on gold, ivory, and other luxury items. However, as Europeans began to establish plantation economies in the Americas, the slave trade in West Africa became the centerpiece of European and African cultural interaction.

Trade and Empire in West Africa

During their great age of overseas exploration, Europeans first made landfall in Africa. Here the Portuguese traded as they advanced down the coast in search of gold and the route to Asia. Local African traders found the Portuguese trade goods highly desirable. In exchange, they offered gold, ivory, and slaves. At first the Portuguese were less interested in the slaves than in the gold and ivory. As they began to grow sugar in the Atlantic islands, however, the Portuguese increasingly became interested in African slaves for labor.

            With the discovery of the Americas and the establishment of plantations, the market for slaves grew rapidly, eventually becoming more important than the gold trade. As competing Europeans from England, France, the Netherlands, and Denmark established their own coastal bases, the flow of Africans across the Atlantic dramatically increased. This Atlantic slave trade[lxiv] soon dominated all relations between Europe and western Africa.

War, technology, and the slave trade. The Atlantic slave trade was in many ways simply an extension of the internal traffic in slaves already widespread in much of Africa. The usual means of obtaining slaves in African societies was through warfare or raiding. Particularly as African states rose to power by conquering their neighbors, the many wars they generated produced large numbers of slaves.

            New methods of warfare in West Africa in the 1400s and 1500s contributed significantly to the formation of states and the building of empires, and so also to the development of the slave trade. The most important of these innovations came first from the Islamic north. Muslims introduced cavalry into West Africa. With cavalry, many new states began to emerge in the savanna lands along the desert’s edge, and elsewhere where the terrain was suitable for horses. The state of Bornu, around Lake Chad, soon imported guns and mercenaries from the Ottoman Empire to help its expansion.

            To the southwest of Bornu, Oyo imported horses from the Sudan and created a powerful cavalry that allowed it to dominate other Yoruba groups all the way south to the coast until the mid-1800s. Farther west, Dahomey, a subordinate state of Oyo, adopted the same cavalry warfare and eventually established its own rule down to the coast. Throughout the 1600s and 1700s, Oyo and Dahomey sent huge numbers of slaves southward to the coast for sale.[lxv] Between 1680 and 1740, for example, Dahomey sent about 20,000 slaves a year for sale along the so-called Slave Coast.

European influences. While Dahomey and Oyo owed their rise to developments coming from the Islamic north and east, other peoples rose to power as a consequence of the European presence on the African coast. In the 1600s, for example, the Akan people settled in the region centered on present-day Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) and Ghana.[lxvi] Akan merchants traded gold, textiles, slaves, and salt to peoples farther north. The arrival of Europeans caused the slave trade to become more important than the gold trade. By 1726 a confused English visitor could remark: "Why this is called the Gold Coast, I do not know."[lxvii]

            Trade with the Europeans also strongly influenced Akan political and social organization. The introduction of new crops from the Americas, including corn and new types of yams, led to population growth in the 1500s and 1600s.[lxviii] Equally important was the introduction of new weapons, particularly guns.  One Akan group, the Asante, purchased guns with gold and slaves and used them to conquer their neighbors all the way to the coast. Wealthy Asante kings ruled until the 1800s, and long continued to provide slaves for the coastal trade.

            Just as Native North American Indians adapted themselves to the fur trade, many Africans took advantage of the European arrival to become intermediaries, or middlemen controlling the slave trade in the African interior. Both Oyo and Dahomey, for example, once they were established, became increasingly oriented toward producing slaves for the European trade. This growing dependence on the slave trade had important and often devastating effects. Even when they were not at war, many African rulers organized raiding expeditions to continue supplying slaves for the trade. Olaudah Equiano, born in Benin and kidnapped into slavery around 1745, described the wars caused by the slave trade:  

      “They appear to have been irruptions [raids] of one little state or district on the other to obtain prisoners or booty. Perhaps they were incited to this by those [African] traders who brought the European goods . . . amongst us. Such a mode of obtaining slaves in Africa is common. . . . When a trader wants slaves he applies to a chief for them and he tempts him with his wares. It is not extraordinary if on this occasion he yields to the temptation.”[lxix]  

The Kongo Empire.  Along the central regions of the western coast, the initial Portuguese contacts had even more dramatic consequences. The Kongo kingdom of Central Africa, for example, at first welcomed European trade and influence. When the Portuguese first arrived in the late 1400s, Kongo was at the height of its power.[lxx] As in most African states, slavery was a common practice.

