What was it like in the Factories on the African Coast



What was it like in the Factories on the African Coast?

Europeans bought the slaves from African Chiefs. The Europeans stayed on the coast of West Africa, and waited for the African Chiefs to capture people from other tribes from further inland. They would bring the slaves to the coast and sell them to the Europeans there.

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Europeans paid the African Chiefs to rent land on the coast in order to build forts called ‘factories’. The European slave traders lived there, storing the slaves in the ‘factories’ ready to sell them to any passing slave ship.

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SOURCE B: The British Fort at Winneba, in the territory belonging to thee Queen of Auguina, in 1727. The British paid the queen in alcohol and cloth to stop the Dutch building another fort nearby.

Europeans tried to keep other Europeans out of their area, so they could sell the slaves at the best price to the slave traders, with no competition.

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Large factories like the ones at Winneba and Elmina were fairly rare. Much more common were factories like that belonging to Nicholas Owen.

SOURCE D: Factory owned by Nicholas Owen, at the mouth of the River Sherbro in modern Sierra Leone. He lived there from 1754 to 1759.

William Bosman was a Dutch slave trader. He described what happened when slaves were brought to a factory:

F.G. Kay, (a modern historian), also wrote about what happened in the factories:

Source G was written by a slave who was taught to read and write when he reached the West Indies. He described his journey from the middle of Africa to the coast:

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The Europeans did not like living in Africa. They refused to go inland as they thought it was too dangerous. Nicholas Owen, a European trader wrote:

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Many Europeans died of yellow fever or malaria. A Dutchman called Bosman described the English traders at Cape Coast Castle:

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SOURCE C: A Modern Photograph of the outside of the fort of Elmina. This was built by the Portuguese, but taken by the Dutch. It had 84 white men as well as 184 Africans working there. It held up to 1,000 slaves.

SOURCE A: African slaves being taken to the coast to sell to Europeans.

SOURCE E:

“When slaves are brought from the inland countries, they are put in prison together. When we buy them, they are all brought out together and examined by our surgeons. Those which are approved as good are set on one side; … Our slaves are branded [with a burning iron] on the chest after we have agreed a price”.

SOURCE F:

“The African merchants shaved all the slave’s hair, to disguise their age. Thirty five was the maximum age for a first-class slave. Those that seemed older, or had poor eyes or teeth were classed as second rate.

The slaves passed as fit and healthy were then branded on the breast with the buying company’s mark. This was to prevent the African traders from swapping bought slaves for unfit ones.

The slaves were kept until the weather was suitable for them to be transferred on board ship … During this period they were kept chained in wooden compounds, or in underground cells.”

SOURCE G:

“We walked for many weeks in chains. Then we saw a great river with no bank at the far side. On it lay a strange ship. As we reached the coast of the sea, (as I learned the great river was called), we were taken to a large fort.

There our African owners washed us, and shaved us … White men came in and looked at us. … We were branded with hot irons that burnt our skin. We were kept in the fort for several weeks, chained and fed boiled beans, till another ship arrived.”

SOURCE H:

The cell where hundreds of female slaves were kept in at the fort at Elmina.

SOURCE I: A slave in a muzzle and metal collar.

SOURCE J:

“A man in this country can have but little pleasure in his life, with all the inconveniences of the wilderness. … I have no affection for this place. We spend the best years of our life among Negroes, scraping the world for money … until death overtakes us.”

SOURCE A: African slaves being taken to the coast to sell to Europeans.

SOURCE L:

“Miserable wretches …They waste their strength in drinking and lusting after local women. As a result they fall easy victims to disease.”

SOURCE M: The central courtyard at Elmina. Female slaves were crowded in here so the white men could view them from the balcony. The white men would pick which female slaves to rape.

SOURCE K:

The European fort at Elmina.

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