SLO 7 What I Pulled from Research

It is apparent that during the eighteenth century, the British had made changes to grasp a steady decline in the mortality rate of African Slaves. The innovation of cooper plating of the hull on ships made a living condition a slightly more barable for the traveling slave. The dampness had subside and the trips were  moderatley quicker. Rainfall was now also being collected, therefore it is believed that dehydration didn't play as big of a role as it priorly did. The trips I am sure were still gruesome but they were more accommodated than in previous times. With survival rate on the rise and the more slaves the British were able to successfully transfer and sale, the more likely they were able to dominate the market of slave trade.

SLO 7 Mortality Decline for the British Slave Trade

In exploring through some scholarly articles, I found one that was titled Explaining the Mortality Decline in the Eighteenth-Century British Slave Trade. This title sparked my interest because what was it that they changed or advanced to have such a decline? So let me dig through through the article and pull out what those changes and developments were. It first starts off by saying "There are many possible explanations for the decline of death rates on British Voyages during the eighteenth century. They included increased immunity gained by African populations to variety of new diseases following the gradual merging of epidemiological regions, improved economic and health conditions within Africa, and the introductions of new ships designed to carry, and to collect (from rainfall), greater volumes of water. Another important innovation from the 1760s was the coopering of hulls which may have resulted not only in faster voyages, but in reduction in shipworm and thus dampness below decks (Haines and Shlomowitz)." Me, not being ship savvy had to look up what a "hull" is; "a hull is the watertight body of a ship or boat. Above the hull is the superstructure and or deckhouse... (Hull (watercraft))". I also located another tid bit from Wiki stating "Copper sheathing is the practice of protecting the under-water hull of a ship or boat from the corrosive effects of salt water and biofouling through the use of copper plates affixed to the outside of the hull. It was pioneered and developed by the Royal Navy during the 18th century (Copper Sheathing)." So prior to this invention, "Damp conditions in steerage were believed to have contributed as much as heat and stuffiness to suffering, sickness, and death: driver decks were conducive to better health (Haines and Shlomowitz)."

Haines, Robin, and Ralph Shlomowitz. “Explaining the Mortality Decline in the Eighteenth-century British Slave   Trade”. The Economic History Review 53.2 (2000): 262–283. Web…

"Hull (watercraft)." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 21 Mar. 2016.

"Copper Sheathing." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 21 Mar. 2016.

SLO 7: Mortality Decline, What were they doing differently?

Haines, Robin, and Ralph Shlomowitz. “Explaining the Mortality Decline in the Eighteenth-century British Slave Trade”. The Economic History Review 53.2 (2000): 262–283. Web...

SLO 7 What Improved the Slave Trade for Britain

This week I am going to take a look into discoveries, inventions, and scientific achievements that were significant to the Atlantic Slave Trade. I hope to discover something that was beneficial to the slaves journey. So, here I go, off to do some research.

SLO 5: Unbelievable Impact

So my mission was to "Analyze ways in which human groups have interacted with one another, including trade, migration, warfare, cultural exchange and biological exchange, from 1500 C.E. to present". Boy, did I find all that within the Slave Trade in Jamaica. 

Over a million people were forced to migrate to Jamaica. That of course had an effect on Jamaica; including the environment, native people, and what it has become today. 

Within this Slave Trade, people of course were being traded for possessions. As I mentioned "When the slave ships arrived from Europe they were laden with trade goods. Captains offered gifts to local African leaders and paid taxes for the right to trade. They then began the serious business of barter and exchange, offering a wide variety of trade goods such as textiles, firearms, alcohol, beads, manillas and cowries (The Capture and Sale of Slaves)”. 

Warfare had a definite presence  do you think that the slaves went willing? I am certain many tried to fight for their freedom and some may have succeeded but several failed in their attempts. 

Cultrual exchange, Europeans felt that it was their duty to pass on the Christian religion and that they were helping the slaves by doing so. Many slaves did adapt this new religion while others did a mixture of the native beliefs and some new. 

Biological exchange, as mentioned several African's began to mix their heritages after being brought to Jamaica. Not only were the slaves reproducing but it was also know for slave women to birth a child from her "owner" and these children are known as "Mullatos". 

There will always be the reminder of the Slave Trade in life of Jamaica because it had such an impact on it. I mean it had an impact every where but Jamaica was such a dominate figure it is just unbelievable of the amount of people that was funneled through there. 

SLO 5 Jamaica, the Moneymaker!