            In the early 1500s the Kongo ruler Nzinga Mbemba—a Catholic convert who took the name Afonso I—established Catholicism as the kingdom’s official religion, and encouraged missionaries from Portugal to spread Christianity. As the Portuguese became increasingly interested in the Kongo as a major source of labor for their sugar plantations, however, Afonso began to complain about their behavior. Afonso was particularly alarmed by the Portuguese tendency to seize people without regard to their status. In 1526 he wrote to the Portuguese monarch, urging his "royal brother"[lxxi] to stop the traffic in slaves:

            “We cannot reckon how great the damage is, since the . . . [slave] merchants daily seize our subjects, sons of the land and sons of our noblemen and vassals and our relatives. . . . Thieves and men of evil conscience take them . . . and cause them to be sold: and so great, Sir, is their corruption . . . that our country is being utterly depopulated.”[lxxii]

The Portuguese paid little heed to the request, and the depopulation continued.

Conflict in East and South Africa

While the slave trade increasingly shaped European relations with Africans on the western coast, in East Africa a different pattern emerged. Once they arrived in the Indian Ocean, the Portuguese tried to establish their own control over the region’s trade. They began by taking cities along the east African coast. However, they were never strong enough to seize full control of the region. In addition, although trade in slaves flourished in East Africa, it remained minor compared to the more important trade in gold, ivory, and other goods.

            The Portuguese were most successful in tapping the trade of the strong African state, whose rulers were known as the Mwene Mutapa, which had emerged in the Zambezi River Valley, north of the old empire of Greater Zimbabwe.[lxxiii] Organizing the trade from his rich agricultural lands and mines to the coast, the Mwene Mutapa commanded tribute from all traders in his lands as well as from his subjects. The arrival of Portuguese traders in the early 1500s soon weakened the empire, however.

            Within a half century, the Portuguese had involved themselves in rebellions of local rulers against the emperor. In 1629 the Portuguese negotiated a treaty with a new emperor they had helped bring to power. The treaty gave the Portuguese a monopoly of trade in the empire, and the ruler was ordered to pay the Portuguese tribute. Soon, however, the weakened Mwene Mutapa was challenged by a rival dynasty and Portuguese influence declined.

            Farther north along the coast, the Portuguese position was even weaker. In the 1640s the Muslim Ya'rubi dynasty of Oman, along the south Arabian coast, set out to drive their Portuguese competitors from the Indian Ocean once and for all.[lxxiv] In 1650 the Omanis formed an alliance with the Swahili city-states in East Africa. Combining forces, they began to drive the Portuguese from their coastal forts. By the mid-1700s, although they retained a foothold in present-day Mozambique, Portugal was no longer a major East African power. In their place, Muslim merchants once again controlled most of the coastal trade – as well as dominating the slave trade in the interior.

            Portugal’s weakness soon invited other competitors to establish themselves in Africa and the Indian Ocean region. As part of their infiltration of the Portuguese trading empire in Asia, the Dutch also decided to obtain a foothold on the African coast. In 1652 the Dutch East India Company founded the first permanent European colony in sub-Saharan Africa when it settled the Boers at the Cape of Good Hope.[lxxv]

            Nomadic Khoi and San peoples, who herded animals and fished, sparsely populated the area. Within a decade the Boers had settled in as landowners, forcing labor from the local African peoples and importing slaves from other regions. Increasingly uneasy under company control, however, eventually many Boers migrated into the interior. There they established themselves on the land just as other European settlers were doing in North America.

Author Commentary:

African and European Slavery

Africans had long practiced slavery before European traders arrived. African slavery included a wide range of relationships, from voluntary service to the enforced captivity of prisoners of war. The way in which slaves were acquired determined the way they could be treated. In most African societies, slaves that had been bought or captured in war were considered to have no rights at all. They were often used as plantation labor, or even, in some societies, used as human sacrifices. Those born into slavery, on the other hand, were usually considered a part of the local community, with certain rights and obligations.

            Some African communities allowed slaves to buy back their freedom, or granted it in cases of exceptional service. Sometimes slaves could rise to positions of prominence in society. According to one African proverb, "A slave who knows how to serve succeeds to [inherits] his master's property."[lxxvi] In Muslim states particularly, slaves had guaranteed rights under Islamic law, such as the right to marry and to own property.

