Page 159 - LD215 History of the Church in Africa A4 final

CH A P T E R 9

Nineteenth-Century

Challenges and

Progress

Christianity and the Slave Trade

iedner defines slavery as “the possession of human beings as
personal property” (quoted in Hildebrant, 75). A documentary
W television program about slavery in the United States of
America stated that “20 million slaves were captured in Africa between
1500 and 1900” (Discovery Channel, 2005). As early as the eleventh
century, Arab traders sold African slaves in the Mediterranean area, and
Portuguese explorers bought slaves from Arab traders along the west
coast of Africa in the fifteenth century.

A type of slavery often referred to as “limited slavery” existed in Africa
from ancient times. It was “limited” in the sense that it was not slavery
for life. Although some Africans participated in the trade, it was primarily
non-Africans who trafficked people and conducted the slave trade—a
trade that brought untold sorrow and misery to millions of people.

Before 1500, the primary purpose of slaves was to satisfy the
demand for domestic servants. With the discovery of the Americas in

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