Resistance, Rebellion and Abolition

6. Resistance, Rebellion and Abolition

African Abolition Struggles and Opposition Movements

Across the Atlantic World, there were always individuals who, acting either alone or as members of groups, publicly expressed their opposition to the Transatlantic Slave Trade. However, the most intense opposition was by the enslaved Africans themselves and their resistance, together with abolitionists across Europe and the United States, was eventually enough to bring the trade to an end. European opposition to slavery was important, but only within a wider campaign against the trade. Ultimately, the people who did most to fight the trade, and who paid the heaviest price for doing so, were the Africans themselves.

The Africans caught up in the Transatlantic Slave Trade did not want to be enslaved. They rebelled whenever they could and their resistance showed how individuals and communities completely rejected their enslavement. Resistance took on many forms, from individuals escaping, to armed revolt, depending on a number of different factors. Despite the role played by the African elites in supplying slaves to the European traders, the Transatlantic Slave Trade was imposed upon village communities through violence and terror. An example of this was the many forts - initially set up for European trade and self defence - in a chain along the West African coast. Because of this new and unfamiliar system of oppression, African resistance was different from traditional forms of social protest.

There were four main times when resistance took place:

• when slaves were captured and sold

• on the way to the coast and in the barracoons

• on board the ships during the Middle Passage

• on arrival in the Americas or Caribbean

Sometimes European enslavers provided arms to regional groups (or States) so that they could violently raid neighbouring states and capture slaves for the trade. Many states like this sprang up near the coastal slave forts and also in the...