            Europeans too had long practiced slavery, particularly in the Mediterranean region. During the Renaissance period, Italian merchants bought, transported, and sold European slaves from Black Sea ports. In the 1500s and 1600s, many European slaves were sold in Bristol, England, to work in the sugar plantations of the Caribbean. While Islam and some traditional African societies recognized slaves as human beings with certain rights, most Europeans considered them little more than property, like work animals, to be bought and sold for their labor, with practically no rights at all.[lxxvii] Such attitudes especially prevailed where non-Christian slaves were concerned. As a result, although the institution of slavery was familiar to them, most Africans shipped to the Americas were probably not prepared for the realities of slavery in their New World.

The Middle Passage

The Atlantic slave trade was a vital link in the growing chain of trade binding Africa, the Americas, and Europe. European merchants shipped iron and cotton goods, weapons, and liquor to Africa, where they were exchanged for slaves or gold. African slaves were then transported across the Atlantic to the Americas. On American plantations and in mines, the slaves became the prime producers of goods sold throughout the world. Brazilian merchants shipped slave-grown tobacco to Africa to buy more slaves. At the same time, other merchants shipped tobacco, sugar, rum, and cotton produced by slave labor to Europe, where they bought manufactured goods to sell in the Americas.[lxxviii]

            Before they could be forced to labor in the Americas, the enslaved Africans had to survive the long and brutal journey across the Atlantic known as the Middle Passage. Chained together on crude platforms between decks, many did not survive. Supplies of food and water were often inadequate and contaminated by bacteria—the consequent dysentery was a major cause of death on long voyages. Measles and smallpox epidemics also frequently broke out. One British captain warned a colleague to avoid having the slaves “sicken and die apace, as it happened aboard the Albion frigate, as soon as their yams were spent.”[lxxix]

            Some slaves mutinied to gain their freedom. Others voluntarily chose death. After a rumor circulated that the captives "were first to have their Eyes put out, and then to be eaten," more than 100 slaves on the British ship Prince of Orange jumped overboard in 1737. According to the captain, more than 33 drowned because they  “would not endeavor to save themselves, but resolved to die.”[lxxx] Despite the death rate, at the height of the trade between 1741 and 1810, European slavers, mostly British by that time, carried an average rate of about 60,000 slaves a year, the majority of them young men. Although estimates vary, recent studies indicate that around 10 million Africans were forcibly taken across the Atlantic between 1451 and 1870.[lxxxi]

            Once ashore in the Americas, the slaves fared no better. A Jesuit priest in Cartagena, a busy port in Spanish America, described a group of slaves just off a ship:  

      “They arrive looking like skeletons; they are led ashore, completely naked, and are shut up in a large court or enclosure . . . and it is a great pity to see so many sick and needy people, denied all care or assistance, for as a rule they are left to lie on the ground, naked and without shelter.”[lxxxii] 

The slaves were next led to the auction block, where a crowd of prospective buyers could examine them, like livestock.

Consequences of the Slave Trade

The forced migration of millions of Africans to the Americas through the slave trade has been called the African diaspora. Through this diaspora, or dispersal, African culture took firm root throughout the Americas, as slaves and free blacks became integral members of the new American societies. Brazilian Africans, for example, mixed with the Portuguese and Native Americans and created a thriving hybrid culture. Food preparation, samba music, dances, folk tales, and child-rearing practices reflected African influences.[lxxxiii] Africans also influenced politics. In the early 1600s a group of African runaways formed their own state, called Palmares in northeastern Brazil. For almost a century, the village residents of Palmares fought off Brazilian troops and maintained their independence.

            In the cities of Spanish America, Africans quickly adapted to Spanish culture. At the same time, they kept memories of their home kingdoms alive by forming self-help organizations, including religious brotherhoods and neighborhood associations with locally elected "royal" leaders.[lxxxiv]

            In the Caribbean, Africans far outnumbered European settlers. Conditions on sugar plantations were often harsh, with disease, overcrowding, brutal discipline, and poor diets leading to high mortality rates. Sometimes Africans were able to resist. In Jamaica, for example, Cudjoe, the leader of a group of runaways, raided English plantations until his group was granted its own territory in 1739.[lxxxv]

