Of all the iniquities of human history, the slave trade stands among the worst. Slave-trading was the equivalent of murder, since sea captains expected a proportion of slaves on each voyage to die. Of course, quick death might have been preferable to the prolonged agony of life in bondage.
Any examination of the slave trade faces the formidable barriers of racial politics and white guilt. The British historian Hugh Thomas, in his massive new book The Slave Trade, overcomes these barriers to give a thorough account of the Atlantic trade's rise and fall. He asks, Why did a trade in slaves begin in the 15th century, and why did it attract enough opposition to be abolished 400 years later? Slavery in northern Europe had almost disappeared by the 13th century -- feudalism offered a more efficient means of mobilizing labor. Along the Mediterranean, a different situation prevailed- the Arab invasion of Spain and the subsequent Spanish reconquest brought slavery back into the Iberian peninsula on a large scale. At the time, slavery lacked a racial connotation, as slaves came from across Europe and Africa. Most black slaves were taken from Ethiopia and Sudan until Moorish trade with West Africa developed through the Sahara. Even then, slaves were expensive, bought largely by Arabs.
Exploration of the Ariantic islands and the New World made slavery a growth industry. Not only did West Africa become accessible, but, as Thomas describes, Spaniards, already familiar with slavery at home, established it in the Caribbean, importing slaves as disease decimated the indigenous peoples. Catholic rulers feared sending Arab or Berber slaves because they might spread Islam; blacks from West Africa provided a ready alternative for a labor-hungry market.
Although slaves performed all sorts of work, the introduction of sugar cultivation raised the demand for captives and sparked a boom in the trade. As Thomas explains, the turn away from bringing white labores to tropical colonies proved decisive. White indentured servants had been common in early North American and Caribbean colonies until whites came to be seen as unfit for physical labor under the sun. Absurd as this notion was, it encouraged a reliance on black slaves, stifling white immigration and free labor generally.
Thomas describes the result as an expanding trade in Africans that was controlled by Portugal. After 1700, French, Dutch, and English adventurers forced their way into the market. While Britain eventually became the largest trader in slaves, no one nation controlled the trade. It was, Thomas states, a truly international endeavor, involving businesses all across Europe and the Americas.
Thomas's erudition shows in his discussion of Iberia and its Latin American progeny (his specialty). But his account of Britain's involvement falters. He never quite explains why events unfolded as they did. Take the anti-slavery cause: It made little headway when the slave trade revived during the Renaissance, but Thomas leaves open the question of what made it more effective in the late 18th century, the trade's height.
He does suggest, however, that the evils of slavery became better known. John Wesley and Samuel Johnson damned slavery, with Johnson even raising a toast to the next slave revolt in the West Indies. The case brought in 1783 of the British slave ship Zong, from which a captain two years before had cast slaves overboard during an outbreak of illness so as not to lose his cargo's insurance, caused great controversy and later inspired J. M. W. Turner's monumental painting Slave Ship (1840). Britain effectively prohibited slavery within its home territories in 1772 and banned the colonial trade in 1807 (as the United States would the next year). In 1815, Lord Castlereagh, the British foreign secretary, sought an international ban at the Congress of Vienna and won it.
Yet slave trading persisted because, as Thomas demonstrates, it could not be separated from slave holding. Critics pointed out, realistically, that the trade ban would worsen the conditions under which captives were shipped, because slaves would now be crammed into vessels designed to sail at short notice and to escape detection. The slaves on board were given even less food and water than before.
Africans themselves defended the trade and eagerly provided slaves to buyers in Cuba and Brazil. One African prince, distrustful of British motives, insisted on a clause in an 1841 treaty giving his people the right to revive the trade if British subjects entered into it again. Enforcement of the worldwide ban on slaving devolved mainly on the Royal Navy. The United States and, to a lesser extent, Spain opposed inspection of ships under their flags, and international courts soon appeared to judge accused slavers. The relatively light penalties imposed by these courts dissuaded few, and anti- trading patrols actually added an element of excitement for some of the traders.
The slave trade ended only when Britain acted to cut off both the source and the demand. African rulers whose kingdoms existed to provide slaves faced a choice: find another racket or fall. Several British expeditions destroyed slaving bases that had existed for centuries, and the effort led Britain and other European nations to take direct control over stretches of Africa's coast in order to halt the trade. Diplomatic pressure forced Brazil to make the importation of slaves a crime. Cuba, the trade's last market, likewise saw a crackdown. Although slavery persisted in pockets of the Americas for a few more years, the Atlantic slave trade ended once and for all in 1870.
Although Thomas's book is mammoth, the most comprehensive study we have, it is curiously limited. It may seem odd to challenge a 900-page book for not developing its subject, but Thomas might have given up a few factual details to delve more deeply into the impact of slaving and the reasons for its decline.
Then there is the question of responsibility: Louis Farrakhan and his followers insist that the Jews ran the trade, an argument that Thomas neatly dismisses. A greater number of royal families -- African and European -- participated in the slave trade than Jewish ones.
And what about the slavery of more recent times, indeed of our day? It continues to do its ugly business in Sudan and Mauritania, with little condemnation from the civilized world. Where, we might well ask, are our generation's abolitionists?
William Anthony Hay is completing a doctorate in history at the University of Virginia.