This week I opened the Slave Voyage database again. When searching I randomly chose a vessel named Martha; flying the British flag, captained by John Smith and owned by John Powell and Powell (Son). This ship began their voyage on 09/04/1775 in Bristol with 23 crewmembers. They made their purchase of 214 slaves in Gold Coast (04/1776).  After their first landing they had 13 crewmembers on board. They disembarked on 12/14/1776 in Jamaica with 197 slaves. I am curious what happened to those crewmembers did they die from diseases like many of the slaves? That will just be some sort of mystery. Though, when searching I noticed a whole lot of the ship landings taking place in Jamaica. So I entered some search keywords to further investigate just how many ships were disembarking there. I found, during the time period of 1773-1793 and only those flying the British flag the total were 2,263, and when I limit the search to those of the Caribbean it only drops down to 1,905. Whoa, so almost 85% of ships were traveling to the Caribbean! Then when I clicked through the pages of those Caribbean ports, Jamaica was very well dominating in presence (The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database). So, I took by search further to another resource and found a scholarly article The Dynamics of the Slave Market and Slave Purchasing Patterns in Jamaica written by Burnard and Morgan. This was a gold mine and had so much information about Jamaica and the Slave Trade. So let me deliver to you what it is that I have discovered. Between the 1655-1808 3,432 known voyages and 915,204 slaves reached Jamaica. These were only the vessels that were registered and completed the voyage. The intended amount of slaves from those voyages was 1,083,369. Therefore about a quarter of slaves taken from their homeland never made it to the final destination.   Jamaica had the greatest demand for slaves of any other British Colony in the Americas. It received one third of the held slaves that were imported by the British Colonies. In some periods such as 1720’s and 1790’s Jamaica accounted for 40 and sometimes 50 percent of the Africans shipped by Britain (Burnard and Morgan, 205-207). As you can see Jamaica was very popular for Britain’s landing point.

Where was Britain getting all these slaves? The slaves that reached Jamaica usually came from four popular regions of Africa: the Bight of Biafra, the Gold Coast, West Central Africa, and Bight of Benin. Of these four regions they accounted for ninety percent of the slaves residing in Jamaica (Burnard and Morgan, 208). “When the slave ships arrived from Europe they were laden with trade goods. Captains offered gifts to local African leaders and paid taxes for the right to trade. They then began the serious business of barter and exchange, offering a wide variety of trade goods such as textiles, firearms, alcohol, beads, manillas and cowries Europeans…bought most of them from local African or African-European dealers. These dealers had a sophisticated network of trading alliances collecting groups of people together for sale…Most of the Africans who were enslaved were captured in battles or were kidnapped, though some were sold into slavery for debt or as punishment…The captives were marched to the coast, often enduring long journeys of weeks or even months, shackled to one another. At the coast they were imprisoned in large stone forts, built by European trading companies, or in smaller wooden compounds.. (The Capture and Sale of Slaves)”.  The slaves being from different areas of Africa had much diversity amongst them.

As the population of Jamaica grew so did the heterogeneity, the slaves from different areas of Africa started to  “mix and mate” together (Burnard and Morgan, 219). As the slave ships docked it was seldom for the purchaser to pick and choose the ethnicity of the slave, that they were getting a great mix of ethnicities during a purchase.  In Kingston there was several large purchasers that came through. George Richards being one of them making the largest single purchase of 229 slaves and his widow Mary purchased 148 slaves several years later Burnard and Morgan, 214). These individuals are an example of those that showed interest in the Kingston slave market. Being a shipping point Kingston transformed because of the slave trade.

So, why were these people being torn from their homes? What was the need for such a great population in Jamaica? Money of course, Jamaica was a large sugar mine. Jamaica produced forty two percent of Britain’s sugar production. Jamaica being such a moneymaker for them was considerably more important than any other British colony.

Burnard, Trevor, and Kenneth Morgan. “The Dynamics of the Slave Market and Slave     Purchasing Patterns in Jamaica, 1655-1788”. The William and Mary Quarterly 58.1 (2001): 205–228. Web...

"The Capture and Sale of Slaves." International Slavery Museum, Liverpool Museums. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Mar. 2016.

 "The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database." Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database. 

                       Emory University, n.d. Web.  Mar. 2016."

SLO 5 Interactions

This week's objective is to: "Analyze ways in which human groups have interacted with one another, including trade, migration, warfare, cultural exchange and biological exchange, from 1500 C.E. to present". 

Therefore, I am hoping to find how the slave trade affected all of these aspects. I am thinking it has affected the world way greater than one is to believe. Would our world be the way it is today without the forced migration of the slaves?