            In North America, too, Africans contributed their own heritage to the newly emerging colonial society. Although those in northern colonies tended to adapt to English culture, Africans on southern plantations maintained many of their own traditions. For example, African languages influenced the Gullah and Geechee dialects of South Carolina, Georgia, and northeastern Florida. Africans also brought with them African techniques for growing rice, indigo, and cotton. Many African cultural forms, such as their rich tradition of folk tales and songs, became an integral part of an emerging American culture.[lxxxvi]

 

Section 4 Review

IDENTIFY and explain the significance of the following:

Atlantic slave trade

Slave Coast

Olaudah Equiano

Nzinga Mbemba

Middle Passage

African diaspora

LOCATE and explain the importance of the following:

Côte d’Ivoire

Ghana

Benin

Oyo

Dahomey

Zimbabwe

Cape of Good Hope

1.   Main Idea  How did slavery in the Americas differ from slavery in Africa?

2.   Main Idea  How did the slave trade intensify violence in Africa?

3.   Geography: Location  Why do you think most of the African slave trade originated in West Africa and Central Africa?

Chapter Review

Reviewing Terms

From the following list, choose the term that correctly matches the definition.

Battle of Lepanto   

captaincies

African diaspora  

encomienda

Northwest Passage

Middle Passage

1. naval engagement in 1571 fought between the Ottoman Empire and the Spanish and Italians, in which the Ottoman fleet was destroyed

2. tracts of land granted by the Portuguese king to donataries in Brazil

3. supposed trade route, thought by Europeans to exist across North America to the East Indies

4. sea voyage transporting slaves from Africa to the Americas, on which the Africans suffered terribly

5. system of organization in the Spanish colonies of the Americas, under which colonists were given land and a number of Native Americans to use as laborers

 

Reviewing Chronology

List the following events in their correct chronological order.

 

1. Spanish conquistadors conquer the Aztec.

2. Pedro Cabral discovers Brazil.

3. British colonists found the settlement at Jamestown, Virginia.

4. The Portuguese are allowed to establish a trading station at the Chinese port of Macao.

5. The Dutch establish their first colony in Asia at Batavia.

 

Understanding the Main Idea

1. Why were Europeans able to increase their power in India by the 1700s?

2. How did the Spanish and Portuguese organize their colonies in the New World?

3. Why did Japan and China seek to limit contact with Europeans?

4. What were the ultimate results of Europeans' search for the Northwest Passage?

5. What pattern did Europeans follow in their trade in Asia?

 

Thinking Critically

1. Hypothesizing. What possible problems might overseas trade and colonization have caused among the European nations?

2. Synthesizing. How did trade become more global in the 1600s and 1700s?

 

History Through the Arts:

Japanese Popular Culture Under the Tokugawa

 

In the cities of Tokugawa Japan, the samurai transformed themselves from country warriors to bureaucrats schooled in the Confucian classics. Merchants, though officially the despised lowest class, wielded increasing power by selling goods throughout the country and lending money to the samurai. The growth of cities and the increasing wealth of merchants and artisans led to the rise of a thriving popular culture.

            By the early 1700s, new forms of literature, theater, and art catered to the tastes of ordinary city residents. Publishing houses flourished as literacy became widespread, even for the lower classes. Readers enjoyed illustrated how-to books, travel books, and realistic romances with commoners as heroes.

            City dwellers flocked to Kabuki plays and puppet shows. The earliest kabuki were plays that featured women performing lively new dances. The conservative Tokugawa disliked such spectacles, agreeing with one Confucian scholar's complaints:

 

      “The men wear women's clothing; the women wear men's clothing, cut their hair, and wear a man's topknot, have swords at their sides, and carry purses. They sing base songs and dance vulgar dances; their lewd voices are clamorous.”[lxxxvii]

 

The government banned women from performing in kabuki plays in 1629. Thereafter male actors played women's roles in melodramatic plays about heroic samurai and tragic love affairs.

