Africa is the second-largest and second-most-populous continent. With 1.1 billion people as of 2013, it accounts for about 15% of the world’s human population. The continent is surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, both the Suez Canal and the Red Sea along the Sinai Peninsula to the northeast, the Indian Ocean to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west.
The continent includes Madagascar and various archipelagos. It has 54 fully recognised sovereign states (or countries), nine territories and two de facto independent states.
There was intense rivalry for West Africa among Europeans. With no interest in conquering the interior, they concentrated their efforts to obtain human cargo along the West African coast.
The Atlantic slave trade took place across the Atlantic Ocean from the 16th through to the 19th centuries. The vast majority of those enslaved that were transported to the New World on the triangular trade route and its Middle Passage were West Africans from the central and western parts of the continent. The slaves were sold by western Africans to western European slave traders, or by direct European capture to the Americas, including Guyana.
Far more slaves were taken to South America than to the north. The South Atlantic economic system centred on producing commodity crops, especially sugar and tobacco, to sell in Europe, and increasing the numbers of African slaves brought to the New World. This was crucial to those western European countries which, in the late 17th and 18th centuries, were vying with each other.
By the middle of the 17th century, slavery had hardened as a racial caste; they and their offspring were legally the property of their owners, and children born to slave mothers were slaves. As property, the people were considered merchandise or units of labour, and were sold at markets.
There were eight principal areas used by Europeans to buy and ship slaves to the Western Hemisphere namely:
• Senegambia (Senegal and the Gambia)
• Upper Guinea (Guinea-Bissau, Guinea and Sierra Leone)
• Windward Coast (Liberia and Côte d’Ivoire)
• Gold Coast (Ghana and east of Côte d’Ivoire)
• Bight of Benin (Togo, Benin and Nigeria west of the Niger Delta)
• Bight of Biafra (Nigeria east of the Niger Delta, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon)
• West Central Africa (Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola)
• South-eastern Africa (Mozambique and Madagascar)
The different ethnic groups brought to the Americas closely corresponds to the regions of heaviest activity in the slave trade. Over 45 distinct ethnic groups were taken to the Americas during the trade. Of the 45, the 10 most prominent are:
• The BaKongo of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola
• The Mandé of Upper Guinea
• The Gbe speakers of Togo, Ghana and Benin (Adja, Mina, Ewe, Fon)
• The Akan of Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire
• The Wolof of Senegal and the Gambia
• The Igbo of south-eastern Nigeria
• The Mbundu of Angola (includes both Ambundu and Ovimbundu)
• The Yoruba of south-western Nigeria
• The Chamba of Cameroon
• The Makua of Mozambique
The Dutch colonisers initially were motivated by the prospect of trade in the Caribbean. Their possessions became significant producers of crops. The growing importance of agriculture was indicated by the export of 15,000 kilogrammes of tobacco from Essequibo in 1623. But as the agricultural productivity of the Dutch colonies increased, a labour shortage emerged. The indigenous populations were poorly adapted for work on plantations, and many people died from diseases introduced by the Europeans. The Dutch West India Company turned to the importation of African slaves, who rapidly became a key element in the colonial economy. By the 1660s, the slave population numbered about 2,500; the number of indigenous people was estimated at 50,000, most of whom had retreated into the vast hinterland.
As plantations expanded on the coast of Guyana, more enslaved Africans were brought from West Africa in ships owned by the West India Company.
Auctions were held and planters came from all over to find bargains when the slave ships arrived at the different ports in Berbice, Demerara and Essequibo.
