Updated
June 12, 2005
This is
a short introduction to the massive topic of Slavery and the Slave trade
- Excellently covered on other specialist sites.
Many African Americans return to the Gambia during ROOTS week each year
hoping to trace their pasts.
Site
Links
GTS Home
The Gambia
Home
GTS welcomes "African Charity Drive" Readers
National
Geographic
Modern Slavery
Slavery Statistics
Slavery on UKTV
Slave ship manacles
Slave child
Branding a slave girl
Huddled below decks
American Poster 1829
A surviving ancestor of Kunte Kinte who was taken as a slave to America
in 1767
The
ACD has linked to the GTS site for readers to see about Slavery &
Gambia
Please enjoy the GTS site
European Slavery was a historical fact, many would say that slavery in many forms still exists, this looks at West African and specifically The Gambia.
From the 1520's to the 1820's it is estimated that 10 million slaves were taken from West Africa to destinations in the West where they were sold to provide the labour needed for the sugar, cotton and tobacco plantations in America and Brazil.
It existed because it was very profitable. Sailing ships and navigation was advanced enough to make it a good risk. The ships sailed round a trade triangle. Slaves from Africa to the plantations, then from the plantations to Europe with the plantation's produce, and from Europe back again to Africa with trinkets to exchange for more slaves. Potentially the most costly leg of the trade was the one carrying live cargo, but the cost of buying the slaves was so low and the sale price for them so high, that if some died during the transport, economically it didn't matter and was more profitable than transporting them in good conditions. Many died befor they even reached the plantations of the new world.
The idea of capturing an opponent and forcing them to work for you is as old as time. I'm sure that selling 'slaves' has always existed, but the scale of it for those 300 years was so staggering that eventually the brutality and inhumanity touched so many people that laws were passed banning it. I don't want to argue with this. The laws are there as proof, but I have always believed that what really made banning slavery practical was the introduction of machinery and the military organisation to ensure that others did not continue with the slave trade when they could be made to purchase British machinery as an alternative.
The Roots books and television series in the 1970's captured the human story, and regardless of the historical facts, the story is so true that literally thousands travel back each year to the coast of West Africa in an attempt to rediscover their own Roots.
Literal slavery of the bondage type no longer exists in The Gambia. However, you can't help feeling that an economic slavery has taken its place. The average European is a 100 times better off than the average Gambian. Tourism should help enormously, but all too often the tourist money provides profits for foreign shareholders and fails to even enter the Gambian economy.
International Debt is an issue for the year 2000, and Gambia, like so many Third World countries, is burdened with enormous debts from previous administrations. What ever is done about this by the G8 countries…
... you can help
by using the local services in The Gambia, where ever and when ever possible,
and help end their economic slavery.
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For information about tours
along the ROOTS slave trail see:-
GTS Directory > Visits > Slavery
Trail
There is a permanent slavery gallery at the Merseyside Maritime Museum,
Liverpool - UK - Daily 10-5 This small but very well presented exhibition
covers West Africa's and Liverpool's contribution to the Slave Trade.
See comment on Channel Four's - Slavery program
- about Modern slavery
See comment on Female
circumcision and the legacy of slavery
Visit the
ACD site to support their
Drive to help the Royal Victoria Hospital