 

Through Others' Eyes

First Impressions

 

            When the Spanish first began arriving on the shores of Mexico, the Native Americans probably observed with amazement the strange-looking creatures who bore little resemblance to any people the Mexicans had ever seen. From their ships and horses to their outward appearances, attempts were made to describe these strange visitors. An Aztec scout watched from the shore as the Spaniards fished from a small boat. The scout returned to his Aztec ruler with this report:

 

"[T]hey . . . then entered a small canoe and reached the two enormous towers [the Spanish ships] and climbed inside; there must have been about fifteen of them, with a kind of coloured jackets, some blue, some brown and some green and some of a dirty colour, . . . Some had a pinkish hue, and on their heads they had coloured pieces of cloth: these were scarlet caps, some very large and round like small maize cakes, which must have served as protection against the sun. Their flesh was very white, much more than ours, except that all wore a long beard and hair to their ears."[lxxxviii]

 

 


[1] Paul Coles, The Ottoman Impact on Europe. HB & World. Copyright P.H. Coles and Thames & Hudson, London, 1968. pp. 162-195.

[2] Shaw, p. 191 and p. 203.

[3]Use the following as an anno, suggesting that the teacher make this point further on in the chapter after Spanish colonization in the Americas has been discussed: As vast amounts of silver from the Americas began to enter the Mediterranean economies through Spain, growing inflation undermined Ottoman financial stability. It was for this reason that the Janissaries had been paid with melted down ornaments in 1589.

[4] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/36/Odanobunaga.jpg/200px-Odanobunaga.jpg

[5] http://www.samurai-archives.com/image/hideyo1.jpg

[6] Quoted in Andrew C. Ross, A Vision Betrayed: The Jesuits in Japan and China, 1542-1742, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 1994, p. 77.


[i]Stanford J. Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, vol. I, p. 97.

[ii] Shaw, pp. 172-173.

[iii] Jack Beeching, The Galleys at Lepanto, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1982, p. 209.

[iv] Bernard Lewis, The Muslim Discovery of Europe. W.W. Norton & Company. New York and London, 1982. pp. 43-44.

[v] Shaw, p. 180 and 188.

[vi] Thomas M. Barker, Double Eagle and Crescent; Vienna's Second Turkish Siege and its Historical Setting. State University of New York Press, Albany, New York, 1967. p. 245.

[vii] Bernard Lewis, The Muslim Discovery of Europe. W.W. Norton & Company. New York and London, 1982. pp. 41-42.

[viii] Shaw, p. 224.

[ix] Bailey W. Diffie and George D. Winius, Foundations of the Portuguese Empire, 1415-1580. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1977, p. 181.

[x] Bailey W. Diffie and George D. Winius, Foundations of the Portuguese Empire, 1415-1580. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1977, p. 227-228.

[xi] Bailey W. Diffie and George D. Winius, Foundations of the Portuguese Empire, 1415-1580. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1977, p. 254.

[xii]Bailey W. Diffie and George D. Winius, Foundations of the Portuguese Empire, 1415-1580. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1977, pp. 257-258.

[xiii] Try to use the following as photo caption: Anxious to maintain a monopoly over the eastern trade, the Portuguese allowed only king's ships to trade with the Estado da India, as they called their Asian empire. Royal merchantmen, accompanied by armed escorts, carried black pepper, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, nutmeg, and mace to Lisbon. Though expensive in lives and resources, the spice trade yielded handsome profits—for example, it provided 39 percent of the Crown's income in 1518.Lyle N. McAlister, Spain and Portugal in the New World, 1492-1700. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1984, p. 252.

[xiv]C.R. Boxer, Portuguese Society in the Tropics; The Municipal Councils of Goa, Macao, Bahia, and Luanda, 1510-1800. The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison and Milwaukee, 1965, p. 42; Bailey W. Diffie and George D. Winius, Foundations of the Portuguese Empire, 1415-1580. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1977, p. 396.

[xv] C.R. Boxer, Portuguese Society in the Tropics; The Municipal Councils of Goa, Macao, Bahia, and Luanda, 1510-1800. The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison and Milwaukee, 1965, p. 53.

[xvi] Stanley Lane-Poole, Medieval India Under Mohammedan Rule, p. 416-417.

[xvii] Hermann Kulke and Dietmar Rothermund, A History of India, Barnes & Noble Books, Totowa, New Jersey, 1986, p. 225.

[xviii] Jonathan D. Spence, The Search for Modern China, W.W. Norton & Company, New York and London, 1990, p. 67, notes that Kangxi was 42 in 1696, but otherwise I could not find a firm year of birth. Grollier's on-line Encyclopedia (available through UTCAT) confirms: b. May 4, 1654, d. Dec. 20, 1722.

