Page 160 - LD215 History of the Church in Africa A4 final

A History of the Church in Africa

1492 and the development of sugar and coffee plantations, the need for
field laborers increased dramatically. Whereas earlier traders exported
gold and ivory, by the eighteenth century, slaves became the prime
trading article. According to Shaw, “In one ten-year period (1783–93),
the merchants of Liverpool [England] transported 303,737 slaves to the
West Indies” (1996, 128).

Slave traders often went far inland to buy people. Some African chiefs
were willing to sell those who had been captured in tribal warfare or
those who had broken rules. Sometimes persons were arrested by
trickery and held for the slavers. In any case, after their capture, they
were bound and forced to carry trade goods such as ivory. In the pro-
cess, the slavers drove them like
captured animals to the coast and
sold them at slave auctions.
Evidence suggests that many died
on the way to the coast.

The slave traders took the slaves
out of their home areas by several
Figure 9.1—Slave Trade routes. They took many out of
Central Africa through the Nile
Corridor, while others traveled north across the Sahara Desert with their
human merchandise. As already noted, many slaves were sold along
the west coast in places like Ghana and Nigeria. One of the other major
slave routes during this time lay in East Africa where traders traveled
inland across Tanganyika. As a result of this commerce, Tabora became
a thriving trade center. From there, traders assembled caravans and
returned to the coast. If slaves were still alive when they reached the
coast, they would use a Swahili phrase, “tumebwaga moyo,” meaning “we
have thrown down our hearts.” At this point, captives literally gave up
heart or lost hope.

Today there is still a town just north of the capital of Tanzania by
the name of Bagamoyo. This was the point where African slaves left
family and homeland and were sold into total slavery on an auction
block in Zanzibar. Others died on the cargo ships that took them to
their destination in a new world. Some of us have observed the slave

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