To appreciate the fact that studying the domestic slave trade (and slavery) is key to understanding American society before the Civil War, it is helpful to look back in time to the early encounters between Europeans, Native Americans, and Africans as Europeans were establishing colonies in the Americas.
When Columbus set sail in the late 15th century to discover an alternative route to India and ended up in the Caribbean, he, like many of his contemporary maritime explorers, was eager to find riches quickly. The Age of Exploration in which he lived was the also the period that spawned the global slave trade. The early European colonizers were after gold especially but were also interested in other precious metals and spices. Quick and large profit was their motivation. They had no intention to work. Instead, the Spanish colonizers, for example, forced Native Americans to labor in gold and silver mines, effectively enslaving them. The Spanish Crown and the Catholic Church opposed the enslavement of Native Americans and outlawed it but, in reality, the purchase and sale of Native American slaves continued in North America well into the 19th century. Historian Andrés Resendéz has argued that slavery was a decisive factor in the demise of the Native American populations, not merely decease (as is most commonly believed and taught). The decline, in turn, contributed to the growth of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, though Native American slavery contined to exist. European colonizers viewed Native Americans and imported African slaves in a similar way: as a means to profit from the riches of the newly conquered lands.
I. Reading and Analyzing Primary Sources:
Let’s first go back in time to explore the development of this mindset. We will look at primary sources dating to the Age of Exploration and the first century and half or so of European conquest of the Americas. With the knowledge we gain from this exploration we will take another look at how the ship manifests are organized and the type of information they contain.
The primary sources listed below are organized in chronological order. Some of them offer perspectives on the encounters between indigenous populations and European colonizers in the Americas. Others give us an insight into the encounters between European “explorers” (adventurers, navigators, merchants, military men, Christian missionaries) and Africans, especially those who lived along the west and east coasts of Africa.
- Gomes Eannes de Azurara, “During the Conquest of Guinea” (1453), in Sources for the World in the Making: A Global History (Volume Two since 1300) edited by Bonnie G. Smith et al. (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 247-249.
- Excerpt from Christopher Columbus’ Journal (https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/columbus1.asp): entries for Oct. 11-21 1492.
- Martín Fernández de Figueroa, “A Spaniard in the Portuguese Indies” (1505), in Sources for the World in the Making: A Global History (Volume Two since 1300) edited by Bonnie G. Smith et al. (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 283-285.
- Fernando and Juana, Monarchs of Castile and Aragon (Spain), “Instructions given by the Monarchs to Rodrigo de Alburquerque and to Licentiate Ibarra to be carried out during the general distribution of the Indians in the island of Hispaniola, Excerpts (1513), in Reading American Horizons: Primary Sources for U.S. History in a Global Context (Volume I: to 1877), 4th ed., edited by Michael Schaller et al. (New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021), 5-7.
- Letters from Afonso, King of Kongo, to João III, King of Portugal (1526), in ibid, 7-8
- Bartolomé de las Casas, “Of the Island Hispaniola” in A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies (1542), available at Project Gutenberg.
- Hans Staden, “True History” (1557), in Sources for the World in the Making: A Global History (Volume Two since 1300) edited by Bonnie G. Smith et al. (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 261-263.
- Nahua Nobles of Xochimilco, “Letter to the King of Spain” (1563), in Ibid, 260.
- Pieter de Marees, “Description of the Situation and Character of the Great City of Benin” (1602), in Ibid, 269-272.
- Tomás de Mercado, “On the Trade in the Blacks of Cape Verde” (1569), in Ibid, 272-276.
- Felipe Guaman Poma De Ayala, “The First New Chronicle (c. 1610),” in Ibid, 340-341.
- Fray Alonso de Benavides, Excerpts from “Petition to Restrict Indian Tribute and Personal Service” (ca. 1630), in Reading American Horizons: Primary Sources for U.S. History in a Global Context (Volume I: to 1877), 4th ed., edited by Michael Schaller et al. (New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021), 15-17.
- Pieter van den Broecke, “Journal of Voyages” (c. 1630), in Sources for the World in the Making: A Global History (Volume Two since 1300) edited by Bonnie G. Smith et al. (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 276-278.