[xix] Jonathan D. Spence, Emperor of China; Self-Portrait of K'ang-Hsi, Vintage Books, Random House, New York, 1988, p. xi, notes that Kangxi began his reign in 1661. However, on pp. 107-108, Kangxi says he was eight when he put on mourning for his father (I assume he became emperor around this time) ??

[xx] Jonathan D. Spence, Emperor of China; Self-Portrait of K'ang-Hsi, Vintage Books, Random House, New York, 1988, p. 8. I am using the pinyin version of the emperor's name (Kangxi) instead of the Wade-Giles.

[xxi] Jonathan D. Spence, The Search for Modern China, W.W. Norton & Company, New York and London, 1990, pp. 67-68.

[xxii] Jonathan D. Spence, The Search for Modern China, W.W. Norton & Company, New York and London, 1990, pp. 71-72.

[xxiii]Add Anno comparing this process with what was going on in Europe.

[xxiv]Wetterau, World History, p. 271.

[xxv] Miguel Leon-Portilla (ed.), The Broken Spears; The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico, Beacon Press, Boston, 1962, p. 41.

[xxvi]Jon Manchip White, Cortes and the Downfall of the Aztec Empire, p. 217.

[xxvii] Miguel Leon-Portilla (ed.), The Broken Spears; The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico, Beacon Press, Boston, 1962, p. 77.

[xxviii] Miguel Leon-Portilla (ed.), The Broken Spears; The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico, Beacon Press, Boston, 1962, p. 84.

[xxix] Miguel Leon-Portilla (ed.), The Broken Spears; The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico, Beacon Press, Boston, 1962, p. 85.

[xxx] Miguel Leon-Portilla (ed.), The Broken Spears; The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico, Beacon Press, Boston, 1962, p. 99.

[xxxi] Miguel Leon-Portilla (ed.), The Broken Spears; The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico, Beacon Press, Boston, 1962, p. 109.

[xxxii] Miguel Leon-Portilla (ed.), The Broken Spears; The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico, Beacon Press, Boston, 1962, p. 149.

[xxxiii]Hernan Cortes, Letters From Mexico, transl. and ed. by Anthony Pagden, pp. 106-107.

[xxxiv]Coe, Snow, and Benson, Atlas of Ancient America, p. 150.

[xxxv] John H. Parry and Robert G. Keith (eds.), New Iberian World: A Documentary History of the Discovery and Settlement of Latin America to the Early 17th Century, Volume IV, The Andes, Times Books and Hector & Rose, New York, 1984, p. 46; and Mark A. Burkholder and Lyman L. Johnson, Colonial Latin America, Oxford University Press, New York, 1990, p. 44.

[xxxvi] John H. Parry and Robert G. Keith (eds.), New Iberian World: A Documentary History of the Discovery and Settlement of Latin America to the Early 17th Century, Volume IV, The Andes, Times Books and Hector & Rose, New York, 1984, p. 46.

[xxxvii] This needs to be verified. John H. Parry and Robert G. Keith (eds.), New Iberian World: A Documentary History of the Discovery and Settlement of Latin America to the Early 17th Century, Volume IV, The Andes, Times Books and Hector & Rose, New York, 1984, p. 47, states that Atahualpa was captured in November 1533. Mark A. Burkholder and Lyman L. Johnson, Colonial Latin America, Oxford University Press, New York, 1990, p. 45, states November 1532. Benjamin Keen and Mark Wasserman (eds.), A History of Latin America (Third Edition), Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1988, pp. 68, notes that Cuzco was captured in November 1533 after Atahualpa's death. 1532 seems more reasonable, given date of Spanish departure and that Atahualpa was held hostage for many months before he was killed.

[xxxviii] Mark A. Burkholder and Lyman L. Johnson, Colonial Latin America, Oxford University Press, New York, 1990, p. 46.

[xxxix] John H. Parry and Robert G. Keith (eds.), New Iberian World: A Documentary History of the Discovery and Settlement of Latin America to the Early 17th Century, Volume IV, The Andes, Times Books and Hector & Rose, New York, 1984, p. 84.

[xl] John H. Parry and Robert G. Keith (eds.), New Iberian World: A Documentary History of the Discovery and Settlement of Latin America to the Early 17th Century, Volume IV, The Andes, Times Books and Hector & Rose, New York, 1984, p. 138.

[xli] Lyle N. McAlister, Spain and Portugal in the New World, 1492-1700. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1984, p. 267.

