Effects of the Atlantic Slave Trade
The Atlantic slave trade greatly weakened several West African kingdoms, such as Kongo. The loss of so many people slowed population growth. Trade competition led to violence among their societies, but also made African slave-raiding kingdoms economically dependent on goods from Europe. Such societies were slow to develop more complex economies in which they produced their own goods. Thus, the slave trade set the stage for European conquest and imperialism of the late 19th century. (See Topic 6.2.)
Economically, African societies that conducted slave raids, such as the Dahomey and the Oyo, became richer from selling their captives to Europeans. This trade also had political effects, because when a society such as the Dahomey exchanged enslaved people for guns, its raiders easily took advantage of rival societies that had no firearms. Without firearms, neighboring groups could not fight off slave raids, so raiding societies became even richer and more fortified with firearms. Intergroup warfare thus became more common and bloodier as a result of the slave trade.
Slavery and Gender Those most affected by the slave trade were the peoples and civilizations of West Africa in present-day Ghana and Benin, from which most Africans were kidnapped or sold. Gender distributions in those regions became severely imbalanced, because more than two-thirds of those taken were males. The resulting predominance of women prompted a rise in polygyny (the taking of more than one wife) and forced women to assume duties that had traditionally been men’s jobs.
Impact of New Foods While the Atlantic trading system weakened Africa in many ways, it also ultimately spurred population growth through an improved diet. The Columbian Exchange introduced new crops to the continent, such as the American crops maize, peanuts, and manioc (also known as yucca or cassava), which became staples in the African diet.
Political and Cultural Changes for Indigenous Peoples
Earlier land-based empires, such as those of the Romans, Muslims, and Mongols, all grappled with how to deal with conquered people’s traditions and cultures. These empires either allowed traditions to exist or they tried to graft their ways onto those of their subjects. European empires in the Americas stood in stark contrast to these land-based empires. The Spanish and Portuguese empires managed to erase the basic social structures and many of the cultural traditions of the indigenous Americans within a century of when the first European explorers arrived. Europeans’ actions nearly depopulated the Americas.
Political Changes: Colonial Administration Indigenous political structures in Latin America were soon replaced by Spanish and Portuguese colonial administrations. Spanish royalty appointed viceroys to act as administrators and representatives of the Spanish crown. To keep these viceroys from operating independently of the crown, Spain established audiencias, or royal courts, to which Spanish settlers could appeal viceroys’ decisions or policies. Slow transportation and communication networks between Europe and the Americas, however, made it difficult for the Spanish crown to exercise direct control over New Spain. As a result, the Spanish throne did not focus on colonial affairs in the Western Hemisphere.
Cultural Changes The indigenous peoples of the Americas lost a great deal of their culture and history at the hands of conquerors. Conquistadors, such as Cortés in Mexico, ordered the burning of native books, which were thought to be unholy. Thus, very few original accounts written in Nahuatl, the language of the Aztec, exist today.
The scarcity of firsthand accounts from indigenous peoples has shaped how historians view this period. For example, because the Spanish burned nearly all Aztec documents, most of the information about the Aztec comes from documents that were written by Spanish conquistadores and priests after the conquest. The authors’ biases and lack of familiarity with Nahuatl limits the value of these sources. However, some sources are considered reliable. For example, in 1545, a Spanish priest named Bernardino de Sahagún began compiling the Florentine Codex, one of the most widely cited sources about Aztec life before conquest. (A codex is a type of book.)
Spanish and Portuguese conquerors transplanted their own languages and religion into the Americas. The remnants of this cultural interaction are present today. Although indigenous languages thrive in certain regions—in Guatemala and in the mountains of Mexico, for example—Spanish predominates through much of Latin America, and Brazilians overwhelmingly speak Portuguese.
By 1750, those born in America of Spanish origin, or creoles, enjoyed political dominance in New Spain. They soon began clamoring for independence from the Spanish throne. (Connect: Create a two-column chart comparing the influence of Spanish and Portuguese maritime empires on native populations from the 16th and 17th centuries. See Topics 4.4)