Key Idea: How the Atlantic and East African slave trades grew from 1500, and why both declined in the 1800s.
Atlantic (from the 1500s): Ships, plantation demand and existing African slavery. Wars between African states supplied captives. Asiento and chartered companies.
East African (from the late 1700s): Older trade with Arabia and the Swahili coast. Omani expansion under Sultan Seyyid Said at Zanzibar. Grew as Atlantic bans cut demand there.
Decline and the Acts
- Atlantic: industry reduced Britain's need; Wilberforce and the 1787 Society moved opinion; palm oil offered other trade.
- East Africa: missionaries like Livingstone, colonial expansion (Zanzibar 1873) and the decline of Ottoman slavery.
- 1807 Act banned the British trade, not slavery itself; 1833 Act freed people in British colonies, delayed by apprenticeship.
- 1885 Berlin Act used anti-slavery language to justify colonial partition.
Never blame Europeans alone: African choices fed the trade too, and profit and pressure both shaped its end.
Did the 1807 Act end slavery? No. Slavery in British colonies lasted until the 1833 Act.
Who is the key individual for the East African trade? Sultan Seyyid Said of Zanzibar.
What social effects did the trade have in Africa? Population loss and more militarised societies.
What did African merchants sell instead of people? Goods such as palm oil, known as legitimate commerce.