[xlii] Lyle N. McAlister, Spain and Portugal in the New World, 1492-1700. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1984, p. 282. William McNeill, Plagues and Peoples, p. 180 (Diana Walker’s volume).

[xliii]Coe, Snow, and Benson, p. 23.

[xliv] Marvin Lunenfeld, 1492: Discovery, Invasion, Encounter: Sources and Interpretations. D.C. Heath and Company, Lexington, Massachusetts, 1991, pp. 304-305.

[xlv] Lyle N. McAlister, Spain and Portugal in the New World, 1492-1700. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1984, p. 271.

[xlvi] Ted Morgan, Wilderness at Dawn: The Settling of the North American Continent, Simon & Schuster, New York, p. 66.

[xlvii] Oliver A. Rink, Holland on the Hudson; An Economic and Social History of Dutch New York, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1986, p. 28.

[xlviii] Henri and Barbara van der Zee, A Sweet and Alien Land; The Story of Dutch New York, The Viking Press, New York, 1978, p. 8.

[xlix] Henri and Barbara van der Zee, A Sweet and Alien Land; The Story of Dutch New York, The Viking Press, New York, 1978, pp. 10-11; Ted Morgan, Wilderness at Dawn: The Settling of the North American Continent, Simon & Schuster, New York, p. 153; Oliver A. Rink, Holland on the Hudson; An Economic and Social History of Dutch New York, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1986, p. 70.

[l] Ted Morgan, Wilderness at Dawn: The Settling of the North American Continent, Simon & Schuster, New York, p. 299.

[li] Gary B. Nash, Red, White and Black; The People of Early North America, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1992, pp. 107-108.

[lii] Ted Morgan, Wilderness at Dawn: The Settling of the North American Continent, Simon & Schuster, New York, p. 116.

[liii]GET ART SHOWING VIRGINIA TOBACCO FARMING, WITH SPECIAL EMPHASIS ON THE FACT THAT NATIVE AMERICANS HAD TAUGHT IT TO THE SETTLERS.

[liv] Gary B. Nash, Red, White and Black; The People of Early North America, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1992, p. 50.

[lv] Ted Morgan, Wilderness at Dawn: The Settling of the North American Continent, Simon & Schuster, New York, p. 124.

[lvi]Who Built America? volume I, pp. 71-72.

[lvii] Selma R. Williams, Divine Rebel; The Life of Anne Marbury Hutchinson, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1981, p. 76.

[lviii] Selma R. Williams, Divine Rebel; The Life of Anne Marbury Hutchinson, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1981, p. 116.

[lix] Selma R. Williams, Divine Rebel; The Life of Anne Marbury Hutchinson, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1981, p. 149.

[lx] Selma R. Williams, Divine Rebel; The Life of Anne Marbury Hutchinson, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1981, p. 161.

[lxi] Ted Morgan, Wilderness at Dawn: The Settling of the North American Continent, Simon & Schuster, New York, p. 104.

[lxii]Atlas of the North American Indian, pp.74-75.

[lxiii]Jordan, Conquering a Continent, p. 15

[lxiv]Atlantic slave trade versus trans-Atlantic slave trade: we use Atlantic slave trade as used by Curtin.

[lxv] For material on Oyo: B.A. Ogot (ed.), General History of Africa, Volume V: Africa from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century, UNESCO (Paris) and Heinemann International Literature and Textbooks (Oxford) and University of California Press (Berkeley), 1992, p. 440ff; and from Basil Davidson, Africa in History; Themes and Outlines, Collier Books, Macmillan Publishing Company, New York, 1974, p. 151ff.

[lxvi] B.A. Ogot (ed.), General History of Africa, Volume V: Africa from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century, UNESCO (Paris) and Heinemann International Literature and Textbooks (Oxford) and University of California Press (Berkeley), 1992, pp. 400-433 for all material on the Akan.

[lxvii] B.A. Ogot (ed.), General History of Africa, Volume V: Africa from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century, UNESCO (Paris) and Heinemann International Literature and Textbooks (Oxford) and University of California Press (Berkeley), 1992, p. 407.

[lxviii] B.A. Ogot (ed.), General History of Africa, Volume V: Africa from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century, UNESCO (Paris) and Heinemann International Literature and Textbooks (Oxford) and University of California Press (Berkeley), 1992, p. 425.

[lxix] Paul Edwards (ed.), Equiano's Travels; His Autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa the African, Frederick A. Praeger, New York, 1966, p. 9.

