The Impacts of Slavery

While there is evidence, such as documented at Elmina, that many African societies and cultures were quite resilient in the face of increasing contact with Europeans, the incorporation of these societies into the Atlantic world system that this brought about did have profound changes. In West Africa, one of the main effects was a change in the orientation of trade routes from the older north-south, trans-Saharan axis to an east-west one with a coastal focus. The transSaharan routes had operated for centuries, and were under direct or indirect control of the Islamic empires of North Africa, and, the steady redirection of trade away from these areas had economic consequences there as well. European demands for raw materials and local produce also encouraged intensification of trading and a consequent commodification of local West African economies. These developments, coupled with an increased importation of firearms stimulated changes in the nature of local political systems. These included the establishment of more centralized kingdoms, such as those of Dahomey and Ashante. Gold was rapidly replaced as the main commodity by slaves - it is estimated that at least 11 million Africans were exported from the continent during the Atlantic slave trade until its abolition, and some scholars put the figures even higher (see Enslavement, Archaeology of).

In contrast to the amount of historical research on the Atlantic slave trade, the ‘historical archaeology’ of slavery across the continent has only recently begun to be addressed. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the low status of slaves and circumstances behind their presence at a site, archaeological investigations at most of the European trading posts on the West

African coast have typically produced only ephemeral material traces of the trade. At Elmina, the most systematically investigated of all such trading posts, and despite considerable documentary evidence concerning Elmina’s position within the system and over 100 000 artifacts recovered from the excavations, the material testimony of slavery amounts to little more than a few items. The excavation of a slave lodge at the early eighteenth century site of Vergelegen, built as the residence for the governor of Cape Town, South Africa, similarly failed to produce much in the way of material evidence that could be linked to the lives of those who had occupied the lodge, other than the burial of a middle-aged slave woman. Although ongoing research at slave collection points such as Goree Island, Senegal, is beginning to recover a wider range of material items, it is possible that the main material culture legacy of Africa’s slaves may reside more in the stylistic traditions that developed in the New World, than in actual artifacts recovered from the different places of collection and embarkation on the African coast.

Archaeological studies of sixteenth to eighteenth century CE sites in the interior, on the other hand, frequently offer more concrete evidence for the impacts of slavery on local communities. In parts of Togo, for instance, the increased availability of iron products of European manufacture helped precipitate a decline in what had previously been a flourishing and specialized iron-smelting industry practiced on a large scale. Detailed investigations of the shifting trends in material culture production and consumption in the vicinity of Begho and Banda, west-central Ghana, provide some of the clearest indications of the long-term consequences of the growth of trade and West Africa’s incorporation into the Atlantic world system, and its impact on local material culture traditions. Comparisons between sites and stratigraphic levels that date to the periods before the arrival of Europeans, the initial century of contact (albeit indirect), and subsequent centuries have shown that several significant changes took place. At sites such as Namasa, Begho, Nyarko, and Kuulo Kataa, founded (and in some cases also abandoned) prior to the Portuguese arrival at Elmina, differentiated craft production in iron, pottery, and textiles appears to have developed but was not uniformly distributed between different villages. This uneven distribution was offset by regular exchange of local products between villages, and settlements were linked into the trans-Saharan trade networks. By CE 1590, the cultivation of maize and tobacco, both New World crops, had been incorporated into local farming practices, and stimulated the creation of a new class of locally produced ceramic artifact in the form of clay smoking pipes. At this stage, these exhibit considerable stylistic diversity, and they may well have served as emblems of certain social distinctions. Localized specialization in textile manufacture was beginning to break down, however, with more households engaging in the craft. Imported glass beads had also become more widely available. By the end of the eighteenth century, industrially produced beads and textiles, with highly standardized forms were steadily replacing their local equivalents, and by the end of the nineteenth century the earlier, stylistically diverse tobacco pipes had been replaced by highly uniform imported clay pipes of European manufacture. New aesthetics of taste also emerged, although in many cases they involved a reworking of older practices.