Long Term Impacts of African Slave Trade on

Long Term Impacts of African Slave Trade on Current African Development Envs 342

Acknowledgements This power point borrows from work performed by: – Henry Lewis Gates, Harvard University – Linda Heywood & John Thornton, Boston University – Edward Miguel, University of California – Berkeley – Nathan Nunn, University of British Columbia

Unfortunate Truth Slave Trade involved highly sophisticated Global business Slaves themselves were relegated to the role of a type of currency both inside and outside of Africa Bostonian, 2011

http: //www. bu. edu/afam/faculty/linda-heywood/

John K, Thornton

Henry Lewis Gates Alphonse Fletcher University Professor at Harvard University, where he is director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research. Selected Books Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. ; Mc. Kay, Nellie Y (1996). The Norton Anthology of African American Literature (First ed. ). W. W. Norton. ISBN 0393040011. Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. (1997). Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man (First ed. ). New York: Random House. ISBN 0679457135. Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. (1999). Wonders of the African World (First ed. ). New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0375402357. Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. (2000). The African American Century: How Black Americans Have Shaped Our Century (First ed. ). New York: Free Press. ISBN 0684864142. Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. (2003). The trials of Phillis Wheatley: America's first Black poet and her encounters with the founding fathers. New York: Basic Civitas Books. ISBN 0465027296. Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. (2007). Finding Oprah's Roots: Finding Your Own (First ed. ). New York: Crown. ISBN 9780307382382. Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. In Search of Our Roots: How 19 Extraordinary African Americans Reclaimed Their Past (Crown, 2009) Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. Faces of America: How 12 Extraordinary Americans Reclaimed Their Pasts (New York University Press, 2010) Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. Tradition and the Black Atlantic: Critical Theory in the African Diaspora (Basic Civitas Books, 2010)

Slave Trade as Global Business Citing Heywood’s and Thornton’s research Gates states that … “ 90% of those shipped to the New World were enslaved by Africans and then sold to European traders. The sad truth is that without complex business partnerships between African Elites and European traders and commercial agents, the slave trade to the New World would have been impossible, at least on the scale it occurred” Gates 2010 NY Times

The Marine Model • Popular culture clings to…”the marine model – Europeans landing on shores and grabbing people”. Thornton, 2011 • …”it is increasingly indisputable that the truth is complex… Slavery was a business, highly organized and lucrative for European buyers and African sellers alike. ” Gates, 2010

Modern Consequences

Edward Miguel is Oxfam Professor of Environmental and Resource Economics in the Department of Economics at University of California, Berkeley and director of the Center of Evaluation for Global Action at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has taught since 2000. Ted's main research focus is African economic development, including work on the economic causes and consequences of violence; the impact of ethnic divisions on local collective action; and interactions between health, education, and productivity for the poor. He has conducted field work in Kenya, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, and India. Africa’s Turn by Edward Miguel In Africa’s Turn? Miguel tracks a decade of comparably hopeful economic trends throughout sub-Saharan Africa and suggests that we may be seeing a turnaround.

Atlantic Focus

Indian Ocean Focus

Correction Early 1800 s

The Historical Origins of Africa’s Underdevelopment Nathan Nunn 8 December 2007 Print Email Comment Republish Slavery, according to historical accounts, played an important role in Africa’s underdevelopment. It fostered ethnic fractionalisation and undermined effective states. The largest numbers of slaves were taken from areas that were the most underdeveloped politically at the end of the 19 th century and are the most ethnically fragmented today. Recent research suggests that without the slave trades, 72% of Africa’s income gap with the rest of the world would not exist today. http: //www. voxeu. org/index. php? q=node/779 Nathan Nunn Professor of Economics at Harvard University

Note the country leading this list

The Geographic Consequences • Translating the historical data on enslavement into modern patterns of development

Higher exposure to past Slave Exports Lower GDP 1998

Higher exposure to past Slave Exports Lower GDP growth 1960 -2000

Did Geography also play into this? • The more rugged and isolated a region • The less it participated in slave trade The analysis focuses on the historic interaction between ruggedness and Africa’s slave trades. Although rugged terrain hinders trade and most productive activities, negatively affecting income globally, rugged terrain within Africa afforded protection to those being raided during the slave trades. RUGGEDNESS: THE BLESSING OF BAD GEOGRAPHY IN AFRICA Nathan Nunn and Diego Puga, 2012. Review of Economics and Statistics. 94(1) 20 -36.

Conclusions 1. Slave trade was a global enterprise with plenty of blame to go around to all parties 2. Precolonial Africa was a much more sophisticate society then is popularly understood 3. Those regions/countries that were hardest hit by slaving appear to lag the most in modern development 4. Geography dictated the location of slave trade.

What if in the US? • In 1863 Gen. Grant noted that the former Davis Plantations south of Vicksburg, MI became sucessfully selfoperating and sustaining upon the fleeing of the southern overseers. Eventually these plantations were bought from the Davis family and became profitably run by the former black slaves – until the environment -- flooding ended the use of the land.

Davis Landing today Isaiah Thornton Montgomery Managed the former Davis family plantation after the Civil War with his farther Benjamin

What Next – What Will Global Warming do to Africa? ? https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=jem. Gx. Rn 0 Ea 8&index=16&list=PLs. RNo. Ux 8 w 3 r. MMpfz. Zj. FJgj 9 GJyp. ZR 0 m. L 1

Prof. Nunn https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=Ytzr 1 Lbt. By. M