Take the time to read and analyze these sources. (Note for teachers: This can take a few class sessions.) Allow your reading to be guided by these broad questions:
1) Who were the Europeans whose accounts you are reading? How did they view Native Americans? Africans? In what ways did their views shape their actions? Be prepared to support your answers with examples from the sources.
2) How did the Nahua Nobles and Felipe Guaman Poma De Ayala view the Spanish? Is it possible to get a sense from the other sources how Native Americans and Africans viewed Europeans? If yes, give examples from the sources. If not, explain why not, again by referring to the sources.
3) How did Europeans view themselves? Be prepared to support your answers with examples from the sources.
4) The earliest primary source listed here is dated 1453 and the latest 1630. During this time period, do you see any changes at all in the ways Europeans viewed Native Americans and Africans? If you do, what are they?
Keeping the questions above in mind as you read, have your notebook handy. Jot down anything that is familiar to you. In addition, take note of things that you don’t know but stick out to you because you think it is important to learn more about them. This will help you in class when you discuss the sources with your peers and teacher.
II. Essay writing: learning how to write a historical argument by using several primary sources:
Having read carefully and discussed the sources in class, choose one of the four questions and write an essay. Start your essay by directly responding to the question of your choice. Your response will likely consist of a few sentences. Then explain which of the primary sources you plan to rely on to support your answer. Try to use at least 4 primary sources for each of the questions.
III. Conclusions
In your work with the primary sources above, you paid attention to how European explorers and colonizers perceived Africans and Native Americans during the Age of Exploration and the establishment of colonies in the Americas. Uncovering perceptions and writing about them is a challenging task, as your work on the essay has probably shown you. Now that you have gained some experience detecting and analyzing the views that Europeans held of Africans and Native Americans, let us see if we can use some of that experience with a primary source produced in a different time and historical context.
Look carefully at the layout of the ship manifests produced in the domestic slave trade. Pay attention to the subject headings of the columns. Pay attention to the content of each column. List all the other categories in the ship manifest. What information do they provide? Then answer this question:
- Is it possible to use the ship manifests as primary sources that give us an indication of how one group of people viewed another? If yes, what specific information from the ship manifest allows you to make that claim? Please describe who viewed whom and how. If you think that the ship manifests cannot be used to capture peoples’ perceptions, explain why this is not possible.
Reading resources:
Abulafia, David. The Discovery of Mankind: Atlantic Encounters in the Age of Columbus. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008. For this lesson plan, it is helpful to read chapters 1 & 2 from Part I; chapter 5 from Part II; chapters 1 & 2 from Part III.
Lane, Kris. Potosí: The Silver City that Changed the World. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2021. Chapter 4, titled “An Improbable Global City” is useful for paying attention to how some of the racial hierarchies and perceptions in Spanish America operated.
Reséndez, Andrés. The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America. Boston; New York: Mariner Books, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017. The book is written in an engaging manner, so it is easy to read and worth reading in its entirety. However, if this is not possible, for this lesson plan teachers would benefit from reading the introduction and chapters 1-3.
Schaller, Michael, Janette Thomas Greenwood, Andrew Kirk, Sarah J. Purcell, Aaron Sheehan-Dean, Christina Snyder, eds. Reading American Horizons: Primary Sources for U.S. History in a Global Context (Volume I: to 1877), 4th ed. New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021.
This compilation of primary sources accompanies the textbook, American Horizons: U.S. History in a Global Context (Volume I: to 1877), 4th ed. Chapters 2 and 3 can help teachers with establishing historical context of the primary sources.
Schwartz, Stuart B., ed. Implicit Understandings Observing, Reporting and Reflecting on the Encounters between Europeans and Other Peoples in the Early Modern Era. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994. The following chapters are helpful in thinking about the encounters between Europeans and Native Americans: Peter Hulme, “Tales of Distinction: European Ethnography and the Caribbean” and James Lockhart, “Sightings: Initial Nahua Reactions to Spanish Culture.”
Smith, Bonnie G., Marc Van De Mieroop, Richard Von Glahn, Kris Lane, eds. Sources for the World in the Making: A Global History (Volume Two since 1300). New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019.
This compilation of primary sources accompanies the textbook, World in the Making: A Global History (Volume Two since 1300), 2nd ed. Chapters 15 and 16 can help teachers with establishing historical context of the primary sources.
This lesson plan is provided by Dr. Anna Mirkova.