To measure the consequences of the plundering exerted on the populations of the black continent, one must take account of
several mailmen. Before the Atlantic islands (Madeira, the Canaries, Toma São) and America are not connected to the trade
slave trader, of the networks caravaneers and maritime supply already the north of Africa, the Middle East, India and the West
Indies as prisoners originating in Black Africa. Morocco, Tripoli, Egypt and Arabia of the South are then detached like regional
markets slaves. Started before the Great Atlantic Deportation (XVIe-XIXe S.), the Trans-Saharan draft directed towards the
north of Africa and Arabia will also end after this one. On the whole, nearly 8 million slaves will be transported by the
Trans-Saharan networks and those of the horn of Africa between VIIIe and XIXe century. Less intense but perennial than
those of the Atlantic, deportations towards north - the North-East of Africa are also less known. Concerning with
traumatisantes questions of passed of the companies and nations, the discussion on the draft exceeds sometimes the historical
debate to begin in the political polemic. The undervaluation of the number of Blacks transported towards America is possibly
perceived like a means intended to minimize the effects of Western plundering on Africa, whereas the studies on the
Trans-Saharan draft, generally relating to the Islamic world, can be suspectées to want envenimer the reports/ratios between
Arabs and Blacks of Africa.

Three slave markets puncture the black populations at the time modern : the first is that of the slave areas inside even of Africa,
in the sub-Saharan area, the second, the Middle East and the Maghreb, the third, America. Each one of these markets has its
own characteristics. In sub-Saharan Africa, the price of the prisoners exceeded that of the prisoners, for the productivity of the
women - not only as servants, wives and mothers, but also as hard-working - was higher than that of the peasants and the male
craftsmen in the majority of the companies of the Black Africa. Structurally limited, because of the restricted request of the
products emphasized by prisoners, this African economy gave nevertheless place to networks of draft which facilitated to the
penetration of the Atlantic big business slaves in XVIe century. In North Africa and Middle East, the prices of the prisoners
were higher still than in the sub-Saharan area, although male slaves were also used there in agriculture and the military tasks. In
America prevailed, on the other hand, the use of male slaves. Concordant search show that the gaps of price between the
prisoners and the prisoners, the differences in mortality between the slaves of the two sexes during the oceanic crossing or the
choice of the slave colonists to the purchase do not explain the fact that the number of men reached on average the double of
that of the women among the 10 million Africans made at the New World. Actually, so less prisoners were sold in the ports of
draft, it is because the women were asked than the men on the slave markets of Africa.

Before 1650, the draft towards the New World related to less than 10 000 slaves a year. These punctures, limited on the scale
of the continent, weighed already on the areas most reached : high Guinea, Sénégambie, Congo, Angola and perhaps Benign. A
turning occurs during the first quarter of XVIIIe century, when the American request - activated by the rise of the plantations in
North America and in the Antilles, like by the simultaneous exploitation of the agriculture and the gold mines in Brazil - fact of
quadrupling the prices of the slaves in Africa. America becomes the greatest slave area of the world, exceeding the markets of
the Middle East by far. This rise in the price of « the parts »accentuates the social mechanisms and the policies of production of
slaves in Africa : one sees intensifying the raids perpetrated by the warlike ethnos groups, the removals organized by tapes, the
usual practices punishing of the various offences of the sorrow of captivity. At the same time in string the great African areas of
deportation enter : bay of Benign, Coast of Gold, Loango and especially Angola. The increase in the American request involves
a rise in the prices of the prisoners, at the same time decreasing the transfers of slaves towards the Middle East and the
sub-Saharan area. Under the negotiable instrument of these massive displacements of population, the African companies
undergo deep changes.

The debate relating to the slave punctures on the black continent is already old. Malthus wrote at the beginning of XIXe century
that African demography could fill the human losses caused by the oceanic draft. At the same time, the European free-traders
affirmed, on the contrary, that these taking away depopulated Africa. A localised study and meticulous person (P. Manning and
W. S. Griffiths, 1988) shows that the Atlantic draft hard tested the populations of the coastal areas of West Africa. Populated
of 25 million inhabitants in 1730, these areas had lost from 3 to 7 million inhabitants in 1850. Even if they were fewer than those
of the men, the deportations of young women in the age bracket from 15 to 29 years - the most favorable years of female
fruitfulness - heavily weighed on the reproduction of the populations of the area. Always in West Africa, where the
demographic studies are pushed, one can estimate at approximately 12 million the number of individuals captured as from
1700. This total, 6 million was off-set overseas, 4 million was delivered to the captivity domesticates and the 2 remaining million
perished in Africa during the process of their setting in slavery.
 
 

Academic Year 00-01
07/02/2001
©a.r.e.a. Dr. Vicente Forés López
©Ana Aroa Alba Cuesta
Universitat de València Press