[lxx] For material on Kongo: B.A. Ogot (ed.), General History of Africa, Volume V: Africa from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century, UNESCO (Paris) and Heinemann International Literature and Textbooks (Oxford) and University of California Press (Berkeley), 1992, p. 547ff; and from Basil Davidson, Africa in History; Themes and Outlines, Collier Books, Macmillan Publishing Company, New York, 1974, pp. 135-136.

[lxxi] Basil Davidson, Africa in History; Themes and Outlines, Collier Books, Macmillan Publishing Company, New York, 1974, p. 136.

[lxxii] Paul Boyer, Todd and Curti's The American Nation, HRW, Austin, 1995, p. 42!!!

[lxxiii] For material on Zimbabwe: B.A. Ogot (ed.), General History of Africa, Volume V: Africa from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century, UNESCO (Paris) and Heinemann International Literature and Textbooks (Oxford) and University of California Press (Berkeley), 1992, p. 647ff.

[lxxiv] For material on Omanis: B.A. Ogot (ed.), General History of Africa, Volume V: Africa from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century, UNESCO (Paris) and Heinemann International Literature and Textbooks (Oxford) and University of California Press (Berkeley), 1992, p. 767ff; and from Basil Davidson, Africa in History; Themes and Outlines, Collier Books, Macmillan Publishing Company, New York, 1974, p. 170.

[lxxv] For material on South Africa: B.A. Ogot (ed.), General History of Africa, Volume V: Africa from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century, UNESCO (Paris) and Heinemann International Literature and Textbooks (Oxford) and University of California Press (Berkeley), 1992, p. 683ff; and from Basil Davidson, Africa in History; Themes and Outlines, Collier Books, Macmillan Publishing Company, New York, 1974, pp. 170ff.

[lxxvi] Basil Davidson, Africa in History; Themes and Outlines, Collier Books, Macmillan Publishing Company, New York, 1974, p. 182.

[lxxvii]Meltzer, Slavery, vol. II, pp. 51-53.

[lxxviii] Herbert S. Klein, African Slavery in Latin America and the Caribbean, Oxford University Press, New York, 1986, 145-146. Klein notes that recent research has exploded the myth of triangular trade, mainly on the grounds that the majority of the trade went from Africa to the Americas without any side trips to Europe. See also the Atlantic commerce map in B.A. Ogot (ed.), General History of Africa, Volume V: Africa from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century, UNESCO (Paris) and Heinemann International Literature and Textbooks (Oxford) and University of California Press (Berkeley), 1992, p. 77--I don't see any triangles!

[lxxix] Elizabeth Donnan, Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave Trade to America, Volume II, The 18th Century, Octagon books, New York, 1969, p. 15.

[lxxx] Elizabeth Donnan, Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave Trade to America, Volume II, The 18th Century, Octagon books, New York, 1969, p. 460.

[lxxxi] Curtin, The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census, pp. 265-268. Bob - Curtin’s figures seem fairly conservative. The following  reference cites 11-15 million. Can we verify in a reliable third source, since Curtin’s study is from 1969? B.A. Ogot (ed.), General History of Africa, Volume V: Africa from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century, UNESCO (Paris) and Heinemann International Literature and Textbooks (Oxford) and University of California Press (Berkeley), 1992, p. 82.

[lxxxii] Benjamin Keen and Mark Wasserman (eds.), A History of Latin America (Third Edition), Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1988, pp. 111-112.

[lxxxiii] Michael L. Conniff and Thomas J. Davis, Africans in the Americas; A History of the Black Diaspora, St. Martin's Press, New York, 1994, p. 101.

[lxxxiv] Michael L. Conniff and Thomas J. Davis, Africans in the Americas; A History of the Black Diaspora, St. Martin's Press, New York, 1994, p. 57.

[lxxxv] Cyril Hamshere, The British in the Caribbean, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 19722, pp. 140-141.

[lxxxvi] Joseph E. Harris, Global Dimensions of the African Diaspora, Howard University Press, Washington, D.C., 1993, pp. 100-103.

[lxxxvii] John Whitney Hall (ed.), The Cambridge History of Japan, Volume 4: Early Modern Japan, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1991, p. 750.

[lxxxviii]Nigel Davies, The Aztecs (Norman,  Okla.: The University of Oklahoma Press, 1989), 239.