Long Term Impacts of African Slave Trade on Current

African Development

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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 GatesAlphonse 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 BooksGates, Henry Louis, Jr.; McKay, 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 associate professor of economics 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 MiguelIn 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.

The Historical Origins of Africa’s UnderdevelopmentNathan Nunn8 December 2007Print   EmailComment   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 19th 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.

Nathan NunnAssistant Professor of Economics at the University of British Columbia

http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/779

The Geographic Consequences

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

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