Atlantic Slave Trade Case Studies

The Understanding Slavery Initiative (USI)has a terrific website about transatlantic slavery. (Note, this is an archived website and no longer maintained by USI)

One of the best features of the website are the case studies. They are all pdf files, short, and readable.

One study reviews the history of Queen Nzinga of Ndongo (modern day Angola).  She negotiated with the Portuguese in 1582 to evacuate Ndongo's capital in return for Portuguese prisoners of war. Sadly, the Portuguese broke the treaty.  But Queen Nzinga eventually became her country's monarch, captured the neighboring state of Matamba, and allied with the Dutch against the Portuguese, eventually forcing them to sue for peace in 1654.

Another fascinating case study involves a British slave ship called the Zong which sailed in 1881 for Jamaica with 442 enslaved Africans. The ship got lost and  many of the slaves got sick. The ship's captain threw 132 emaciated slaves overboard to drown because he did not think they would fetch much at market. The story goes on. There's a a trial in London and even a retrial.

Dave Drewinski tells the story of the Zong in his podcast, On Top of the World.

Students can read other case studies like Zong. One examines the centuries old centuries-old sea-faring commercial history of Kingston upon Hull.

Another looks at Liverpool, which had become the largest slave-ship construction site in Britain. All together there are five case studies.

I might assign different ones to student groups and have them summarize their case on Flipgrid.