The Historical Impact of Guinea-Bissau on the Atlantic Slave Trade and Its Societal Consequences

Guinea-Bissau was among the first regions whose people engaged in the Atlantic slave trade. For centuries its warriors had sent captives as slaves to North Africa. While it did not produce the same number of enslaved people to export to the Americas as other regions, the effects were still significant. In Cape Verde, Guinean slaves were instrumental in developing the labor-intensive plantation economy: they cultivated and processed, growing indigo and cotton, and also wove the panos cloth that became a standard currency in West Africa. During the 17th and 18th centuries, thousands of captive Africans were taken from the region every year by Portuguese, French, and British companies. An average of 3000 persons were shipped every year from Guinala alone. Many of these captives were taken during the Fula jihads and, specifically, the wars between the Imamate of Futa Jallon and Kaabu. Wars were increasingly waged for the sole purpose of capturing slaves to sell to the Europeans in exchange for imported goods. They resembled man-hunts more than conflicts over territory or political power. The nobles and kings benefited, while the common people bore the brunt of the raiding and insecurity. If a noble was captured, they were likely to be released, as the captors, whoever they were, would generally accept a ransom in exchange for freeing them. The relationship between kings and European traders was a partnership, with the two regularly making deals on how the trade was to be conducted, defining who could be enslaved and who could not, and the prices of the slaves. Contemporary chroniclers questioned multiple kings on their part in the slave trade, and noted that they recognised the trade as evil but participated because otherwise the Europeans would not buy any other goods from them. Beginning in the late 18th century, European countries gradually began slowing and/or abolishing the slave trade. Portugal abandoned slavery in 1869 and Brazil in 1888, but a system of contract labor replaced it that was only barely better for the workers. #MoofLife #MomentsOfLife #MoF #GuineaBissauHistory #AtlanticSlaveTrade #WestAfricanHistory #CapeVerdeEconomy #PanosCloth #FulaJihads #HumanHistory